Page 22 of Beautiful Ruin

Disappointment hits first, then anger.

It rises hot inside my chest, burning through the tenderness that had been softening me only moments ago. I hate how easily he does this, offering me pieces of my mother through carefully crafted stories, then locks the door the second I ask why she was taken from me. I see, maybe for the first time, how love and control are twined together so tightly inside him that he may no longer understand which is which.

I open my mouth to argue—gently, of course, because he’s hurt and because I love him—but the bedroom door opens without a knock before I get the chance to.

Rowan steps inside.

The room shifts the instant he crosses the threshold. It’s not just his size that has my heart squeezing in my chest, though he fills the room without even trying to. It’s the way his gray eyes sweep the space—me, Ivan, the windows, the door—before settling on my uncle.

“Pakhan. Nikolai Malyshko is here to see you.”

I feel a ripple of unease move through the room as soon as the name leaves Rowan’s mouth, even though I don’t understand why it matters. Ivan straightens against the pillows, ignoring the way the movement pulls at his stitches. His face hardens into a familiar mask, one that belongs to the man who rules an empire, not the uncle who delights in telling me stories.

“I’ll receive him,” Ivan says.

I’m already slipping off the side of the bed to stand. “You’re not well enough to⁠—”

Rowan’s hand closes around my upper arm. It’s not bruising but it’s firm enough that I feel the heat of his palm through my sleeve, firm enough that I understand resistance is pointless.

“Out,” he says.

I yank at the arm he has a hold on roughly. “I was talking to my uncle.”

He simply tightens his grip. “And now you’re leaving.”

He’s already steering me toward the door. My cheeks burn as humiliation and fury twist together inside my chest until I can’t tell which burns hotter. I twist in his grip, trying to look back at my uncle, but Rowan’s body blocks the view like a wall. The door shuts behind us with a solid, final sound.

I yank my arm free the second we’re in the hallway.

“Don’t do that,” I snap.

Rowan doesn’t even glance at me. “Walk.”

I want to scream and plant my feet on the ground and refuse to move until someone explains what the hell is happening, but as soon as his hands grip my shoulders and steer me forward, I move. Unfortunately, I’ve come to know exactly how this works now. I’ve observed enough about the goings-on in this place to understand power here isn’t negotiated. It’s enforced.

So I walk.

I’m escorted to one of the smaller sitting rooms in the east wing, the one with the big stone fireplace and tall windows that look out over the gardens in the back. The fire is already lit, crackling softly inside the wide stone hearth, its glow spilling across the polished floors and deep green armchairs surrounding it.

The room is beautiful in that severe, expensive way the entire estate is. Antique side tables are stationed on either side of the armchairs, heavy curtains drawn away from the tall windows facing the back gardens. The art on the walls is abstract looking and costs probably more than a year’s worth of tuition at my former university.

I step inside and turn to complain to Rowan again, fully prepared to tell him exactly where he can shove his authority and that infuriatingly even tone when giving me orders, but he’s already swinging both doors shut behind me, sealing me inside.

For a second, I just stare at the closed doors. Since staying here, I’ve come to realize Rowan has perfected the art of ending conversations by physically removing himself from them. It’s one of his most irritating talents, second only to looking unreadable no matter what the conversation we’re having is about.

I sigh and rub both hands over my face.

Anger still burns beneath my skin but exhaustion has started to dull its edges. I can feel the weight of the last few days settling over me all at once, dragging me down into a strange, depressive slump. I had assumed that once my uncle came back home, I would finally get real answers. Clearly, that had been too much of a delusional wish.

When I turn toward the fireplace, my entire body freezes. A woman sits curled up in one of the deep armchairs. Her long, dark hair is braided over one shoulder, her posture tense like she’s trying very hard to look relaxed and failing miserably.

She rises the moment she sees me. “Oh. I didn’t realize this room was going to be occupied. I can leave.”

I exhale, too tired to be polite. “It’s fine. Please sit. I don’t feel like finding somewhere else in this house to mope.”

Her brows lift slightly, as if my honesty catches her off guard. For a moment she hesitates, her eyes flicking over my face, reading whatever is written there before deciding better than to argue with me.

I drop into the opposite one with far less grace and pull my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around them. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I can hear my boarding school matron gasping at the lack of manners, but at this point, all my politeness has gotten me is being thrown behind locked doors, evasions, and Rowan Vasiliev treating me like a burden he can’t wait to be rid of.