Chapter 3 - Bianca
The car is a tomb.
Black leather seats. Tinted windows so dark the city lights are reduced to smears of color. A partition separating us from the driver, who I haven't seen and who hasn't spoken. The soft hum of an engine I can barely hear.
And Misha, sitting three feet away from me, as still as a statue carved from ice.
I press myself against the door, putting as much distance between us as the backseat allows.
My heart is still racing—one forty, maybe one fifty.
I should be coming down from the adrenaline by now, finding my equilibrium, but every time I start to calm, I remember where I am and who I'm with, and my pulse spikes all over again.
He's different.
I study him in the darkness, stealing glances when I think he isn't looking.
The Misha I knew wore his charm like a tailored suit—easy smiles, warm eyes, a way of making me feel like the only person in the room.
This man has none of that softness. His jaw is a hard line.
His hands rest on his thighs, perfectly still, like a predator conserving energy.
Even his breathing is controlled—slow, measured, deliberate.
I think of the man at the auction. The way Misha looked at him when he blocked our path. The way his voice dropped to something barely above a whisper when he made his threat.
Touch her, and I'll send your hands back to your family in a box.
He meant it. I saw it in his eyes. He would have done it right there, in front of everyone, without hesitation or remorse.
Who are you? I asked him two years ago, when he broke my heart without explanation.
Someone who will only hurt you, he said.
I didn't understand then. I thought it was a line, an excuse, a coward's way out of a relationship he'd grown tired of. But watching him threaten mutilation with the same calm he once used to order wine at dinner, I'm starting to understand.
He wasn't exaggerating.
"Ask," he says without turning his head.
I flinch. "What?"
"You've been staring at me for five minutes. You have questions. Ask them."
"I thought everything could wait until morning."
"The full answers can wait. But you'll drive yourself mad sitting in silence." Now he does turn, and his ice-blue eyes meet mine in the dim light. "So ask."
A hundred questions crowd my throat. I choose the most immediate one.
"Where are you taking me?"
"My home."
"Where is that?"
"San Francisco."
San Francisco. Hours from Los Angeles, from my apartment, from my life. From my exam tomorrow morning that I'm definitely going to miss, no matter what Sal said in the car.
"And what happens when we get there?"
"You'll eat. Sleep. In the morning, we'll talk." He turns back to the window. "The situation is... complicated. I need time to assess threats, make arrangements. Tonight, all I can offer you is safety."
Safety. The word tastes bitter in my mouth. An hour ago, I thought I was safe. I thought my family, for all their flaws, would never truly harm me. I thought the worst thing that had ever happened to me was the man sitting beside me walking out of my apartment without looking back.
I was wrong about everything.
"You said you were watching me," I say. "For two years."
His jaw tightens almost imperceptibly. "Yes."
"What does that mean? You hired someone to follow me? You hacked my phone? You—"
"I had people keeping an eye on you. Making sure you were safe. Reporting back on your movements, your activities, your..." He pauses. "Your wellbeing."
"My wellbeing." I let out a laugh that sounds slightly unhinged. "You were spying on me."
"Yes."
"And you don't see anything wrong with that?"
"I see many things wrong with it." He meets my eyes again, and for a moment—just a moment—I see something beneath the ice. Something raw. "But the alternative was letting you walk through the world unprotected, with your father's enemies circling and no one watching your back. I couldn't do that."
"You could have just stayed."
The words come out before I can stop them. Vulnerable. Pathetic. The hurt of a girl who cried herself to sleep for months after he left, who threw herself into her studies because it was the only way to survive the emptiness.
Misha is silent for a long moment.
"No," he says finally. "I couldn't."
The partition hums between us. I turn away, pressing my forehead against the cold window, watching the highway lights streak past like falling stars.
I don't ask any more questions.
***
The drive takes hours.
I doze fitfully, jerking awake every time the car slows or turns.
At some point, Misha removes his jacket and drapes it over me without a word.
I want to throw it off, want to reject even this small gesture of care, but I'm shivering and exhausted and the fabric smells like him—cedar and something darker, something I don't have a name for.
I hate that it still feels like coming home.
When I wake fully, the sky is beginning to lighten at the edges, and we're pulling through a set of massive iron gates. I sit up, Misha's jacket sliding from my shoulders, and stare through the windshield at the house ahead.
Not a house. An estate.
Stone walls. Ivy climbing toward a slate roof.
Windows that gleam like watchful eyes in the early morning light.
The driveway curves through manicured grounds—hedges and fountains and trees that look like they've been here for centuries.
Armed men patrol the perimeter, their presence almost casual, like guard dogs accustomed to their territory.
A fortress. He's brought me to a fortress.
"This is your home?" My voice comes out hoarse from sleep.
"For the past fifteen years."
The car stops at the front entrance. The driver—a hulking man with a shaved head and no discernible expression—opens Misha's door first, then circles to mine. I step out on unsteady legs, my heels sinking into the gravel.
The air is different here. Cleaner. Colder. I can smell salt—we must be near the ocean—and something green and growing. Jasmine, maybe. The scent makes my throat tighten.
Misha appears at my elbow. "Come inside."
I follow him up the stone steps, through a pair of massive wooden doors, and into a foyer that makes me stop breathing.
Marble floors. A chandelier that probably costs more than my entire education. A sweeping staircase that curves toward the upper levels like something from a movie. Art on the walls—real art, the kind I've only seen in museums. Everything is beautiful and elegant and utterly without warmth.
A woman emerges from a side hallway. She's in her sixties, gray-haired, dressed in simple black. Her face is stern but her eyes are sharp, taking me in with a single assessing glance.
"Mr. Kashkin," she says. "Welcome home."
