Chapter 15 Landon
Landon
We decide against another anonymous motel.
After the parking-lot incident and the lingering sting that still makes sitting uncomfortable, neither of us wants another night of thin walls, flickering neon, and the constant feeling of being exposed.
Ivan suggests a bed-and-breakfast instead—something quieter, tucked away in a small town about forty minutes farther north.
He finds it on his burner phone while we’re still in the mall parking garage: Whispering Pines B&B, four stars on a travel site, photos of lace curtains, floral quilts, and a wraparound porch strung with fairy lights.
The kind of place older couples visit for anniversaries or quiet weekends away from the city.
It’s cute.
And I can’t help teasing Ivan as we pull out of the underground lot and merge back onto the highway…
“Perfect choice,” I say, keeping my voice light. “You’re definitely the right age for a place like this. Knitting on the porch, early-bird specials, complaining about the young people these days…”
Ivan shoots me a sidelong glance, one eyebrow raised.
“Keep sassing me, boy,” Ivan warns, voice low and deliberate. “Keep it up and there will be another spanking. And this time I’ll do it in broad daylight.”
I press my lips together to hide the smile, but the warning sends a familiar flutter through my stomach—half nerves, half anticipation. I settle back in the seat, cross my legs carefully, and let the radio fill the silence for the rest of the drive.
Whispering Pines turns out to be even prettier in person than the website photos promised.
A two-story Victorian painted soft sage green, white trim, gingerbread detailing along the eaves.
A porch swing creaks gently in the breeze.
Flower baskets hang from the railing, overflowing with pansies even though it’s early March.
The sign out front is hand-painted, welcoming, unthreatening.
The owner—an older man named Michael with silver hair slicked back—greets us at the door with warm smiles and the smell of fresh-baked shortbread drifting from somewhere inside.
Michael doesn’t ask for ID, just takes Ivan’s cash for two nights and hands us an old-fashioned brass key attached to a wooden fob shaped like a pine cone.
“Your room is upstairs,” Michael says. “The Rose Room. Breakfast at eight sharp. Tea and cookies are always out in the parlor if you get peckish.”
We thank our sweet host and climb the creaky staircase.
The Rose Room is exactly what the name suggests: pale pink walls, a four-poster bed draped in a white eyelet quilt, rose-patterned wallpaper on a single strip of wall above a small fireplace—unlit but stacked with logs—and a deep window seat overlooking the back garden.
It feels like stepping into someone else’s grandparent’s house…
cozy, safe, a world away from blood and bullets and burner phones.
Ivan drops our bags by the dresser and locks the door behind us.
I kick off my shoes and flop backward onto the bed with a dramatic sigh.
“This is perfect,” I declare. “I never want to leave.”
Ivan chuckles—low, quiet—and comes over to stand beside the bed, looking down at me.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” he says, but there’s no real warning in it. “We’re only here to breathe for a minute. You know we have to stay alert, not get complacent.”
I reach up and tug his hand until he sits on the edge of the mattress. Then I scoot over and pat the space beside me.
Ivan hesitates for half a second before stretching out, propping himself on one elbow so he can face me. I curl into his side, head on his chest, listening to the steady thud of his heart.
We stay like that for a while—quiet, breathing together—until I remember the small flat-screen television mounted on the opposite wall.
“Movie?” I ask hopefully.
He sighs like a man who knows he’s already lost the argument.
“Movie.”
We pick something fun, an old buddy copy movie from way back when. Ivan rolls his eyes at the premise but doesn’t complain when I hit play. We pile pillows behind us, pull the quilt over our legs, and settle in.
Halfway through the final action set-piece, I turn my head and rest my chin on his shoulder.
“Tell me a story,” I whisper. “To help me get to sleep later.”
He glances down at me, surprised.
“A story? What about the movie?”
“I’m tired,” I concede. “I’ve probably had enough action, Daddy. Both on the screen and off.”
Ivan considers for a long moment, then nods.
“Once upon a time,” my Daddy begins, voice low and steady. “Once upon a time there was a knight who lived on the edge of a dark forest. He wasn’t young anymore, and he’d fought in too many wars, but he still carried his sword and his shield because that was what he knew.”
I close my eyes and listen.
