11. Galena
GALENA
T he sun came late to this part of the city.
Greenwich Village was hushed in the early morning, cloaked in the kind of wealth that didn’t wake with alarm clocks or rush hour.
The world outside moved in polite silence, Mercedes sedans whispering down the lane, doormen nodding at joggers, windows reflecting clean slices of golden light.
But inside Ilias’s brownstone, it was still insulated by windows that were obviously not single paned.
Six floors. Six. That’s how many this place had. It probably cost the kind of money that I could never dream of. It even had an elevator, because sometimes you might be too lazy to walk upstairs to your bedroom.
The room Ilias had given me was gorgeous, with a curved, oversized little seat by the window that practically begged to be sat on while reading a book on my Kindle.
There was even a fireplace. Now it was March, and it seemed like we could get a storm any day.
Just yesterday, I had worried about how I would keep warm in my little storage shed with the setup I had, and now I found myself in this mansion with a fireplace.
It was almost laughable, but there was that sick feeling in my stomach that made my anxiety flare up.
Maybe I should be more cautious. I should be sticking to my storage unit until I was sure.
The only problem was that I didn’t want to. Huffing a bit, I laughed at myself. Of course, I didn’t want to. Nobody wanted to live like I had been, and given the choice, everyone would prefer to live in a nice place and have nice food. I wasn’t sure what the right move was.
I wandered down the curved staircase as if I were trespassing.
Maybe I was. The silence here wasn’t comfortable, not yet.
It was the kind of quiet that waited to be filled by something — family, footsteps, familiar voices.
It smelled faintly of leather, cedar, and money.
Old, settled money. The kind that doesn’t blink in the face of troubles.
There were places within it that I loved — the library, for example.
It was filled with warm corners. The windows.
I loved those. Large and squared off, so I could see out onto the streets and watch people as they hustled about their days.
I paused on the third-floor landing, bare feet cold against the polished wood. My reflection caught in the glass frame of some abstract black-and-white photo. I barely recognized myself.
Same mess of silvery blonde curls. Same pale skin with too many shadows under my eyes.
But the girl staring back looked... tired.
Not just from the night terrors or the weight of memories I couldn’t always keep buried.
She looked tired of pretending she didn’t care about being alone.
Ilias had brought me some of his sister’s clothes to change into, but they were a little too big for me.
They were better than my diner uniform, so I wouldn’t complain.
I exhaled and forced myself down another flight.
The kitchen was immaculate with chrome appliances, stone countertops, and a fruit bowl that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe.
Ilias had told me to help myself to anything, so I planned to take him up on that.
He’d given me a brief tour the night before, but I’d been overwhelmed and had a hard time paying attention.
Now that I had a chance to explore on my own, it felt like peeking into a whole new world.
Getting down to the kitchen, I opened the fridge.
It was stocked like a catalog or one of those social media videos where women pretended it was an Olympic sport to repackage everything.
I found their videos soothing with all the sounds and the clicking as they stacked their snacks for their kids.
I grabbed a bottle of water, twisting the cap with trembling fingers.
He said he'd be back by noon.
It was barely ten. I didn’t do well being so idle.
For months, I stayed busy with constant work, not just to make money but to avoid thinking.
Outside the kitchen, there was a dining room with a two-story garden terrace.
Picking up a banana, I peeled it and ate it while watching a bird perched on one of the loungers.
This was a spot where I’d love to sit and sketch if I had the time.
Maybe when I felt more settled, it would be a nice place for that.
Drawing was one of my favorite things to do, but I needed a certain kind of calm for it, and that had been missing from my life for a while.
I told myself it wasn’t nerves that caused this wandering around.
It was just being in a strange environment and at someone else’s mercy.
I wasn’t being nosy. Still, I poked around looking at everything with interest. It wasn’t as if I were some gold digger.
I didn’t choose to come here. They snatched me off the street.
Looking around the place, it was something to think that I’d be living here for reals.
The brownstone stretched above me like a fortress, but last night I still put a chair under the doorknob.
I’d stayed in different places since I’d left home, some safe, some not.
This one felt different. Too clean. Too quiet.
Huge. And yet... I felt safer here than I had in months, even though it was strange.
It didn’t make sense. I barely knew Ilias.
But he hadn’t looked at me with pity when I told him about what had happened.
He didn’t press when I stumbled over my words or when my throat closed around the memories.
He hadn’t asked questions I wasn’t ready for.
He saw the panic building and just waited.
That’s what I liked most. His stillness. It gave me space to breathe .
He was a big man with a dangerous, rugged beauty.
He wasn’t the pretty boy you’d see at a frat party.
Ilias was one of those guys who was all man.
Those hooded eyes, which turned to me with deep, dark intensity, made me simultaneously want to hide or reveal all my secrets.
He was hiding secrets, too. I could tell.
I took my water and walked up the stairs to the library.
The room was beautiful and inviting, with a fireplace in the middle and bookshelves that lined the walls.
I ran my fingers across the spines of old books I’d never read—half of them in languages I didn’t know.
Then, on one wall, I found a whole section filled with contemporary fiction that ranged from historical fiction to romance.
I remembered that Maxim said Ilias had sisters.
These were probably theirs. I hummed happily as I looked through a few titles until one caught my attention.
Noon came slowly. By the time I heard the front door open, my nerves were raw again. I stood quickly and tried to steady the anxiety that flared in my chest.
Ilias appeared in the doorway to the library, dark hair slightly windblown, one brow lifted in silent acknowledgment. His gaze swept over me, not in a way that made me shrink. Just a quick scan. Like he was checking if I was okay. "You slept?" he asked.
I nodded, setting the book aside. "Some. I hope you don’t mind that I helped myself to your books.” I worried at the bottom of my lip, wondering if he’d be upset that I had poked around, but it wasn’t like he didn’t leave me here all alone.
He smiled, giving the book a nod. “Ah, you found some of my sister’s books. They love all of those. They’ll want to talk your ear off about them.” He gave me a wink. “You ready?" he asked.
“I’m always ready to talk about books.” Just about twenty minutes earlier, I’d splashed some water on my face and put on my shoes so we could go right away.
Not having my things made me itchy, so I was anxious to go pack them up.
I’d already mentally organized in my head what could be left behind. "Yeah, I’m ready.”
He reached his hand out to help me up from the chair.
Looking at it for a moment, I paused, then placed mine in his and pulled myself up, savoring the heat of his skin and the scent of his woodsy cologne.
My heart gave a little flutter at the contact and the realization that this was the first time since my mother had died that I’d had any kind of human touch.
He gave me a small nod, as if acknowledging the significance of the moment but not wanting to push it further, and I felt a little sad when his hand slipped away from mine.