Kashkin. The name echoes in my mind. Misha Kashkin. I never knew his last name. He never told me, and I never thought to ask, too caught up in the romance of a mysterious investor who danced like a dream and looked at me like I mattered.
"Mrs. Novak." Misha nods to her. "This is Bianca. She'll be staying with us indefinitely. She needs the blue guest room, a full wardrobe in her size, and something to eat."
The woman—Mrs. Novak—nods as if this is perfectly normal. As if strange women arriving at dawn in wrinkled black dresses is a regular occurrence.
Maybe it is.
"I'll see to it immediately." Her eyes flick to me with something that might be curiosity, might be pity. "Is there anything specific the young lady requires?"
Misha glances at me. I stare back, mute with exhaustion and overwhelm.
"Coffee," he decides for me. "And something light. Toast, fruit. She hasn't eaten since yesterday."
How does he know that? Has he been tracking my meals too? The thought should infuriate me, but I'm too tired to muster the energy.
Mrs. Novak disappears. Misha turns to me.
"I have calls to make. Security arrangements. Mrs. Novak will show you to your room." He's already stepping away, already dismissing me. "We'll talk in the morning."
"It is morning."
"Later, then."
He starts toward a hallway that branches off from the foyer, and something in me snaps.
The terror of the holding room. The humiliation of the auction.
The hours of silence in the car, choking on questions I couldn't ask.
And now he's going to walk away from me again, leave me in this beautiful mausoleum with a stranger, like I'm a package to be stored until he's ready to deal with me.
No.
"Misha."
He stops but doesn't turn.
I close the distance between us, my heels clicking against the marble, and grab his arm. The muscle beneath my fingers is hard, tense. He goes completely still.
"Look at me."
Slowly, he turns. His face is blank, controlled, but there's something flickering in his eyes. Something he's fighting to keep contained.
"Bianca—"
"You don't get to do this." My voice shakes, but I don't let go.
"You don't get to buy me at an auction and then treat me like furniture.
You don't get to make decisions about my wardrobe and my breakfast and my bedroom without even looking at me.
" I step closer, tilting my head back to hold his gaze.
"I'm not property. I'm not cargo. I'm a person, and you owe me more than logistics. "
"I know exactly what you are."
"Then act like it."
We stand there, frozen, my hand on his arm, his eyes burning into mine. The contact is electric. Two years since I've touched him. Two years since I've been this close to anyone, because every date felt like a betrayal, every potential kiss a reminder that he was the only mouth I wanted on mine.
He feels it too. I see his breath catch, see his jaw clench with the effort of restraint.
Then he pulls away.
"Get some sleep," he says, his voice rough. "We'll talk when you wake."
"Misha—"
"There are things you need to understand." He pauses at the mouth of the hallway, his back to me. "About me. About your father. About why this is happening. But you're exhausted and overwhelmed, and you won't hear any of it properly until you've rested."
"I can't sleep. Not here. Not like this."
He's silent for a moment. Then, without turning: "I never stopped, Bianca."
My heart stutters. "What?"
"Watching you. Wanting you. Keeping you safe from the shadows.
" His voice is low, stripped of its usual control.
"Not for a single day. Not for a single hour.
I told you to forget me, and I couldn't do the same.
I told you to move on, and I watched you refuse to, and I hated myself for being grateful. " He exhales. "I never stopped."
I can't breathe. Can't think. The words hit me like blows, each one landing somewhere soft and unprotected.
"Then why did you leave?"
He turns his head slightly, giving me his profile. The hard line of his jaw. The shadows under his eyes.
"Because staying would have killed you." A pause. "And leaving was the only way I knew how to protect you."
He walks away before I can respond. His footsteps fade down the hallway, a door opens and closes, and then I'm alone in the foyer with the chandelier and the marble and the echo of words I don't know how to process.
Mrs. Novak reappears, her expression carefully neutral.
"This way, Miss," she says. "I'll show you to your room."
I follow her up the sweeping staircase, down a corridor lined with closed doors, to a room at the end of the hall. She opens the door and steps aside.
The blue guest room.
It's beautiful. A four-poster bed draped in silk the color of the ocean. Windows that overlook the gardens. A fireplace with a fire already crackling. An en suite bathroom through a door left artfully ajar, all white marble and brass fixtures.
A cell. A gilded, gorgeous cell.
"I'll have clothing brought up within the hour," Mrs. Novak says. "And breakfast shortly after. Is there anything else you need?"
I need to wake up from this nightmare. I need my old life back. I need to understand how the man I loved became a monster who buys women at auctions and threatens to dismember people in public.
"No," I say. "Thank you."
She nods and withdraws, closing the door softly behind her.
I stand in the middle of the room, still wearing my wrinkled black dress, still smelling of the auction house and Misha's jacket and my own fear. The fire crackles. The bed beckons. Dawn light spills through the windows, painting everything in shades of gold and rose.
I never stopped, he said. Not for a single day.
I sink onto the edge of the bed, my legs finally giving out. The silk coverlet is cool against my palms. Everything is soft and beautiful and utterly surreal.
Leaving was the only way I knew how to love you.
I don't sleep. I lie there in the blue room as the sun rises over Misha Kashkin's fortress, replaying his words until they lose all meaning, until they're just sounds, just rhythms, just the echo of something I'm not sure I can survive understanding.
Outside, the guards patrol their routes. Inside, somewhere in this massive house, the man who bought me is making calls, arranging security, preparing to explain the inexplicable.
And I stare at the ceiling, counting my heartbeats, wondering what kind of love requires two years of silence and five million dollars and a cage disguised as a castle.
Wondering if I'll ever find my way out.