Chapter 6 - Misha
The chair is still warm where she sat.
I don't move for a long time after she leaves. The study feels different now—smaller, somehow, like her presence expanded it and her absence has contracted it back to its original dimensions. The faint scent of her lingers in the air, something floral beneath the stale smell of fear and exhaustion.
It doesn't change anything.
I knew it wouldn't. Apologies are just words, and words don't undo two years of silence. They don't undo the lies or the surveillance or the fact that I bought her at an auction like she was livestock. She has every right to hate me.
But hearing her say it—watching her walk out without looking back—that landed somewhere I wasn't expecting.
I push the feeling aside. There's no room for it. Sentiment is a luxury I can't afford, not with Sergei Morozov circling and Bianca's life hanging in the balance.
My phone buzzes. Alexei.
"Talk to me," I say.
"Sergei landed in Los Angeles two hours ago.
He went straight to the Morozov compound and hasn't left since.
" Alexei's voice is clipped, efficient. "But his men have been busy.
They've got people asking questions all over the city—who's the Kashkin who bought the Benedetti girl, where did he take her, what's the security situation. "
"They're gathering intelligence."
"Looks like it. I've identified at least four Morozov soldiers running reconnaissance. Two in San Francisco, two working contacts in the criminal network. They're not being subtle about it."
Not subtle. That's intentional. Sergei wants me to know he's coming. He wants me to sweat.
"What's the timeline?"
"Hard to say. Could be days, could be weeks. He's methodical—he'll want to know exactly what he's up against before he makes a move." A pause. "But he will make a move. This isn't the kind of insult he lets go."
No. It isn't. I humiliated him in front of sixty witnesses, stole the woman he'd been promised, disrupted an arrangement that had been months in the making. Men like Sergei don't forgive. They don't forget. They take what they want, and they destroy anyone who gets in their way.
"I want eyes on every Morozov movement," I say. "Sergei, his lieutenants, anyone connected to the family. If they book a flight, if they buy gas, if they take a piss—I want to know about it."
"Already on it."
"And increase security at the estate. I want the perimeter patrols doubled, new cameras on the north and east walls, and a safe room prepared in the basement. Full lockdown protocol."
"Understood." Alexei hesitates. "There's one more thing."
"What?"
"Carmine Benedetti has been trying to reach you. He's called four times in the last hour."
Carmine. The man who sold his own daughter. The thought of speaking to him makes my jaw tighten.
"What does he want?"
"Didn't say. But he sounds nervous."
Nervous. Good. He should be nervous. He's caught between the Kashkins and the Morozovs, and neither of us have any reason to protect him.
"I'll call him back," I say. "Send me everything you have on Sergei's movements. And Alexei—"
"Yes?"
"The other women at the auction. The ones who were sold after Bianca. I need to know what happened to them."
Silence on the line. I can feel Alexei's surprise, even through the phone.
"That's... not really our concern," he says carefully.
"It is now. Find out where they went, who bought them, what condition they're in. Start with the one called Mirella."
"May I ask why?"
Because Bianca asked. Because she sat on my floor with tears streaming down her face and still thought about someone other than herself. Because if her father is responsible for those women's suffering, she'll want to know if anything can be done.
"No," I say. "Just do it."
"Understood."
I end the call and sit in the silence, turning my phone over in my hands. The weight of it feels heavier than it should—all those lives reduced to data points, intelligence reports, threat assessments.
This is what I do. This is what I've always done. Gather information, analyze threats, neutralize enemies. It's clean, logical, devoid of sentiment. The work of a machine, not a man.
But machines don't sit outside closed doors, listening for the sound of breathing on the other side.
I push myself out of the chair and head for my office. There's work to be done.
***
The call with Carmine Benedetti is brief and deeply satisfying.
"Mr. Kashkin." His voice is oily, ingratiating—the voice of a man who knows he's in trouble and is desperately trying to charm his way out. "Thank you for returning my call. I know we haven't always seen eye to eye, but I think there's an opportunity here for mutual benefit—"
"You sold your daughter."
Silence. I let it stretch, let him feel the weight of those four words.
"It was a difficult decision," he says finally. "The debts, the pressure from the Morozovs—you have to understand, I had no choice."
"There's always a choice. You chose to put her on a stage and let strangers bid on her body."
"The auction was Sergei's idea. He wanted it done publicly, wanted to—" Carmine stops himself, perhaps realizing that blaming Sergei isn't going to help his case. "Look, what's done is done. The question now is what happens next."
"What happens next is none of your concern."
"She's my daughter."
"She was your daughter. Now she's under my protection. You gave up any claim to her when you signed her over to the Morozovs."
I hear him breathing on the other end of the line—shallow, rapid. Scared.
"The Morozovs are pressuring me," he says. "Sergei is furious. He's demanding to know where you've taken her, what your intentions are. If I don't give him something—"
"Then give him something."
"What?"
"Tell him whatever you want. Tell him she's in San Francisco. Tell him she's under heavy guard. Tell him I have no intention of giving her up." I let my voice drop to something cold and flat. "Tell him if he comes for her, I'll send him back to his father in pieces."
Carmine makes a strangled sound. "You can't—he'll kill me. If I deliver that message, he'll—"
"That sounds like your problem, not mine."
