Chapter 6 - Vasily
She paced like a wild thing.
I stood in the security room, my eyes fixed on the monitor showing Gabrielle's suite.
Back and forth she moved, from the French doors to the bathroom, to the bed she hadn't touched, to the closet full of clothes she hadn't opened.
Her dark hair was tangled from the flight, her borrowed robe slipping off one shoulder, her bare feet leaving faint impressions in the plush carpet.
She'd been at it for three hours. Hadn't eaten the breakfast Yelena brought.
Hadn't slept despite her obvious exhaustion.
Just that relentless pacing, punctuated by occasional moments where she'd stop at the window and stare out at the sea like she was calculating whether the swim to the mainland was survivable.
It wasn't. I'd made sure of that when I'd chosen this island.
"You're going to wear a hole in the floor with all that staring."
I didn't turn at the sound of Vartan's voice. My youngest brother had arrived an hour ago, his helicopter touching down on the north pad while I was reviewing perimeter reports. I'd known he'd come—had expected the confrontation that was brewing in his tone.
"She's adjusting," I said.
"She's losing her mind." Vartan moved to stand beside me, his arms crossed, his expression hard. "Which is what happens when you kidnap a civilian and lock her in a gilded cage."
"I didn't have a choice."
"You had plenty of choices. You chose this one." He jabbed a finger at the screen. "Look at her, Vasily. She's terrified. She's going to be a problem."
I finally turned to face him. Vartan had our father's build—stocky, powerful, built for violence rather than strategy. The scar through his eyebrow was white against his tanned skin, a reminder of all the fights he'd started and won over the years.
"She's under my protection," I said quietly. "That makes her family business."
"Family business?" He laughed, the sound sharp and humorless. "She's not family. She's a liability. A witness who's seen our faces, been inside our most secure location. What happens when she escapes? When she goes to the authorities?"
"She won't escape."
"Everyone thinks that until they do." He stepped closer, lowering his voice even though we were alone. "There are cleaner ways to handle this, brother. Ways that don't involve keeping a hostage indefinitely."
The implication hung in the air between us—heavy, ugly, unmistakable.
"If you're suggesting what I think you're suggesting," I said, my voice dropping to something dangerous, "I'd advise you to stop talking."
"I'm suggesting we think practically. She's nobody—no connections to our world, no value as a hostage, no leverage we can use. The only reason she's here is because you couldn't control your obsession."
My hand shot out before I could stop it, fisting in the front of his shirt and slamming him back against the wall. The monitors rattled. Vartan's eyes went wide with surprise—I rarely resorted to physical confrontation with my brothers.
"She stays," I said, each word carved from ice. "She's under my protection. And if anyone—anyone—threatens her safety, I will bury them myself. Do you understand?"
Vartan held my gaze for a long moment, his jaw tight. Then he nodded once, and I released him.
"I understand," he said, straightening his shirt. "I just hope you do too. Whatever this is—" He gestured at the monitor, at Gabrielle still pacing in her beautiful prison. "It's going to cost you. Maybe more than you're willing to pay."
He left without another word. I turned back to the screen, my heart still pounding with the force of my reaction.
Vartan wasn't wrong. This obsession had already cost me—my focus, my judgment, potentially the security of my entire organization. A smarter man would have found another way. A stronger man would have let her go.
But I'd never claimed to be smart or strong when it came to Gabrielle Blanchard. I only claimed to be hers—whether she accepted it or not.
***
Semyon found me on the terrace an hour later, nursing a vodka I hadn't tasted and watching the sun sink toward the horizon.
My middle brother was calmer than Vartan, more measured in his approach. He settled into the chair beside me without speaking, content to sit in silence until I was ready to talk.
"Vartan thinks I've lost my mind," I said finally.
"Vartan thinks everyone has lost their mind. It's his default position." Semyon accepted the glass I poured for him. "Though in this case, he may have a point."
"Not you too."
"I'm not here to lecture you, Vasily. I'm here to understand." He swirled the vodka, watching the light play through the liquid. "You've never done anything like this before. Never let anyone get close enough to compromise your judgment. So what is it about this woman?"
