Chapter 11 Nadya
NADYA
I don’t want to be here.
Not in this dress, not in these heels, and definitely not at this party—where every room smells like money, expensive sin, and sweat hidden behind designer suits.
I walk beside Konstantin through the private lounge of the Echelon Club, tucked high above the city like Olympus for criminals.
Every inch of the room glitters—gold-edged velvet, crystal glasses clinking, diamonds flashing on fingers that could snap lives in half.
Beautiful people, dangerous people. Mostly men. All of them watching.
Konstantin didn’t give me a choice.
“It’s important,” he said.
What he meant was: It’s a performance.
So I’m performing.
I keep my steps even, my chin high, my eyes anywhere but on the hungry gazes sweeping over me. I smile just enough to look tame, just enough to pass as content, as quiet, as his.
I hate the way they look at me.
Like a pretty piece someone managed to steal from another man’s vault.
Like I’m here to be judged, compared, admired, possessed.
The music pulses low and sleek from a grand piano tucked into the far corner. Crystal chandeliers drip light onto the bar. Waiters float by with champagne flutes. Women with dead eyes and rich diamonds laugh like they’ve forgotten the taste of freedom.
I move through the crowd like smoke, trying not to touch anyone, trying to stay small.
I don’t want attention. I want to disappear.
And for a while, I manage to.
Until I turn toward the marble bar, needing something—anything—to cool the panic tightening in my chest.
That’s when I see him. Vladimir Kirov.
The man from the auction. The one who nearly bought me.
He’s thicker now, fuller around the middle, but his face is exactly the same—sweaty, smug, a scar slicing across the bridge of his nose like a knife mark the universe forgot to finish.
He’s leaning back against the bar like he owns it, swirling a drink in his hand and laughing with some older Bratva relic.
And then he sees me, and smiles. Like he’s still imagining what it would’ve been like to unwrap me.
His smile widens when he realizes I’ve seen him. He lifts his glass slightly in mock greeting, eyes dragging slowly down my body like he’s peeling the dress off with his gaze. I stiffen instinctively, shifting half a step closer to the bar, heart thudding like a drum in my ears.
My skin prickles under the weight of his stare. Like I’m on display again. Like I’m back under that spotlight, surrounded by predators, being sold to the highest bidder.
I look away.
Don’t engage. Don’t give him the satisfaction.
I focus on the glass in my hand, not remembering when I picked it up, not tasting the drink. I just need to blend into the background. Disappear. Keep breathing.
“Nadya.”
The voice is deep. Familiar. Close.
I turn around—relief and adrenaline crashing together—and see Konstantin at my side, eyes locked on mine, reading everything I didn’t say out loud.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I lie too quickly.
He follows my gaze before I can stop him. The second he sees Kirov, something shifts in his posture. Subtle. Dangerous.
He straightens. His hand brushes lightly against my lower back—calming, grounding, possessive all at once.
Kirov raises his glass again. This time toward Konstantin.
Bold move.
“Do you want me to handle it?” Konstantin asks, low enough only I can hear.
I hesitate. “No,” I say. “He’s not worth it.”
Konstantin doesn’t argue. But his hand stays there, resting just above the curve of my spine, like a warning to anyone still looking.
Kirov turns his attention elsewhere, pretending not to care, but I can feel his eyes brushing my skin again when he thinks I’m not looking. I force myself to stay still. To breathe through it. To keep my back straight and my expression unreadable.
Konstantin stays at my side. He doesn’t touch me again, but he doesn’t drift either. He hovers close, one step behind or beside me, his gaze sweeping the room.
People approach. A few of them nod at me, but most pretend I’m not there. I don’t care. I’d rather be invisible than spoken about like property, like a prize. And still, I smile. I sip. I play the part.
But it’s getting harder.
Every time I catch a glimpse of Kirov in my periphery, my stomach coils tighter. His smirk. His whisper to the man beside him. His casual arrogance, as if nothing has changed, as if he could still reach out and claim me if he felt like it.
I can’t stay here. Not like this.
I reach for my glass again, only to find it empty. That’s when Konstantin leans in, voice low and close to my ear. “Come with me.”
The air outside is cooler. Quieter. The sounds of crystal, music, and polished laughter dim the second the heavy doors shut behind us.
We step out onto a stone terrace framed in warm amber lights, the city glittering below us like a secret. The night wind brushes against my skin and I finally exhale like I’ve been holding my breath since the moment we walked in.
Konstantin doesn’t speak at first. He just stands beside me, hands in his pockets, staring out over the city like he’s counting lights.
“You okay?” he asks after a moment, voice softer now.
I hesitate. Then I quietly admit, “I didn’t expect to see him here.”
“I did,” he says. “I just didn’t expect him to look at you like that so openly.” He takes a sip of his wine, scowling to himself.
I look away. “He didn’t touch me.”
He turns to face me then. “Doesn’t matter.”
I hate the way my throat tightens. I hate that I want to cry over something that didn’t even happen. But it did, in a way. The memory of that night, the bidding, the way Kirov stared at me like I was meat—it’s still there, bruising something tender inside me.
“I hate this world,” I whisper, barely audible.
“I know,” he says, quieter this time.
I wrap my arms around myself, more from instinct than chill. The night air kisses my shoulders, cool and calming, but the heat inside me refuses to fade.
“You don’t,” I murmur. “You’ve always had power. No one’s ever owned you.”
Konstantin is silent for a moment.
“I’ve been owned plenty of times,” he says. “Just not with a collar.”
I glance at him. He’s still staring out at the city, jaw tight, eyes distant. Like he’s remembering things he never talks about. Maybe he is.
