Chapter 9 - Gaby
I woke to sunlight and silence.
For a disoriented moment, I didn't know where I was.
The bed was too large, the sheets too soft, the light falling at the wrong angle through windows that weren't mine.
Then I saw the ring on my finger—platinum and diamond, catching the morning sun like a tiny imprisoned star—and everything crashed back.
Married. I was married.
I sat up too fast, my head spinning. The bedroom was elegant and unfamiliar—cream walls, dark wood furniture, French doors leading to a private balcony.
My things had been arranged on the dresser and nightstand with careful precision: books, toiletries, the few personal items I'd been allowed to keep from my old life.
The door to the adjoining room—his room—was closed. I stared at it, waiting for it to open, for him to appear and make whatever demands a husband made of a wife on the morning after their wedding.
It stayed closed.
Minutes passed. Then an hour. Yelena knocked softly and entered with a breakfast tray—fresh fruit, yogurt, coffee prepared exactly how I liked it. She set it on the table by the balcony and smiled at me with that patient kindness that made me want to scream.
"Mr. Chernov asked me to tell you he'll be in meetings most of the day," she said. "But he hopes you'll join him for dinner this evening."
He hopes. As if I had a choice. As if anything about this arrangement involved my hopes or preferences.
"I'm not hungry," I said.
"Of course." Yelena's smile didn't waver. "I'll leave the tray in case you change your mind."
She left, and I was alone with my fury and my confusion and the ring that felt like a brand on my skin.
***
Three days passed.
I learned the rhythms of my captivity, the patterns of the prison I was expected to call home.
Vasily was often absent—closeted in his study with phone calls, meeting with his brothers in rooms I wasn't invited to enter, managing the machinery of his empire from this island sanctuary.
When we did encounter each other, it was brief and charged: meals I couldn't avoid, passing each other in hallways, the occasional moment on the terrace when we both sought the same view.
I waited for him to make demands. To assert his rights as my husband, to force himself into my space, my bed, my body. It was what I expected—what I'd braced myself for since the moment he'd slid that ring onto my finger.
But he didn't.
He kept his distance. Spoke to me with unfailing courtesy. Asked about my comfort, my needs, whether there was anything I wanted that hadn't been provided. He was patient and solicitous and maddeningly respectful, and it made me want to throw things at his head.
I'd prepared myself for a monster. I didn't know what to do with a man who brought me books he thought I'd enjoy and left them outside my door without comment.
So I fought him in the only ways I could.
I refused to eat meals with him, taking my food to my room or the library or the gardens—anywhere he wasn't. I wandered the grounds obsessively, cataloging guard rotations and security cameras, looking for weaknesses I never found.
I spoke to the staff in clipped tones, rejecting their warmth, refusing to play the role of gracious lady of the house.
Yelena bore my coldness with patience that made me feel like a petulant child.
The guards watched me with careful neutrality, never engaging, never letting me forget I was a prisoner, no matter how gilded the cage.
Even the cook—a round Greek woman named Despina who produced miraculous meals from the estate's kitchen—seemed immune to my hostility, simply leaving plates of food in places she knew I'd find them.
I was surrounded by people and utterly alone.
On the fourth night, I couldn't sleep.
I'd grown accustomed to insomnia in New York—the racing thoughts, the anxiety that wouldn't quiet, the hours spent staring at the ceiling while my mind cataloged every failure and fear.
But this was different. This was the particular wakefulness of a trapped animal, every sense straining for danger in the dark.
I rose and pulled on a robe, too restless to stay in bed. The master suite had its own sitting room, but the walls felt too close tonight. I needed space. Air. The illusion of freedom, even if I couldn't have the real thing.
The hallway was dim, lit only by small sconces that cast pools of amber light at intervals. I moved quietly, barefoot on the cool marble, not sure where I was going until I found myself outside Vasily's door.
I'd avoided this door for three days. Had walked past it with my eyes straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge its existence, refusing to think about what lay behind it. My husband's bedroom. The room where he slept, alone, on the other side of the wall from my own bed.
I didn't know why I'd stopped here now. Didn't know what I was looking for, what I expected to find.
Then I heard it.
A sound from inside—low, anguished, muffled by the heavy wood. Not quite a cry, not quite words. Something between a groan and a sob.