“One day he found a dragon… small, scared, barely bigger than a horse. The villagers wanted to kill it. They said it was dangerous, that it would grow up to burn their homes. But the knight looked at the dragon and saw something else. He saw a creature that was alone. Hurt. Trying to survive the same way he had.”
Ivan’s hand moves slowly up and down my back—long, soothing strokes.
“So the knight took the dragon away from the village. He built a cave high in the mountains where no one could find them. Every day he taught the dragon how to fly, how to hunt, how to hide. And every night he sat by the fire and told the dragon stories so it wouldn’t be afraid of the dark.”
My breathing slows. My eyelids grow heavy.
“The villagers never stopped looking,” Ivan continues softly. “But the knight never let them near. He stood between the dragon and every arrow, every spear, every torch. Because some things are worth protecting. Even when the whole world says they’re monsters.”
I feel myself drifting… warm, safe, held.
I want to hear the rest of the story but each passing moment it’s getting harder to stay awake. There’s something so soothing about Ivan’s voice, like I’ve known him my whole life.
“The dragon grew,” Ivan murmurs, voice fading to a whisper. “But it never forgot the knight who saved it. And the knight… he never forgot that sometimes the bravest thing you can do is choose mercy over a clean kill, and that’s when—”
I’m asleep before he finishes the sentence.
Morning light filters through the lace curtains in pale, dusty shafts.
I wake slowly, stretching under the quilt, reaching automatically for Ivan.
My hand finds empty sheets.
Cold sheets.
“Huh,” I exclaim.
I sit up fast.
The room is quiet. Too quiet.
Ivan’s boots are gone from beside the dresser. His jacket is missing from the chair back. The small duffel he keeps his weapons in is still there, by the bedside table.
His burner phone sits in plain sight though. The screen dark. But it’s on. Charging cable plugged in.
“No… don’t do it,” I whisper. “You shouldn’t. You really, really shouldn’t…”
My heart kicks hard against my ribs.
I reach for it before I can talk myself out of it.
The lock screen is off—careless, or deliberate, or maybe just a defect on the cheap burner. I swipe. A new message notification glows at the top.
VICTOR: It’s time. Take care of business. ASAP and confirm.
So few words. But words that turn my blood to ice.
I know exactly what they mean.
I know what “take care of business” means when it comes from Viktor to Ivan.
I drop the phone like it’s burning.
Panic floods me—sharp, suffocating.
He knew.
He’s known all along.
Everything—the waterpark, the bookstore, the B&B, the story about the knight and the dragon—was a lie. A performance. A way to keep me docile until the order came through.
Why did I ever expect anything different? I’m a God damned fool for thinking this whole Daddy and Little thing was real for him.
I scramble out of bed, my legs shaking.
Clothes. Backpack. Shoes.
I dress in seconds—jeans, hoodie, sneakers. Shove Claw into the bag on top of everything else. Zip it. Sling it over both shoulders.
I don’t look back at the bed.
I don’t look at the phone again.
I slip out of the room, down the staircase—quiet, quick—past the parlor where Maichael’s shortbread still sits under a glass dome. The front door is unlocked. I step outside into pale morning light.
Move. Move. Move.
No time to waste.
The small town is still half-asleep. A few cars parked along Main Street. A bakery sign glowing. A bus stop shelter fifty yards away, the same one I noticed when we arrived last night.
I run.
Sneakers slap pavement. Backpack bounces. Breath burns in my lungs.
Tears blur my vision.
I thought he cared.
I thought he was protecting me.
I thought…
The bus stop comes into view. A small shelter, a bench, a posted schedule. I don’t care where the bus is going, but it doesn’t look like I have long until it leaves.
I just need to be out of here before Ivan comes back.
Before he decides to follow orders. Before the knight decides the dragon is too dangerous to keep alive after all.
As I run, one thought dominates my mind…
Is the man I called Daddy the one who plunges a dagger deep into my heart for real?
I arrive at the bus stop gasping, my lungs burning, legs trembling from the flat-out sprint.
My chest heaves as I skid to a stop just as the silver-and-blue intercity bus is about to depart. Luckily for me though, the driver appears sympathetic to my tardiness.
The doors hiss open. The driver, a middle-aged man with a thick mustache, glances down at me with a skeptical look on his face and not a whole ton of patience in his voice.
“Hurry up,” the driver drawls.
I stumble up the steps, backpack swinging wildly against my hip.