"Please." The word comes out broken, desperate. "I made a mistake. I know that now. But she's still my daughter—my blood. Surely there's some arrangement we can come to, some way to—"
"Let me be clear." I cut him off, my patience exhausted. "You are nothing to me. Your family is nothing to me. The only reason you're still breathing is because killing you would create complications I don't need right now. But that calculation could change."
"Kashkin—"
"If you contact me again, if you try to reach Bianca, if you so much as speak her name to anyone—I will consider it a hostile act. And I will respond accordingly. Are we clear?"
Silence.
"Are we clear?"
"Yes." His voice is barely a whisper. "We're clear."
I end the call and set the phone down on my desk. My hand is steady, my breathing even. The conversation didn't raise my pulse by a single beat.
This is what I am. This is what I do. I make threats, and I follow through on them. I protect what's mine, and I destroy anyone who threatens it.
Bianca isn't mine. I know that. She made it clear enough in the study, with her sharp questions and her sharper silences. She's here because she has no other options, not because she wants to be.
But Sergei Morozov doesn't know that. To him, to the rest of the world, she's mine. My purchase, my property, my weakness.
And weaknesses get exploited.
I pull up the estate's security schematics on my computer and start reviewing the perimeter defenses. There's work to be done.
The north wall has a blind spot near the old gardener's shed—a gap in the camera coverage that I've been meaning to address for months.
I flag it for immediate attention. The east gate's electronic lock is due for an upgrade; I add it to the list. The safe room in the basement needs to be stocked with supplies—food, water, medical equipment, weapons.
I work for two hours, methodically addressing every vulnerability I can identify. It's the kind of work that usually calms me—logical, systematic, focused on concrete problems with concrete solutions.
Today it doesn't help. My mind keeps drifting back to the study, to Bianca's face when I told her about Sergei's previous fiancées. The way the color drained from her cheeks. The way her legs gave out beneath her.
Disappeared, I said. No bodies were ever found.
I should have softened it. Should have found a gentler way to deliver the truth. But she asked for honesty, and I gave it to her. Maybe that was cruel. Maybe cruelty was the point—making her understand exactly what she escaped, exactly why she needs to stay here even though she hates it.
Even though she hates me.
My phone buzzes. A text from Alexei: Preliminary report on auction buyers. Files attached.
I open the attachment and start scrolling through the names.
Sixty men, give or take. Politicians, executives, crime figures from half a dozen organizations.
Some I recognize, some I don't. All of them saw me pay five million dollars for Bianca Benedetti.
All of them are potential threats, potential sources of information for Sergei, potential leverage points.
I flag the most dangerous ones for deeper investigation.
The tech executive with the Caribbean island—he has connections to the Morozovs through a money laundering operation.
A state senator who's been in Anatoly Morozov's pocket for years.
A shipping magnate who owes the Benedettis money and might be looking to curry favor with Sergei.
Every name is a thread. Pull the wrong one, and the whole tapestry unravels.
Another text from Alexei: Working on the women from the auction. Mirella was sold to a buyer in Nevada. Tracking location now.
Nevada. Far enough to be inconvenient, close enough to reach.
I don't know what I'm going to do with the information when I have it—Bianca asked me to find out, not to intervene.
But some part of me is already calculating logistics.
How many men it would take. What kind of extraction would be required. Whether it's worth the risk.
It's not my concern. Alexei was right about that. The Kashkin family doesn't involve itself in trafficking—we've always held that line—but we also don't go around rescuing every victim of every crime. We're not heroes. We're not saviors.
But Bianca asked.
I close the file and rub my eyes. It's late afternoon now, the light through the window shifting from gold to amber. I've been at this desk for hours, and the work is far from finished.
I should eat. Should sleep. Should do any of the practical things that keep a body functional.
Instead, I find myself climbing the stairs.
Her door is closed. I stand outside it, listening, but there's no sound from within. No water running, no footsteps, no muffled crying. Either she's asleep or she's sitting in silence, alone with her thoughts.
I raise my hand to knock, then stop.
What would I say? The conversation in the study covered everything that needed to be said. She knows who I am, what I've done, why I left her. She knows about her father, about Sergei, about the danger she's in. She has all the information she needs to make her choices.
And she made it clear she doesn't want my comfort.
I lower my hand.
Through the door, I hear something—a small sound, barely audible. A hitched breath. A swallowed sob.
She's crying. Alone in that room, surrounded by luxury she didn't ask for, she's crying.
My hand flattens against the wood. I could go in. Could hold her. Could pretend, for one moment, that I'm the kind of man who knows how to offer comfort without strings attached.
But I'm not that man. I never have been.
I pull my hand back and walk away. My footsteps echo down the corridor, steady and measured, the footsteps of a man with somewhere to be.
I don't have anywhere to be. I just can't stand outside her door and listen to her cry without doing something I'll regret.
Back in my office, I pour myself a vodka. This time I drink it—one long swallow that burns down my throat and settles like fire in my stomach.
She asked what happens now. I told her it depends on her.
That was a lie. It depends on Sergei Morozov. On how quickly he moves, how many men he brings, how far he's willing to go to reclaim what he thinks is his.
I pull up the security feeds on my computer, cycling through camera after camera. The gates, the walls, the gardens, the house. Everything looks quiet. Peaceful. The kind of peace that comes before a storm.
Sergei will come. Maybe not today, maybe not this week, but soon. He'll come with men and guns and the absolute certainty that he's going to take what he wants.
And when he does, I'll be ready.
I set down the empty glass and get back to work.