I pressed my ear to the door without thinking.
"Net." The word was Russian, raw with pain. "Net, pozhaluysta, mama—"
He was having a nightmare. My kidnapper, my captor, my husband—thrashing in his sleep, crying out for his mother in a language I didn't speak.
I should have walked away. Should have retreated to my room and pretended I'd heard nothing. His pain was not my concern. His demons were not my problem. He'd forfeited any claim to my sympathy the moment he'd drugged me in that alley.
But I stood frozen, listening to the broken sounds of his grief, and something shifted in my chest. Something I didn't want to name.
He cried out again—sharper this time, more desperate—and then went silent. I heard movement, the creak of bedsprings, footsteps crossing the floor. I stepped back quickly, but not quickly enough.
The door opened, and Vasily stood before me.
He was shirtless, wearing only loose pants that hung low on his hips. His hair was disheveled, his skin gleaming with sweat, and in the dim light I could see the ghosts that still haunted his eyes. He looked younger somehow. Vulnerable in a way I'd never seen him.
"Gabrielle." His voice was hoarse, still rough with sleep. "What are you doing here?"
"I couldn't sleep." The words came out defensive. "I was walking. I heard—"
I stopped, unsure how to finish. I heard you had a nightmare? I heard you crying for your mother? The intimacy of the admission felt dangerous.
"You heard me." It wasn't a question. He leaned against the doorframe, not bothering to hide the evidence of his distress. "I'm sorry if I disturbed you."
"You didn't." I was staring at his chest—couldn't help it.
He was broader than I'd realized, his body carved with muscle, scattered with scars I hadn't expected.
A raised line across his ribs. A puckered circle near his shoulder that looked like a healed bullet wound. A map of violence written on his skin.
"My eyes are up here."
Heat flooded my cheeks. I jerked my gaze up to find him watching me with something that might have been amusement.
"I wasn't—"
"You were." He pushed off from the doorframe, moving closer. "It's all right. I look at you too. More than I should."
My heart was pounding. I should step back, put distance between us, remember who he was and what he'd done. Instead, I stood rooted to the spot while he closed the gap between us.
"You should go back to bed," he said softly.
"So should you."
"I won't sleep again tonight. I never do, after the dreams."
"What do you dream about?"
The question slipped out before I could stop it. He went still, his expression flickering with surprise. I'd been so careful not to ask him anything personal, not to show any interest in the man beneath the monster. This was a crack in my defenses, and we both knew it.
"My mother," he said finally. "I dream about finding her."
"Finding her?"
"She killed herself. When I was seventeen." His voice was flat, matter-of-fact, but I could see the cost of the words in the tightness around his eyes. "I was the one who found her. In the bathtub. The water had gone cold by then."
The image hit me like a physical blow. Seventeen years old, walking into a bathroom to find his mother—
"I'm sorry," I whispered. The words felt inadequate, absurd. I was apologizing to my captor. Offering sympathy to the man who'd stolen my life.
But in that moment, he wasn't my captor. He was just a man standing in a dark hallway, haunted by a grief he couldn't outrun.
"It was a long time ago." He reached out, and I flinched instinctively—but he only tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, his touch gentle. "Go back to bed, Gabrielle. Get some sleep."
"What will you do?"
"Sit in the library. Read. Wait for dawn." His hand lingered near my face, not quite touching. "It's what I always do."
I should have walked away. Should have retreated to my room and locked the door and rebuilt the walls he kept finding ways to breach.
Instead, I heard myself say: "I'll come with you."
***
The library was dark except for a single lamp he switched on by the fireplace.
It was my favorite room in the house—I'd discovered that over the past three days, spending hours among the books to avoid spending them anywhere else. Two stories of leather-bound volumes, rolling ladders, deep armchairs positioned near windows that looked out over the moonlit sea.
Vasily settled into one of the armchairs, and after a moment's hesitation, I took the one across from him. The distance felt both too close and not close enough.
"You come here often," he said. "I've seen you on the cameras."
"Of course you have." I couldn't keep the bitterness from my voice. "Is there anywhere on this island you don't watch me?"
"Your bathroom. Your bedroom, when you're changing." He said it without shame. "I'm not interested in violating your privacy that way. I just need to know you're safe."