I didn't answer immediately. How could I explain something I didn't fully understand myself?
The way she'd looked walking past that restaurant window—bright, alive, completely unaware of the predator watching her.
The loneliness I'd recognized in her because I carried the same weight.
The desperate, irrational certainty that she was mine and I would destroy anyone who tried to take her from me.
"I don't know," I admitted. "I saw her, and something... broke. Or maybe locked into place. I can't explain it."
"And now?"
"Now she's here. Safe. Mine to protect."
"Yours to imprison, you mean."
I turned to look at him. Semyon's expression was unreadable—the same careful neutrality he brought to every negotiation, every strategic analysis.
"She would have died," I said flatly. "Pankratov's people had her under surveillance. They were building a file, learning her patterns. If I hadn't taken her—"
"You might have warned her. Helped her disappear. There were options that didn't involve making her a prisoner in your fortress."
"She wouldn't have survived on her own. She doesn't know our world, doesn't understand the dangers. The only way to guarantee her safety was to bring her here."
"And the fact that it also guaranteed you'd have access to her?" Semyon raised an eyebrow. "That's just a fortunate coincidence?"
The words struck closer to home than I wanted to admit. I drained my vodka and poured another.
"I'm not going to force myself on her," I said. "I'm not a monster."
"No. But you are a man who's accustomed to taking what he wants." Semyon stood, setting his untouched glass on the table. "Be careful, brother. She's not one of your business acquisitions. You can't just absorb her into your empire and expect her to accept it."
"She'll adapt."
"Or she'll break." He paused at the door. "And if she breaks, what will that make you?"
He left me alone with the question and the darkening sky.
***
I waited until after sunset to go to her.
The hallways of the estate were quiet, most of the staff having retreated to their quarters for the evening. I passed guards at regular intervals—my men, loyal to the death, each one aware that the woman in the east wing was to be protected at all costs.
Her door was unlocked. I'd given orders not to bolt it from the outside—I wanted her to feel like a guest, not a prisoner, even if the distinction was largely semantic.
She didn't look up when I entered. She was sitting on the floor by the French doors, her knees drawn to her chest, her eyes fixed on the moonlit sea beyond the glass. The food Yelena had brought sat untouched on a side table—fruit, cheese, bread, a bottle of wine that hadn't been opened.
"You should eat," I said.
"I'm not hungry."
"You haven't had anything since before I took you. Your body needs fuel."
"My body needs to be back in New York." She still didn't look at me. "But we don't always get what we need, do we?"
I moved further into the room, my shoes silent on the carpet. She tensed as I approached but didn't flee—there was nowhere to go, and we both knew it.
"Gabrielle—"
"Don't." The word cracked like a whip. "Don't say my name like you know me. Like we're friends. Like you didn't drug me and kidnap me and fly me to some island I couldn't find on a map."
"I did what was necessary to keep you alive."
She finally looked up at me then, and the fury in her dark eyes made something tighten in my chest. She was beautiful in her rage—flushed and fierce and nothing like the meek, anxious woman I'd been watching for weeks.
"Who are you?" she demanded. "Really. Not your name—I know your name. I want to know what you are. What kind of person stalks a woman for weeks and then steals her from her home in the middle of the night."
I considered lying, considered softening the truth. But she deserved honesty, even if it horrified her.
"I run an organization," I said. "A family business, you might call it. We have interests in various industries—nightclubs, restaurants, import-export. Some of those interests are legal. Many are not."
"You're a criminal."
"I'm Bratva. Russian organized crime. My father built this empire, and I inherited it when he retired five years ago."
Her face went pale in the moonlight. "Mafia. You're telling me I was kidnapped by the Russian mafia."
"I'm telling you that you were saved by the Russian mafia.
Specifically, by me." I crouched down to bring myself to her level, and she pressed back against the glass doors.
"There's another organization—Armenian—that's been pushing into our territory.
Their leader is a man named Pankratov. Brutal, ambitious, and completely without mercy.
He's been looking for ways to hurt me, and somehow, he found out about you. "
"About me?" She shook her head. "I don't have anything to do with your business. I didn't even know you existed until you showed up in that coffee shop."