Page 14

She’s still afraid of me.

I see it in the way her eyes follow me without moving her head. In the stiff line of her shoulders, the tension braced through every inch of her frame like she’s waiting for the next blow, the next command, the next moment I decide she’s outlived her usefulness. I don’t have to touch her to feel it. The fear clings to her skin like sweat, even under the heavy blanket, even after the thunderstorm has moved on and the sky outside has settled into a thick gray hush.

I sit across the room, half shrouded in the shadows, elbows braced on my knees. Watching.

There’s no pride in it. No satisfaction. Just a deep, gnawing unease.

She barely moves. Doesn’t speak. Her hands stay limp on the blanket, fingers curled slightly as if she might still be clinging to something in her dreams—except I know she isn’t dreaming. She hasn’t slept, not really. I can tell by the way her eyelids twitch every time the house groans or the wind shifts.

She’s awake, but not here . Trapped inside something I can’t reach. And maybe I should be relieved—this was what I wanted, wasn’t it? For her to stop fighting. To stop testing me. To break.

Except now that I’ve won, it feels like I’ve lost something far more valuable.

The girl I took—dragged out of the hospital parking lot, stitched up at gunpoint, who glared at me like she wanted to take my head off— that girl burned like wildfire. She bit, clawed, spat every time I got too close. She made my blood run hot just by looking at me wrong. She kept me sharp.

She looks like ash.

I shift forward in my chair, the leather creaking beneath me. Her eyes dart toward the sound. Her breathing stutters.

It makes something cold unfurl in my chest.

I stand slowly, deliberately, so she sees every movement—so there are no surprises. I step closer, then crouch beside the bed, lowering myself until I’m eye-level with her.

Her gaze snaps to mine.

Our eyes lock, and it twists something sharp in my ribs. She’s not even trying to hide it. Not because she’s brave—but because she has nothing left to protect. No pride. No fight. No wall.

I reach out, fingers brushing against her cheek, and she flinches so hard it guts me. She doesn’t pull away. She doesn’t do anything. She just breathes through it, shallow and fast.

I realize I can’t take this anymore.

I slide one arm under her knees, the other around her back, and lift her into my chest. She lets out a breathless gasp—but it’s not resistance. It’s relief. Her arms wrap around my neck like muscle memory, fists clutching the fabric of my shirt, anchoring herself in me like I’m the last thing holding her to this world.

She weighs nothing.

I carry her out of the room without a word.

The house is quiet. My footsteps are soft against the floorboards. She doesn’t say anything, just clings tighter the farther we go, her face buried against my collarbone. I feel the tremble in her fingers, the silent sob she doesn’t let out.

I could bring her anywhere. Lock her up again. Chain her to the fucking wall if I wanted.

Instead, I take her to the west wing.

To the only room in the house that’s never been used for violence. The quiet room.

It used to belong to someone else—long before she ever became part of this world. Someone I failed to protect. Someone who died because of me. I keep the room clean, untouched. As if memory lives in dust and fabric. As if silence can preserve what blood destroyed.

I push the door open with my shoulder and step inside. Soft gray walls. A narrow window. A small fireplace, unlit. A bed.

I lower her onto it gently, brushing the hair from her face. She doesn’t let go until the last possible second—fingers dragging down my chest, reluctant, unconscious.

She sinks into the mattress, curling onto her side without prompting, eyes half lidded and dazed.

I pull the blanket over her. She watches me the whole time.

For the first time in hours, maybe longer, her breathing evens out. Her body softens into the bedding. Her hands stop shaking.

I sit down on the edge of the bed and let the weight settle over me.

She doesn’t let go.

Even after I’ve laid her down on the bed, tucked the blanket around her, even after I whisper something pointless—quiet, mechanical, like you’re fine now —she still clings.

Her fists are curled tight in the front of my shirt, white-knuckled, like if she lets go, the world will devour her whole.

I stare down at her. Her eyes are closed now, not asleep, but exhausted, lashes damp and stuck together. Her breathing’s still uneven, but it’s slowing. Her body’s trembling, but less than before.

I could pry her fingers off me. Could tell her she’s safe, that this room is quiet, that no one else is coming. That the storm is dying down. That I’m not going to hurt her.

I don’t lie to her.

Instead, I remain on the edge of the bed, trying to ignore the fact that her breath keeps brushing against the base of my throat, warm and human and far too close. That her hands—so small against my chest—won’t fucking loosen.

I curse under my breath and stand abruptly, pulling out of her grip.

She makes a soft sound—half protest, half reflex—but she doesn’t reach again. She just curls tighter into herself, breath shivering again as the wind kicks up outside.

The thunder starts low this time, distant but still there, and I see her flinch.

A sharp pain shoots through my chest. Not guilt. Something else. Something I don’t recognize. Something I don’t want to recognize.

I move.

Draw the thick curtains shut, one by one, muffling the flashes of light and muting the sound of the wind as best I can. The storm is thinning, but it still whispers through the walls like it knows what it did to her.

I glance at the far corner where an old speaker sits on a shelf. A leftover from when the room meant something else.

I flick it on.

A soft static hums before it settles into a slow, low jazz station. Nothing loud. Just a muted piano, a lazy saxophone. Smooth. Quiet. Human.

Behind me, I hear her exhale. One slow breath, followed by another.

Her grip may have loosened, but she still hasn’t moved from where I placed her. She’s a shadow curled into that bed—small, pale, hollow. The girl who once stood straight-backed and unafraid in front of my gun is gone, hidden beneath layers of shock and betrayal.

