Chapter 7 - Gaby
For a moment when I woke, I didn't know where I was.
Sunlight streamed through unfamiliar windows, warm and golden, falling across silk sheets that definitely weren't mine.
The ceiling was too high, the room too large, the air too fragrant with salt and flowers.
I blinked at it all in confusion, my sleep-fogged brain struggling to make sense of the wrongness.
Then memory crashed back like a wave, and I sat up gasping.
The island. The kidnapping. Vasily Chernov and his cold green eyes, telling me I was under his protection whether I liked it or not.
I pressed my hands to my face, waiting for the panic to subside. It didn't, not entirely—a low thrum of terror had taken up permanent residence in my chest—but eventually it receded enough for me to breathe normally.
The clock on the nightstand showed 9:38 AM. I'd slept for nearly twelve hours, my body finally surrendering to exhaustion despite my mind's desperate resistance. Through the French doors, the Mediterranean sparkled under a cloudless sky, impossibly blue and beautiful and useless to me.
I forced myself out of bed. Standing still felt like surrender.
The suite looked different in daylight. Last night, I'd been too distraught to notice much beyond the basic geography—bed, bathroom, balcony, prison.
Now I saw the details: fresh flowers on the dresser, expensive art on the walls, a sitting area with velvet chairs arranged around a marble fireplace.
Everything tasteful, luxurious, carefully curated.
The closet stopped me cold.
It was a walk-in, larger than my entire bedroom back in New York, and it was full. Dresses, blouses, trousers, skirts—all arranged by color, all bearing labels I recognized from the designer stores I'd never been able to afford. I pulled out a silk blouse at random and checked the tag.
Size sixteen. My exact size.
My stomach turned. I moved deeper into the closet, checking more tags, finding the same thing over and over.
Everything was my size. Not just approximate—exact.
The jeans were the specific cut I preferred to accommodate my hips.
The bras were the right cup and band. Even the shoes were correct, down to the half-size that most stores didn't carry.
He'd been watching me long enough to learn my measurements. To catalog my preferences. To build an entire wardrobe based on surveillance I'd never known was happening.
I backed out of the closet, my skin crawling.
The bathroom was worse. My shampoo—the exact brand and scent I'd been using for three years.
My moisturizer, my toothpaste, my preferred razor.
On the counter sat a bottle of perfume I'd mentioned wanting to Lisa months ago but couldn't justify the expense.
How had he known? Had he bugged my apartment? Hacked my phone?
A bookshelf in the sitting area held the final horror. I scanned the titles and recognized every single one—books I'd saved to my wishlist, books I'd browsed in stores but put back, books I'd mentioned in passing conversations. He'd compiled a library of everything I'd ever wanted to read.
It should have felt thoughtful. Instead, it felt like violation—like he'd crawled inside my head and taken inventory of my desires, my preferences, my private self. The self I showed no one.
I sank onto the bed, shaking.
This wasn't just kidnapping. This was obsession. And I was trapped in the center of it with no way out.
***
A knock at the door made me jump.
"Miss Blanchard?" Yelena's voice, warm and professional. "Mr. Chernov would like to know if you're ready for breakfast. And afterward, he'd like to show you the grounds."
I wanted to refuse. Wanted to barricade myself in this room and never see his face again. But isolation wouldn't help me escape—if escape was even possible. I needed information. I needed to understand the layout of this place, the routines of the guards, the boundaries of my cage.
"Give me twenty minutes," I called back.
I showered quickly, trying not to think about how he'd known which soap I preferred.
The closet mocked me as I selected clothes—a simple navy dress that fit perfectly, sandals that might have been made for my feet.
I left my hair loose and skipped makeup entirely.
I wasn't going to pretty myself up for my captor.
Yelena led me to a terrace overlooking the sea, where a table had been set with more food than I could eat in a week. Fresh fruit, pastries, eggs, bacon, an array of cheeses and breads. And at the head of the table, watching me approach with those unnerving green eyes, sat Vasily Chernov.
He rose as I approached—old-world manners, I thought bitterly, from a man who'd drugged me in an alley.
"Good morning." His gaze swept over me, lingering on the dress in a way that made my skin prickle. "You look rested."
"I look like a prisoner in borrowed clothes."
