Chapter 14 - Sofia
Ican’t stop thinking about his hands on my face, and it’s making me useless.
My first full day in his quarters, first morning waking in his bed.
Alexei left before dawn for meetings, business, the weight of responsibility that never lets him rest. He paused at the door, looking back at me tangled in his sheets, and there was something in his eyes that said we need to talk about last night. But no time. Never enough time.
Now I'm alone in his quarters, pacing like a caged animal.
The restless energy builds with each step from bed to window, window to dresser, dresser to door.
I'm wearing one of his shirts, borrowed without asking because I refuse to put on another rough cotton dress.
The white fabric hangs to mid-thigh, soft against my skin.
Nothing underneath because my only pair of panties is still drying in the bathroom from when I washed them last night.
The shirt barely covers what needs covering, and every movement reminds me I'm essentially naked in his space.
The fabric brushes my bare thighs with each step, a constant reminder of my vulnerability. My body heats. Even confusion can't stop the way I respond to being wrapped in his scent. Cedar and smoke cling to the cotton, surrounding me, making my nipples tighten beneath the thin fabric.
"What if I won't regret it?" That's what I told him last night, vodka making me brave. What kind of thing is that to say to the man holding you captive?
I should be planning. Strategizing. Reasserting my power in this situation, finding ways to escape, to gather more intelligence. Instead, I'm replaying the way his thumb brushed my lip, how he almost kissed me before pulling back. How he spent the night in that chair rather than risk touching me.
The bedroom feels smaller with each circuit of my pacing.
Always locked. Always watching. The cameras track my restless movement, and I wonder if he's watching from wherever his meetings take him.
The thought makes my skin flush. Him seeing me like this, barely dressed in his clothes, restless with want I can't name.
I need to move. To do something. To remember I'm a weapon, not some lovesick girl drowning in borrowed shirts and confusion.
The main door is locked, of course. Electronic, requiring his thumbprint or override code.
But there's another door, the one I noticed when the guards first brought me here.
Connected to his bedroom, the private study I've been curious about since I first saw it.
Not the one where he conducts business. Something more personal.
I shouldn't. This is his space, his sanctuary. But restlessness wins over caution.
The lockpick slides from my hair, warm from my body heat. The door's lock is good, German-made, expensive, but not impossible. Forty seconds of careful work, letting Emilio's tech unpick the electronic lock.
Click.
The study opens before me, and I step through.
Smaller than his main study. Warmer. The air smells of old paper and leather, dust motes dancing in filtered sunlight.
Books line every wall including Russian literature, military history, architecture volumes that seem out of place.
Another bonsai sits on the windowsill, younger than the one in his bedroom, branches reaching toward the light.
I'm hyperaware this is Alexei's private space. His scent is stronger here, concentrated. My body responds with my pulse jumping, skin heating beneath his shirt.
But it's the boxes that draw my attention.
Cardboard boxes stacked against the far wall, labeled in Cyrillic.
My spoken Russian is pretty good, I know this from overhearing the guards, but reading Cyrillic is different.
The letters swim before my eyes at first, then slowly resolve into meaning.
Like my brain is remembering something it once knew.
Personal effects. Storage. And a name that makes my chest tight: Mikhail.
I shouldn't look. These are his brother's things, his grief made tangible. But my hands are already opening the first box, the cardboard rough against my fingertips.
Photos spill out. Mikhail at different ages. As a child grinning gap-toothed, as a teenager looking serious over a chess board, as a young man laughing at something off-camera. Architecture magazines, dog-eared and annotated in neat handwriting. A telescope, folded small but well-maintained.
The remnants of a boy who wanted to build things, not destroy them.
Something about his face in these photos tugs at me. Not just familiarity from the pictures I've seen before. Something deeper. Like a song I've forgotten the words to but still hum unconsciously.
The second box holds clothes. A jacket that still smells faintly of cologne. A watch, stopped at 3:15. And at the bottom, wrapped in tissue paper, a leather diary.
My hands tremble as I unwrap it. The leather is worn soft from handling, warm against my palms, edges frayed from years of use. Mikhail Volkov embossed in Cyrillic on the cover. I shouldn't read this. It's private, sacred, the interior world of a dead boy.
