Page 19

Ever since she walked into the mansion with her perfect hair, her sleek dress, and her smug little smile like she already knew everything about Kolya, I’ve been unraveling in quiet, deliberate pieces.

I don’t even know who she was. He didn’t tell me—not really. He dodged it with arrogance and heat, turning the question into another game of power and possession, until I was too dizzy to hold on to the anger long enough to push for more. But her voice still echoes in my head. The way she looked at me like I was temporary. Like I didn’t matter.

It shouldn’t bother me. It does .

I hate that it does.

I’ve kept my distance since then, held my tongue, measured my breathing when he’s near. He notices. Of course he does. Nothing escapes Kolya’s notice. He watches me like a hawk circling a wounded animal—curious whether I’ll limp or fight. But for once, he says nothing. No taunts. No touch.

I think that might be worse.

By midmorning, I can’t take the walls anymore. Can’t take the marble floors and silk curtains and quiet luxury that now feels like a coffin lined in gold.

“I want to go for a walk,” I say, interrupting his conversation with Boris in the hall.

Kolya glances at me, his jaw ticking slightly. His eyes sweep over me, searching, measuring.

“Fine,” he says after a beat. “Stay on the grounds. They’ll go with you.”

He doesn’t need to clarify who they are. I feel their presence before I step outside—two of his men, dressed in black, armed, quiet as ghosts. They trail behind me at a respectful distance, but they’re there all the same. I don’t care. I just need air.

The sky is pale blue, the kind that feels too bright after days indoors. The wind carries a bite, crisp and sharp, and I pull my coat tighter as I move along the garden paths. I pass trimmed hedges and cold marble statues and try to pretend I’m somewhere else. Somewhere normal. Somewhere free.

My footsteps slow near the edge of the garden where the property meets the tree line. The mansion looms behind me, its windows reflecting slivers of sky like indifferent eyes. I inhale deeply. Let it out.

Then a shoulder knocks into mine, hard.

I stumble a step, heart lurching.

“Sorry,” a man mutters, steadying me with one hand.

I look up and freeze. There’s a man—greasy hair, wrinkled flannel. Eyes sharp as glass shards.

“Elise?” he says.

My blood runs cold.

It’s like being punched without warning. A hollow thud in my chest. Every part of me seizes.

I know that voice. Even now. Even after all this time. It’s aged, slurred at the edges with time and liquor and spite—but I know it.

“Wh—what?” I breathe, throat closing.

“It’s me,” he says, smiling like that means something. “Your father.”

The world tilts.

My lungs forget how to work. My legs forget how to move. All I can do is feel . The dirt beneath my shoes. The wind curling around my ears. The ghost of a memory dragging its claws up my spine.

A closet door slamming. A child’s cry echoing against wood. Bruises she learned to hide. Words she learned to never speak again.

“No,” I whisper.

His expression falters. “You remember me,” he says, like it’s something to be proud of. “I knew you’d be around here somewhere. Heard someone from the orphanage got lucky, married into money—thought maybe….”

He trails off as my eyes fill with something thick and burning.

Then the shadows close in.

Kolya’s men move fast. One grabs the stranger by the arm and shoves him back. The other steps between us, blocking my view. My body jerks in place as my father stumbles, trying to fight them, yelling something I don’t hear through the ringing in my ears.

“Don’t touch her!” he shouts. “She’s my daughter ! You hear me? I have a right!”

His voice pierces through me like a blade.

I take a step back, unthinking. Another. Suddenly, I’m being pulled. A firm grip on my arm, guiding me away, back toward the house.

“Elise—Elise, wait!”

His voice fades, and I keep moving.

I don’t look back; if I do, I’ll fall apart.

I don’t remember crossing the threshold. I don’t remember the guards saying anything. All I know is the next thing I feel is the slam of the bedroom door against my back as I close it behind me, breath torn from my chest in sharp, uneven gasps.

I slide down the wall, knees hitting the floor, arms wrapping around myself so tight it hurts.

It doesn’t make sense. He’s supposed to be gone. He was gone.

He left me.

He left me locked in that tiny dark closet on a night the storm broke every window in the house. I cried until I threw up. Until I passed out. He never came back. Not that night. Not ever.

Not until now.

Still… he’s my blood. The only living tie to the life I never asked for.

Tears prick my eyes, hot and angry. I don’t want to cry for him. He doesn’t deserve it. He never did.

I’m crying anyway.

Not for who he is, but for who I was. For the little girl he left behind. For the woman I became because of it.

***

The sheets are cold.