“Ticket to the city,” I manage, my voice cracking.
The driver looks at me expectantly, hand resting on the fare machine.
I freeze.
“Yup, you will need to pay,” the driver says, rolling his eyes. “That’s how this works, kid.”
Fuck.
No wallet. No cash. No card.
My mouth opens, but nothing comes out.
The driver sighs. “Cash or card, kid. We don’t do free rides.”
I feel the heat of humiliation crawl up my neck. Tears prick my eyes instantly. I’m standing there—disheveled, terrified, completely broke—and the only thing keeping me from collapsing is the metal pole I’m gripping so hard my knuckles ache.
“I… I don’t have…” I say, my mind blanking out on any ideas.
But a soft voice interrupts from behind me.
“Let me take care of it.”
I turn.
An older man—seventies maybe, tweed flat cap, wool coat, kind eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses—has risen from his seat near the front. He’s already pulling a worn leather wallet from his inside pocket.
The driver shrugs. “Whatever you say, pops.”
The man feeds a twenty into the machine. The receipt spits out. He hands it to me with a small, gentle smile.
“Go on, dear. Find a seat.”
Tears spill over before I can stop them.
“Thank you,” I choke out. “Thank you so much. You’ve just saved my life. Literally.”
I whisper the literally so as not to scare the old man. He just nods and returns to his seat without fanfare, as though paying for a stranger’s escape is something he does every Tuesday.
I shuffle down the aisle on shaking legs, drop into the first empty row near the back, and press my forehead against the cool glass of the window. The bus doors close. The engine rumbles louder. We pull away from the curb.
The small town slides past in reverse, and a few store fronts later and it’s gone.
I hug my backpack to my chest. Claw’s fuzzy head presses against my chin.
My mind is spinning so fast I feel dizzy.
I can’t go back to my father.
The realization hits harder than the cold glass against my temple.
He wouldn’t pay. Wouldn’t negotiate. Wouldn’t even pretend to care enough to send a team of his most lethal men out to save me. Ivan’s words from the diner replay in brutal clarity:
He’s playing a game he can’t win. And you’re the piece he’s willing to sacrifice.
I believed it then. I believe it more now.
And the truth is that I’m alone. Maybe I always have been since my mom passed away. It’s a hard truth to take in. But I believe it.
I am completely, terrifyingly alone.
And then there’s Ivan.
My throat closes around a sob I refuse to let out.
He told me he had feelings for me. He kissed me like I mattered. He carried me to bed, held me while I slept, told me a bedtime story about a knight and a dragon that felt like it was written just for us.
And all the while he had that message burning a hole in his pocket.
I press the heels of my hands against my eyes until I see stars.
Was any of it real?
The waterpark. The bookstore. The way he looked at me when I called him Daddy in the diner. The gentle way he applied cooling gel to my sore butt in the car, whispering that I was his good boy.
Or was it all just… strategy? Keep the target calm. Keep him compliant. Keep him from running until the order came down and he could finish the job quietly.
I don’t know.
And I don’t know what hurts more: believing he never cared at all, or believing he did—and still chose orders over me.
The bus rumbles onto the highway. Trees blur past the window. The sun is finally rising, weak and pale behind thin clouds.
I stare at my reflection in the glass—pale, red-eyed, hair a mess—and feel something shift inside me.
Not anger. Not yet.
But resolve.
I can’t go home.
I can’t go back to Ivan.
I can’t trust anyone who’s ever been part of that world.
But I’m still breathing.
I still have my backpack and Claw.
It’s not much.
But it’s mine.
I rest my cheek against the window and let the vibration of the bus travel through my bones. I don’t know where I’ll go when we reach the city. I don’t know how I’ll eat, or sleep, or stay hidden.
But I know one thing with absolute certainty: I’m done being anyone’s pawn.
Not my father’s.
Not Viktor’s.
Not Ivan’s.
The highway stretches ahead—endless, gray, uncertain. I hug Claw tighter
Somewhere between the small town that’s disappearing in the rearview and the terror of my home city that waits at the end of this journey, I’m finally starting to figure out who Artyom Landon Lane Galkin is going to be when no one is trying to kill him.
There has to be a future for me if I can make it out of this.
And I will make it out.
Even if I have to do it all alone.
No matter how scary it is…