I open it anyway.
Most entries are in Russian. The Cyrillic letters should be indecipherable, but as I stare at them, something shifts in my mind.
Like a door creaking open. I can read them, slowly at first, then faster as some dormant part of my brain awakens.
When did I learn to read Russian? The same time I learned to speak it? In that garden I can't quite remember?
Complaints about his father. Notes about books he's reading. Observations about architecture, about light, about the way buildings breathe.
Then I find it. An entry dated three months before he died:
"S came to the garden today. She's learning Russian faster than I expected. Her accent is still terrible but she laughs when I correct her. I think I'm teaching her more than words. I think I'm teaching her how to be brave."
My hands shake, the diary's edges cutting into my palms where I grip too tight. S. Someone he was teaching Russian.
I flip forward, scanning for more mentions.
"S taught me a new English word today. 'Serendipity.' She says it means finding something good when you weren't looking for it. I think that's what she is. Something good I wasn't looking for."
The entries about S increase. She makes him laugh. She understands his dreams about building instead of breaking. She sees him as more than just a Volkov heir.
Then, two weeks before his death, the handwriting shakier:
"I have to tell her the truth soon. About what Father is planning. About the meeting. I have to warn her, even if it means she'll hate me. Even if it ruins everything. She has to know."
And the last entry about S:
"I'm going to warn her tonight. Whatever happens after, I can't let her walk into what Father has planned. She deserves the truth. Even if she hates me for it."
The truth. Warning. Father's plans.
A garden. Russian lessons. Someone teaching me to be brave.
The world tilts.
The pressure splits my skull from inside. Not pain exactly, but something worse, like my memories are clawing their way back through bone.
I collapse to the floor, legs giving out completely. The cold hardwood slams against my cheek, the diary clutched to my chest, leather binding cutting deeper into my palms. Copper floods my mouth. I've bitten my tongue.
Images flood in, violent and vivid:
A garden. Summer. Roses climbing a trellis. A boy's hands correcting my grip on a pencil as I write Russian letters. "No, no, like this. See? The curve is important."
"Misha," I hear myself say. Not Mikhail. Misha. The familiar nickname falling from my lips like I've said it a thousand times.
"You're getting better, Sofiya." His voice, younger, lighter than his brother's. Teasing. "Soon you'll speak Russian better than me."
"Liar," I laugh. Fifteen years old. So sure of everything. "But you're a good teacher."
"You're my best friend," I hear myself say. "I'd never tell anyone about us. I promise."
"I know," he says. "I trust you."
The pressure in my skull intensifies, cracking something open. Words pour out of me in Russian, fluent and desperate:
"Misha. Misha, I'm sorry. I didn't know. I didn't know what would happen. You tried to warn me and I didn't listen. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
I can't stop. The words tear from my throat in perfect Russian, a language I'm not supposed to know.
My skull feels like it's splitting, memories trying to claw their way back through eleven years of walls.
The pressure builds and builds until I'm curled on the floor, shaking, the cold seeping through his shirt.
The study door slams open.
Alexei. White-faced, eyes wild. How long have I been here on the floor? Minutes? Hours?
"Sofia?"
I look up at him from where I've collapsed, still clutching his brother's diary. Tears blur my vision.
"Misha," I say, and watch him flinch at the nickname. "He was… we were…"
"What are you saying?" His voice is sharp, confused.
He drops to his knees beside me, hands immediately checking for injury. Fingers at my throat seeking a pulse, brushing hair from my face to see my eyes. Even through the splitting pain, I'm aware of his hands on me, burning through the thin shirt.
It hits me then. I've been speaking Russian. Words I don't remember learning flowing like water.
"I loved him." The English feels foreign now, clumsy. "I was S. The one in his diary. I was…"
The pressure crests, white-hot agony that makes me curl into myself on the floor. My vision fractures into starbursts.
Darkness rushes in from the edges. I'm vaguely aware of Alexei's arms lifting me from the floor like I weigh nothing, his chest against my side, his fingers gripping my bare thigh where the shirt has ridden up.
My body, even in crisis, notes every point of contact.
His voice is tight with something that might be fear, barking orders at someone. Guards? A doctor?