"The clothes are yours. Everything in that room is yours."
"I didn't ask for any of it."
"No." He pulled out a chair for me, waiting. "But I wanted you to have it nonetheless."
I sat because standing felt like losing a different kind of battle. Yelena poured coffee—prepared exactly how I liked it, because of course it was—and retreated into the house, leaving us alone.
The silence stretched. I refused to break it, focusing instead on the food I didn't want to eat. But my stomach growled audibly, and Vasily's lips twitched with something that might have been amusement.
"Eat," he said. "You'll need your strength for the tour."
"Is that an order?"
"It's a suggestion. Though I'm prepared to make it an order if necessary."
I wanted to refuse on principle. But I hadn't eaten properly in two days, and spite wouldn't help me escape. I reached for a croissant, tearing it into pieces, refusing to give him the satisfaction of watching me enjoy anything.
"The island is approximately forty acres," he said, as if we were having a normal conversation. "The estate itself covers about half that. The rest is gardens, orchards, and natural terrain. There's a private beach on the south side, though the currents make swimming inadvisable."
"Inadvisable, or impossible?"
"Both, for anyone without professional training." He sipped his coffee, watching me over the rim. "The cliffs on the north and east are sheer drops—two hundred feet to the rocks below. The western shore is the only viable access point, which is why it's the most heavily guarded."
He was telling me, in precise detail, why escape was impossible. Warning me not to try. I filed away every word anyway, searching for weaknesses he might not realize he was revealing.
"How far to the mainland?"
"Thirty-seven nautical miles to the nearest inhabited island. Sixty-two to the Greek coast." He set down his cup. "Even if you managed to steal a boat—which you wouldn't—you'd never make it. The waters here are treacherous, and you don't know how to navigate them."
"You seem very confident about what I do and don't know."
"I know everything about you, Gabrielle.
" The words were soft, almost gentle, and they made my blood run cold.
"Your coffee order. Your favorite restaurants.
The route you walk to the subway. The book you read on your lunch breaks.
" He leaned forward, his eyes holding mine.
"I know you cry in your shower when you think no one can hear.
I know you haven't let anyone see you undressed in two years because you're ashamed of your body.
I know you call your father every Sunday and spend the rest of the week recovering from his criticism. "
Each revelation landed like a blow. He'd been inside my life for weeks—months, maybe—and I'd never known. Every private moment, every vulnerability, every secret shame—he'd witnessed it all.
"You're a monster," I whispered.
"Perhaps." He rose from his chair, extending a hand. "Shall we begin the tour?"
I didn't take his hand. I stood on my own, keeping the table between us, and gestured for him to lead the way.
If he was disappointed by my refusal, he didn't show it.
***
The estate was beautiful. I hated it.
Vasily led me through manicured gardens and sun-dappled orchards, past fountains and statues and terraces overlooking the endless blue sea.
Every sight was postcard-perfect, every scent intoxicating—jasmine, citrus, the salt-clean tang of the ocean.
Under different circumstances, I might have called it paradise.
Instead, I cataloged guards.
Two at the main gate. Three patrolling the western perimeter. Another stationed at the dock where a sleek speedboat bobbed in the gentle waves. They all straightened when Vasily passed, their eyes tracking me with a mixture of curiosity and wariness. The new prisoner. The boss's obsession.
"The gardens were designed by a landscape architect from Florence," Vasily was saying, his hand ghosting against the small of my back as he guided me around a corner. The touch was light, barely there, but it sent electricity crackling up my spine. I stepped away, putting distance between us.
He noticed. Of course he noticed.
"The roses are particularly impressive in spring," he continued, as if nothing had happened. "My mother loved roses. She used to tend them herself, before—"
He stopped abruptly, his jaw tightening.
"Before what?"
"Before she died." The words were flat, closed off. A door slamming shut.
I should have left it alone. Should have remembered that this man was my enemy, my captor, someone whose pain was not my concern. But I'd seen something flicker in his expression—something raw and wounded beneath the controlled surface.
I filed it away and kept walking.
The path wound down toward the cliffs, and my sandal caught on a loose stone. I stumbled, arms pinwheeling, and then his hands were on me—one gripping my elbow, the other splayed across my stomach, steadying me against the solid wall of his chest.
For a moment, neither of us moved.