I pace once, twice, dragging a hand down my face like it’ll shake this off, like I can shove this strange, foreign feeling back where it belongs—buried deep, sealed tight, the way I’ve always done.

It doesn’t work. I look at her again and the knot in my chest twists harder.

She didn’t cry when I first took her. She screamed, fought, bit my damn hand. Even the first time I pressed a gun to her temple, her eyes never wavered.

Tonight, she broke.

I hate that I watched her unravel like that. That her voice cracked. That her breath hitched and she clung to me.

I should feel victorious. Instead, I feel… off.

I return to the bed slowly, lowering myself to sit beside her once more. She shifts slightly, breath hitching again—but not out of fear. It’s almost like she’s trying to match the music, to steady herself.

My hands rest on my knees. I don’t touch her. Don’t say a word.

She’s close enough that her presence hums in the air between us. Close enough that I can feel the warmth radiating from her through the blanket.

The music lingers, a low lull that fills the space between thunderclaps.

Why her?

Why does it matter if she breaks? Why does it hurt to see it?

She’s just a tool. That’s what I told myself. From the beginning. A means to an end. A body to stitch Yuri back together. A mouth to extract answers. An expendable piece in a long, bloodstained game.

But no one else ever looked at me the way she does.

No one else ever made my chest feel like this. Tight. Strained. Like something’s alive in there, something dangerous and unfinished.

It makes no sense.

She flinches again as the thunder rolls faintly overhead. But her eyes stay closed, her lips parting on a slow exhale as she presses further into the mattress.

She’s not asleep, but she’s trying.

The silence hangs thick—stretched taut between our breaths.

Her lips are parted, flushed, her chest rising in quick, shallow pulls beneath the blanket. I can feel her pulse in the air between us, a mirror of my own—erratic, heated, dangerous. The fire from the fireplace throws flickering light across her cheekbones, and I want to burn in it. I’ve wanted many things in my life—money, vengeance, power—but this? This slow, reluctant surrender unfurling between her ribs?

This is something else entirely.

“Elise,” I say again, but this time her name is a warning. For both of us.

She doesn’t pull away, she leans in.

Our foreheads nearly touch. Her eyes search mine—fear and hunger, defiance and vulnerability, all colliding in that storm behind her lashes. It should make me stop. It should be enough to draw a line.

She lifts her face to mine, and I fall.

The first brush of her lips is featherlight, trembling and hesitant. But I catch it. Deepen it. My hand slides to the back of her neck, holding her still, and when she gasps against my mouth, it nearly undoes me. She’s warm and soft and clumsy, and fuck , she tastes like something sweet I wasn’t meant to have.

A sound escapes her throat when I part her lips with mine, when my thumb brushes down her jaw, and then I’m not thinking at all—I’m just acting, moving, pressing her back into the mattress as I cover her with my body. Her legs shift, one knee brushing my hip, and she lets me guide her beneath me like she’s meant to be there.

Her hands are in my shirt again, but this time not from fear.

Need. Desperation. Trust.

My mouth trails down her throat, savoring the way she arches beneath me. She breathes my name.

Then—“Wait.”

I freeze.

My head lifts. Her face is flushed, her eyes wide, panic ghosting across her expression. “Kolya—I can’t. I mean… I’ve never—”

She looks away, cheeks flaming. “I’ve never done this before.”

For a second, I don’t move.

It takes a beat for the words to hit me. When they do, they land like a fist to the ribs. Not pain—something hotter . Rougher. I push myself back slowly, shifting so I’m no longer pinning her down, though I stay close, breath still heavy, heart pounding.

“You’ve never…,” I echo, and it’s not a question. I already know.

She nods, embarrassed, eyes trained on the ceiling like she wants to disappear.

That knowledge does something to me. Something primal. It coils deep in my gut, molten and possessive. The idea of being her first—of claiming that piece of her no one else has touched—feeds a darker part of me I try not to name.

“You think that’ll scare me off?” I murmur, brushing her hair from her face.

“I think it should.”

I grin—low, slow, dangerous. “Elise, sweetheart… now I really want you.”

She makes a noise, half protest, half something else.

I press a soft kiss to her temple and pull away, settling back into the chair beside the bed. “I’ll wait. Not because you asked,” I add, eyes gleaming, “but because the first time I have you… I want you begging for it.”

She stares at me, breath caught in her throat.

“Sleep now,” I say, kicking my boots off lazily before moving to an armchair in the corner of the room. “We’ll pick up where we left off… when you’re ready to stop pretending you don’t want it too.”

She doesn’t say anything at first. Just lies there, heart pounding loud enough I can almost hear it from across the room. Her face is still flushed, her breathing uneven, but the panic’s faded. What’s left behind is something quieter. Warmer.

I see it in the way her gaze lingers on me. In the way she doesn’t curl away, doesn’t shrink into herself like she did earlier. Her fingers still clutch the edge of the blanket, but it’s not out of fear now. It’s restraint.

I lean back in the chair, legs stretched out, hands resting behind my head as I watch her with a slow, satisfied smirk. The tension in the room has changed—less storm, more spark. We’re not just on opposite sides of a war anymore.

We’re circling something neither of us wants to name.

“You’re smug,” she mutters, her voice raspy.

I lift a brow. “You’re still staring.”

She turns away, cheeks reddening again. “You’re insufferable.” She exhales sharply, but there’s a flicker in her expression now—half irritation, half reluctant amusement. She’s trying not to smile. I can tell.

I let the silence settle between us again, but it’s different now. Not cold. Not distant. Just charged.

She’ll sleep soon.

I’ll be right here.