I didn’t think I’d notice that, but I do. I curl into myself anyway, drawing my knees up beneath the silk, letting the quiet close over me like water. The bedroom is dim, thick with shadows, the curtains drawn tight, though a slice of gray light cuts through where the fabric doesn’t quite meet. I watch the dust move in it. Particles suspended midair, drifting with no real direction. Just like me.

My body is warm from the bath I didn’t want, my hair still damp against my cheek. The walk, the encounter, the rush of being dragged away—it all sits inside me like a bruise that hasn’t decided where to bloom. I’m not shivering, but my bones feel like ice.

I haven’t spoken since I got back. Haven’t looked at anyone. The guards let me in without a word, their faces blank, and I walked through the marble corridors like a ghost until I reached this room and shut the door behind me. No one’s knocked. Not yet.

I don’t want anyone to see me like this. Not him. Especially not him .

I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel.

He hurt me. My father. Left me. Locked me away when I was small enough to still think monsters lived in closets—then proved me right. That memory should be enough to fill my chest with fire. All I feel is this aching hollow, this slow burn beneath my skin that won’t turn to anger, no matter how tightly I curl my fists.

Why didn’t I scream at him? Why didn’t I spit in his face?

Why did part of me still look for something in his eyes—something soft, something human, something fatherly —even when I knew better?

I squeeze my eyes shut.

I’m not a child anymore. I’m not that girl in the closet, arms wrapped around her own ribs like they were the only thing keeping her from falling apart.

Lying here, alone, I don’t feel like Elise Emberly, the doctor. Or Kolya’s captive. Or his reluctant fiancée. I just feel small.

The sheets rustle as I shift. I roll to my side, pull the blanket higher over my shoulders, tuck my hands beneath my chin like it’ll make a difference. The soft tick of the clock across the room becomes a steady rhythm in the silence. It makes me want to scream. To cry. To disappear into the seams of the mattress and not wake up until none of this feels like mine anymore.

I don’t know how long I lie there. Minutes. Hours. Time stretches weird when you’re hollowed out.

Eventually, there’s a knock at the door.

I don’t answer.

A moment later, the door creaks open anyway.

Footsteps. Even without looking, I know it’s him.

Kolya doesn’t ask if he can come in.

I bury my face deeper into the pillow, pretending I’m asleep.

“Get up,” he says. His voice is low. Not cruel. Not sharp. But not gentle, either.

I don’t move.

“Elise.”

Still, I don’t answer.

The mattress dips behind me, and I stiffen. His hand brushes my shoulder—just a graze, not a grip. He doesn’t pull. He doesn’t push. He just waits.

When I finally turn, he’s there, sitting on the edge of the bed, watching me with that unreadable expression I’ve come to hate.

His eyes scan my face. My hair. My mouth. Like he’s trying to count all the ways I’ve come undone.

“You look like hell,” he says.

“Thanks,” I whisper, voice raw.

He says nothing.

My throat works. “He said he was my father.”

“I know.”

I blink. “Your men told you?”

He nods.

I watch him closely. “You knew I had a father out there.”

“I knew you were abandoned,” he says. “I didn’t know if he was still alive.”

My jaw tightens. “So what now, are you going to kill him?”

He lifts one brow. “Do you want me to?”

The question makes something cold sink deeper into my gut. I don’t answer.

Kolya leans back slightly, one arm braced behind him, fingers splayed on the sheets. “He’s nothing, Elise. A drunk. A mistake.”

“He’s my blood.”

“So?” His voice is flat. “You’re just fine without him.”

My breath catches.

He doesn’t apologize.

“You don’t get to decide what I feel,” I say, trying to keep my voice from shaking.

“I don’t need to,” he replies. “I’ll decide what happens to him.”

“You can’t make that decision for me.”

His jaw tenses. “I don’t need to own you to protect you.”

My chest twists. I sit up slowly, pulling the blanket tighter around myself like armor. “I don’t want protection,” I murmur.

He tilts his head. “You want revenge?”

“No.” I look away. “I just wanted him to say sorry. I just wanted to know why .”

Kolya exhales through his nose, like he’s heard this story a hundred times before.

“You won’t get answers from a man like that,” he says. “Only regrets.”

I bite the inside of my cheek to stop from crying.

He moves suddenly, reaching forward—and for a split second I flinch. But his hand doesn’t go to my throat or my waist or any of the places he usually touches. It lands gently at the side of my face, thumb brushing under my eye.

“There’s no room for ghosts here,” he says. “Let them rot where they belong.”

His touch is warm. I close my eyes. For a moment, just one, I let him hold my face.

His hand stays on my cheek, thumb moving in slow, absent circles under my eye, like he’s trying to wipe away something that isn’t there. I don’t lean into it, but I don’t pull away either. I don’t know if it’s comfort or control, this moment between us. Maybe both.

