Chapter 13
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
JONAH
Ever since I touched the piano, Viktor lets me play it whenever I want.
The music book lies open on the stand, the pages bent at the corners from years of use.
I keep playing because the music is the only thing that still sounds like the person I was before I entered this house.
Every note is a thin thread connecting me back to a life that feels more like a dream every day.
Mom never got me into real piano lessons, but she made me take music theory. She dragged me every week until I could read a score whether I wanted to or not. I never thought those hours would matter.
The notes fill the room as I look out at the snow.
My fingers move slow, leaning on memory more than skill.
I wonder if I'm losing my mind. A few weeks ago, I was worried about my rent and my shifts at the hospital. Now, I'm watching a man practice the art of murder, and I’m not even trying to look away. I’m tracking the ripple of muscle in his back like it’s the only thing that matters in the world.
He has been working with his dagger for hours. He rolls it from palm to blade and back again without looking at it. Every few seconds his wrist snaps and the knife hits the board on the wall in the same spot. He is practicing for a murder I know is coming.
Thunk.
What is my body doing to me? I can feel the heat radiating from him even across the room, a magnetic pull that makes my skin hum.
It’s not just desire. It’s the terrifying realization that I’ve stopped seeing him as a patient or a captor.
He’s become the gravity I’ve started to orbit, and I don’t know how to stop the fall.
Thunk.
We've lived like this for days. Sleeping. Waking. Eating. Fucking. Waiting.
The knife hits the wood again. Same place. Same sound. What are we waiting for?
“If you wanted to leave a place like this.” My eyes stay fixed on the keys.
My fingers hesitate. The lie tastes like ash.
I should want to leave. I should be screaming for help.
But the thought of the trailer, the empty hospital halls, and the cold silence of my old life makes my chest tighten more than this golden cage ever could.
I’m not just his prisoner; I’m a prisoner of the way he makes me feel seen.
The blade stills.
“That's a dangerous question.”
“I didn't say I wanted to. Just… hypothetically.”
I hear him shift. The knife rolls once in his grip.
“Hypothetically, you don't run.” I glance back. He's watching me now, the dagger loose in his palm. “You stay. You learn the rhythms. Who moves when. Who looks away. Who hands you daggers that already belong to you.”
“And who do you trust?”
A faint smile touches his mouth. “You don't. Not fully.”
“That sounds lonely.”
“It is.”
The knife leaves his hand again. Thunk. Same mark.
“But if you had to choose.” My fingers rest on the keys, silent. “One person. One weakness.”
He doesn't answer right away. He reaches into his sleeve and draws out another blade. This one is thin and narrow, more needle than knife. He balances it on his finger, steady, testing.
I watch his face while he does it. He isn't showing off.
He's checking himself. Checking what the drugs left behind.
Every throw is a measurement. Every strike in the wood is proof that Sergei didn't finish the job.
He treats his own body like a weapon that needs to be reset.
And for some reason, he's letting me see it happen.
His gaze sharpens. “You trust people who gain nothing from your fall. And you watch the ones who gain everything.”
I swallow. “And if the cage is… beautiful?”
“That's when it works best. Gold makes people forget it's still a lock.”
I turn around to face him. “What about betrayal?”
He doesn't hesitate. “Betrayal always comes from someone who thinks they're owed.”
“Owed what?”
He meets my eyes. “Power. Love. A future they weren't promised.”
The knife stays in his hand this time. He doesn't throw it.
“And you? If you wanted out.”
His expression softens to something close to honesty. “I wouldn't leave. I'd dismantle it. Piece by piece.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
“It is. But it lasts.”
For a moment, the only sound is the snow brushing the window. Then he adds, quieter, “Why do you ask, krasavchik?”
I turn back to the piano. My fingers find the keys again. I don't know. I don't know why I'm asking. “Just trying to learn the rules.”
Behind me, the blade leaves his hand. Thunk. Same place as before.
“That dagger means someone on the inside hasn't written you off yet. That you're not done. Not to everyone.”
“Perhaps.” Another strike. The wood complains. “And perhaps not.”
Viktor stretches his arm, rolling his shoulder like the motion cost him something. His injury is still there, a jagged reminder under his skin. “Weakness. We all have it, Jonah. Even me.”
The word settles in my chest. I know what it means. I have lived it. But coming from him, it sounds like leverage. Is that what I am? Leverage? Or is it something else?
“This whole life, it's a game played in rooms like this. You win some rounds. You lose others. You never know who's watching, who's waiting, who's already decided where you fall.”
Another flick. Thunk.
“The stakes are high. Sometimes losing isn't the worst outcome.”