“I used to think if I worked hard enough, killed clean enough, built something big enough—he’d see me as more than the bastard he regrets making,” he says.
I watch him, unmoving. “And now?”
He turns to me, meets my gaze dead-on. “Now I know he’ll never stop seeing me as a threat. So I’ve stopped trying to be his son.”
The honesty in his voice knocks the wind out of me more than anything that happened inside that party.
I swallow thickly. “I used to dream about getting out. A normal job. A little house. My kids in the yard.”
His eyes flicker at that—at the mention of kids—but he doesn’t ask.
“I don’t even remember what normal looks like anymore,” I admit.
He doesn’t try to offer promises or platitudes. He doesn’t touch me, just says, evenly, “You’re not alone in this.”
I close my eyes for a beat. Not because I believe him. But because I want to.
The silence settles again, not uncomfortable, just…heavy. Full of things we aren’t ready to say out loud.
Konstantin’s hand brushes mine lightly—just a touch, not quite a hold. For a second, I don’t move. I let it linger.
Then his phone buzzes in his jacket.
He glances down at the screen and mutters, “I have to take this.”
I nod. He steps away, toward the edge of the terrace, speaking low into the phone. His voice is calm, measured—business.
I turn back toward the city, trying to gather myself.
That’s when my own phone rings.
I freeze when I see the name that flashes across the screen: Irina.
A bolt of cold runs through me as I answer. “Irina?”
Her voice is shaking. “Nadya. It’s Nikolai. He—he collapsed. They’re admitting him now.”
My blood turns to ice. “What? What happened? Is he breathing?”
“He’s stable,” she says quickly, “but they think it’s cardiac-related. He was having trouble keeping up this morning, and then—then he just…dropped. I didn’t know what to do.”
My heart pounds so hard I can’t breathe. “I’m coming,” I say, already moving. “I’m coming now.” I say it again, voice tight. “I’m coming now.” And then I end the call before Irina can respond.
My hands are shaking.
Cardiac-related.
The words punch through my brain like bullets.
My baby. My son. My Nikolai.
I glance toward Konstantin—he’s still on his call, back turned, his voice low and calm, completely unaware that my world is breaking open beneath me.
I have to leave. Now.
But I can’t go back through the party. The moment I’m seen out of place, alone, questions will follow. Eyes will follow. And I don’t have time to lie my way out of anything.
My gaze sweeps the terrace.
The edge of the building is framed in ornate stone railing, a shallow drop onto another tiered roof below. The walls are wide, the building old. The gaps between ledges are jumpable. Scalable. My kind of terrain.
I look down at my dress—floor-length silk slit up one thigh—and curse under my breath. Not ideal.
But I’ve done more in worse.
I climb the railing in one breath, legs swinging over with practiced ease.
Then I drop. A soft thud against gravel and stone. My knees bend, absorb the shock. I don’t wait. I run.
Skimming along the roof edge, vaulting over a service pipe, grabbing the lip of a steel support beam and pulling myself down with a fluid twist of my body.
I look down at the slit in my dress, already torn slightly near the hem from how tightly it hugs my legs, and curse under my breath. I take off the heels first, grip them both in one hand, and shove them into a bush near the wall.
The wind kicks against my side, tugging at my dress, threatening my balance, but my fingers are already finding the next hold. My shoes are gone. My heartbeat is deafening. The city is blurred lights below me, and all I can think is hold on, get down, get to him.
I leap, catching the edge of a decorative cornice, swinging one leg over, then dropping again, my feet slapping silently against another ledge.
The terrace above vanishes as I tuck into a roll and spring up again, hands finding the edge of a second-tier awning.
I scale it fast, gripping the rough stucco facade with fingers that know how to hold weight.
My thighs burn as I hook one leg over the support column and shimmy down, angling toward the fire escape tucked behind a wrought-iron lattice of vines.
Someone might see me.
I don’t care.
Another drop—this one to the next balcony—the hem of my dress catching on the railing. I yank it loose and keep moving, slick with sweat, heart hammering out a countdown I can’t silence.
Three levels down now.
I land on a copper drainpipe and slide until I can grip a second ledge with my fingertips, then lower myself hand over hand. My arms strain, but the motion is fluid, automatic. My body remembers.
When my feet finally touch solid ground, I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
I start running, barefoot, breathless, holding the wreck of my dress in one hand and Irina’s voice in my head.
The cab smells like old cigarettes and stale fast food, but I barely notice. I give the driver the address Irina texted me without blinking, my voice thin and cracking.
Crescent Memorial Hospital is where Nikolai has been going since he was two years old and we found out something was wrong with him.
The ride is a blur of city lights and horn blasts, too bright, too loud, not real. I clutch my phone in my lap, reading Irina’s message over and over again, like repetition will rewrite reality.
Room 208. He’s stable. But hurry.
I press my fingers to my lips, trying to hold myself together. Trying to breathe around the terror clawing up my throat.
Stable means nothing. Stable is just a word they use when they don’t want you to panic on the way.
When we pull up to the emergency entrance, I throw money at the driver and run. My feet slap the concrete, raw from the rooftop, bleeding from glass I didn’t feel earlier.
I don’t care.
The moment I reach the second floor and see Irina standing outside the room, her eyes swollen and red, I know.
I don’t ask. I don’t speak.
I shove the door open. And there he is.
Nikolai.
My baby.
So small in the hospital bed, a tangle of wires and monitors, his chest rising and falling too shallow, too slow. An oxygen mask fogs lightly over his mouth. There’s an IV in his arm. His eyelids flutter, but they don’t open.
I barely make it two steps into the room before my knees buckle.
The world tilts sideways.
And I collapse.