Maybe that’s the problem.

“You think it’s that simple?” I whisper, eyes still closed. “Just—forget him?”

Kolya doesn’t answer right away. I feel his breath when he speaks again, low and near. “I think it’s survival.”

That word tastes like blood in my mouth.

He doesn’t understand. Or maybe he does, and he just doesn’t care. Survival means something different to him—power, control, violence wielded like a scalpel. For me, it meant silence. Hiding bruises under sleeves. Smiling when it hurt. Disappearing before someone noticed I existed.

Survival was a closet door and hours of darkness with no one coming back.

I open my eyes and meet his gaze. He’s watching me too closely. Like he’s waiting for me to crack. Like part of him wants to see it happen.

“Why are you here?” I ask.

His expression doesn’t change. “You didn’t come down to dinner.”

I let out a bitter laugh. “Sorry. I wasn’t feeling very social after being ambushed by a man who used to lock me in the dark.”

His hand falls away from my face. It’s just as well, the warmth of it was starting to get to me.

“I didn’t bring him here,” he says coolly.

“No,” I say, wrapping the blanket tighter. “He found me anyway. Which makes me wonder how safe your little empire really is.”

That earns me a flash of temper in his eyes, brief but unmistakable. His jaw tightens. He doesn’t like the implication. Doesn’t like being told he’s not in control.

I push further. “Was he just lucky?” I ask. “Or were you too busy dealing with your ex to notice who else might be creeping around?”

The silence after that is heavy. Like I cracked something open we’re both pretending doesn’t exist.

Kolya’s voice is quieter when he speaks again. “You’re angry.”

“No shit,” I snap.

“Not just about him.”

That stops me. My mouth opens, then shuts again. I look away.

He’s right, and we both know it.

I’m not just angry about my father. I’m angry about everything . About this life, this prison wrapped in luxury, this man who holds me like a weapon one minute and a lover the next. I’m angry that he affects me. That I let him affect me.

And worse—worse than all of it—I’m angry that some twisted part of me still feels safer here than anywhere else.

I bury my face in my hands.

“God, what’s wrong with me?”

Kolya doesn’t respond. He doesn’t reach for me again, doesn’t offer platitudes or threats. Just sits there beside me, the silence between us dense and raw.

“I should’ve screamed at him,” I say after a while. “When I saw him, I should’ve said something. Anything. I couldn’t move.”

“You were in shock.”

“I’m not a child anymore.”

“No,” Kolya agrees. “You were, once, and he made sure that part of you never forgot.”

The words hit harder than they should.

I glance at him again. There’s no smugness in his expression now. No cold calculation. Just stillness. Watching. Waiting.

“You know,” I murmur, “for someone who claims not to care about the past, you’re good at digging around in mine.”

Kolya tilts his head. “I care about what makes you weak.”

I bristle.

Before I can snap back, he adds, “So I can make sure no one uses it against you. Not even you.”

I don’t know what to say to that. I don’t even know what it means. Is that protection? Possession? Is there even a difference with him?

The silence stretches again. Outside, the wind picks up. I can hear it whistle against the windows, dragging leaves across the stone balcony. Another storm might be coming.

Of course it is.

“You’re tired,” Kolya says suddenly, standing.

I nod once. “Exhausted.”

He doesn’t say good night. Just walks to the door, pauses with his hand on the handle, and turns slightly toward me.

“If he ever shows up again,” he says, voice like steel, “I’ll kill him.”

The words hang in the air like smoke—dark, choking, impossible to ignore.

I should be horrified. Instead, my breath catches in a way I don’t expect.

Not because of the threat, but because of the promise beneath it. Kolya doesn’t offer comfort. He offers annihilation. No hesitation, no uncertainty. Just violence wrapped in certainty, gifted to me like a shield.

Kolya doesn’t wait for a response. Just walks out, the door closing softly behind him, and the silence he leaves in his wake is louder than anything he said.

I sit still for a long time after that.

The chill in the room creeps in again, settling over my shoulders. I let the blanket fall from my arms and stand slowly, my legs stiff from too long curled beneath me. The air tastes like frost and memory.

I walk to the door. Rest my palm against it.

He meant it.

Not because he’s kind, certainly not because he cares in the way normal people do. But because I belong to him, and no one lays claim to what Kolya Sharov considers his. Not even blood. Especially not blood.

I press my forehead to the door and close my eyes.

I don’t know what terrifies me more.

The man who hurt me once and came back.

Or the one who says he’ll destroy anyone who tries again—and means it.