I swallow, fingers hovering uselessly over the keys. My throat is tight. My heart is beating too fast. I have to know.
“Have you ever killed someone?”
He turns then. His mouth curves into something knowing, cruel enough to make my stomach dip. “What do you think, krasavchik?”
“I—” I hesitate. Heat crawls up my neck. “Yes?”
He laughs, not denying it, and somehow that's the answer. I've spent my life trying to keep people away from the grave, and now I'm sitting in a bed with the man who sends them there. My skin is humming, reaching for him, and I don't even feel the shame yet. Only the heat.
“Was life always like this for you? This lifestyle?”
“Da.” He strikes the knife and leaves it buried. He turns to me and takes my hand, leading me back to the bed. “Always. And you? Have you always wanted to become a nurse?”
“Mom’s illness definitely helped. I wanted to be the one thing the sickness couldn't touch.”
Viktor sits me down and drapes the sheets around me.
“Sergei took the power of my family when Father died. He took my rightful chair and crowned himself Pakhan. We've been at war ever since.”
“Why not kill you?”
“Because, like I said, he doesn't want my blood on his hands. No, he wants me weak.” He sits beside me. By the time he pulls the sheet over himself, his breathing has gone uneven.
“I thought you didn't want to tell me anything?”
“I didn't. But then I changed my mind.” His gaze holds mine. “I told you, this way you're more dependent on me. I like you dependent on me, krasavchik. I want to be the only hand you reach for when the world goes dark. Now you've become my accomplice.”
He is handing me these secrets like a collar, marking me so that no one else in this house will touch me, because he isn’t trying to save me and is instead making himself my only shield because he knows I have nowhere else to go.
The word should make me recoil, but instead, it feels like a brand.
He’s taking my innocence and replacing it with something dark and heavy, and I’m letting him.
I’m not just a nurse anymore. I’m his. I’ve traded my conscience for the weight of his hand on my neck, and the worst part is how much I prefer the weight.
“Besides, we're getting out of here. And my ego wants to show you why the families fear the name Morozov when I'm not a caged animal.”
“When you get out of here, what are you going to do?”
For the first time since he stopped throwing his daggers, something like danger breaks across his face.
“Kill those who put me here.”
He pulls me in hard. One arm locks around my waist, crushing me to his chest. His hand slides to the back of my neck. His fingers dig in. Taking ground. Taking me.
His mouth finds mine, the kiss rough and hot. His hands shake against my back as he tangles them in my hair. He pulls back just enough to press his forehead to mine.
“I'm not kidding, Jonah. We'll get out of here. And I'll take down every one of them who hurt me. Or you.”
I believe him. I believe him and it terrifies me. What does that make me?
Viktor tightens his grip again, like if he lets go I'll disappear. “I swear it on my mother's grave.” He exhales and eases us back onto the mattress. The bed dips under his weight.
His tongue traces the shape of my lips. I gasp into him. I'm lost in the taste of him again, lost in the weight of his body pressing me down.
“So precious. Come on now, krasavchik. Let's sleep.”
I wake with a start. My heart slams against my ribs. Moonlight cuts the room into strips. It silvers the floor, the edge of the bed, the dark shape of the piano by the wall. I lie still, breath shallow, trying to understand what pulled me out of sleep.
Then I hear it again. The lock.
“Viktor?” I sit upright, scanning the dark. The bathroom door stands open. The other side of the bed is empty. “Viktor?”
The panic isn't the same as the night I was kidnapped. That was the fear of a stranger. This is the fear of a missing limb. My lungs burn as if the air in the room has been sucked out with him. I look at my hands—hands that have touched him, washed him, held him—and they’re shaking so hard I have to tuck them under my arms.
I already know. The sound that woke me was the lock turning from the outside.
My chest tightens until it burns. I should have said it. I should have told him that when he's here, the fear goes quiet. But I didn't, and now he's gone. He's gone. Why am I shaking? Why does the room feel so cold?
I realize then that I’m not waiting for a savior. I’m waiting for the monster to come back and tell me I’m still his. I’ve crossed the line from stranger to something far more dangerous, and there’s no way to find my way back to the boy who lived in that trailer.
They took him.
He would never have left without telling me. Would never have gone quietly.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand there, shaking, staring at the door like it might explain itself. What am I supposed to do? Where did they take him?
Immediately, the house feels different without him. My mind scrambles, racing through every piece of information we exchanged. Every word that could truly make me an accomplice.
But whoever took him knew exactly what they were doing. They didn't come crashing in. They didn't leave a mess. This wasn't chaos. It was a calculation. And I'm the one left behind.
I'm alone in the middle of it. Caught between hope and terror. Was he trying to save me? Or is Sergei finally finishing what he started?