Chapter 13 - Gaby
I woke to warmth I didn't recognize.
For a disoriented moment, I couldn't place where I was.
The bed was wrong—too large, the sheets too soft, the light falling at an unfamiliar angle.
And there was something else, something that had never been part of my mornings: an arm wrapped around my waist, a chest pressed against my back, the slow rhythm of someone else's breathing against my hair.
Then memory crashed back, and I went very still.
Last night. The library. The kiss that had shattered the last of my resistance. And then his bedroom, his hands, his body moving inside mine while I cried out his name like a prayer.
I'd slept with Vasily Chernov. My kidnapper. My captor. My husband.
I waited for the regret to hit—the crushing wave of shame and self-recrimination that should accompany such a spectacular lapse in judgment. I'd spent weeks fighting him, hating him, building walls against the confusing attraction that had been growing despite my best efforts.
And then I'd torn those walls down myself.
But the regret didn't come. Instead, I felt something more complicated: a bone-deep satisfaction I hadn't known I was capable of, tangled up with terror and confusion and a strange, tentative peace.
Vasily stirred behind me, his arm tightening around my waist. "You're thinking too loud," he murmured against my hair, his voice rough with sleep.
"How can you tell?"
"Your whole body went rigid." He pressed a kiss to my shoulder—soft, almost chaste, completely at odds with what we'd done in this bed hours ago. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong." It wasn't entirely a lie. "I'm just... processing."
He was quiet for a moment. Then he released me and rolled onto his back, giving me space I hadn't asked for but probably needed.
"Do you regret it?"
The question was careful, neutral. But I heard the tension underneath—the fear he was trying to hide.
I turned to face him, propping myself on one elbow. In the morning light, he looked different. Softer, somehow. The sharp angles of his face were gentled by sleep, his dark hair disheveled, his green eyes still heavy-lidded. He looked almost approachable. Almost human.
"No," I said, and meant it. "I don't regret it."
Something eased in his expression. "But?"
"But I don't know what it means. What we are now. What happens next?"
"What do you want to happen next?"
I laughed, the sound coming out slightly hysterical.
"I don't know. That's the problem. A month ago, I had a life.
A job, an apartment, a best friend who's probably convinced I'm dead by now.
I knew who I was and what I wanted." I looked down at the ring on my finger, the diamond catching the light. "Now I don't know anything anymore."
Vasily reached out, his fingers brushing my cheek. The touch was gentle, questioning—so different from the iron grip of the man who'd dragged me from that alley.
"You know some things," he said quietly. "You know you're brilliant at your work. You know you're stronger than anyone gave you credit for. You know you're not the fragile, frightened woman who arrived on this island."
"I'm still frightened."
"Of me?"
I considered the question seriously. A week ago, the answer would have been an unequivocal yes. Now...
"No," I admitted. "Not of you. Not anymore."
"Then what?"
"Of this." I gestured between us, at the rumpled sheets, at the intimacy neither of us had planned. "Of what I'm becoming. I don't recognize myself anymore, Vasily. The woman who climbed into your bed last night—she's not who I was."
"Maybe she's who you're supposed to be."
"Or maybe she's who you've made me into."
The words came out sharper than I'd intended. I saw them land, saw the flicker of hurt he couldn't quite hide.
"I'm sorry," I said quickly. "That wasn't—I didn't mean—"
"You meant it." He sat up, the sheets pooling around his waist, and I tried not to stare at the scars that mapped his torso. "And you're not wrong. I took you from your life. I made choices for you that weren't mine to make. Whatever you're becoming, I bear responsibility for that."
"That's not what I—"
"Let me finish." He caught my hand, his thumb tracing circles on my palm. "I took you. That's true. But what you've become since then—the woman who impressed Semyon, who refused to break, who came to me last night of her own will—that's not something I made. That's something you found in yourself."
I wanted to argue. Wanted to maintain the comfortable fiction that everything I felt was his fault, his manipulation, his doing. But I couldn't. Because he was right.
He'd created the circumstances. But I'd made the choices.
"I need coffee," I said, because I didn't know what else to say.
His lips twitched. "I'll have some sent up."
***
We navigated the morning awkwardly, like strangers learning a new language.
He was gentle with me in ways I hadn't expected—pouring my coffee exactly how I liked it, asking if I was sore, offering me first use of the shower.
Small courtesies that shouldn't have mattered but did.
The Vasily I'd known before last night was intense, demanding, a man who took what he wanted. This version was almost tender.
I didn't know which one was real. Maybe both.
"I have work to do," I said after breakfast, needing distance to think.
"The real estate acquisition?"
"Semyon left the files before he flew out. I should get started."
"Of course." He didn't try to stop me, didn't suggest I stay with him instead. Just nodded and returned to whatever was occupying him on his phone, his expression shifting into the harder lines of the Pakhan dealing with his empire.
I retreated to the library and buried myself in numbers.
The acquisition was for a property in Athens—a commercial building that one of the Chernov holding companies wanted to purchase for development.
The financials were complex, layered with subsidiary ownership and tax implications I had to untangle.
It was exactly the kind of puzzle I'd loved in my old life, before everything changed.
For hours, I lost myself in spreadsheets and market analyses.
I compared rental rates in the surrounding area, projected vacancy trends, calculated potential returns under different development scenarios.
The work was familiar, grounding. It reminded me that I was more than just a body Vasily wanted, more than a prisoner in a gilded cage.
I was good at this. And being good at something felt like reclaiming a piece of myself.
By mid-afternoon, I had a preliminary assessment ready—not as thorough as the Aegean analysis, but solid enough to demonstrate I understood the complexities. I was reviewing my conclusions when raised voices drifted in from somewhere in the house.
I set aside my laptop and listened.
The words were muffled, indistinct. But I recognized the tone: urgent, angry, the kind of conversation that meant something had gone wrong. I stood and moved toward the library door, my heart rate climbing.
The voices resolved as I approached the study. Vasily's, sharp with command. And another voice I didn't recognize, tinny and distorted—a phone call on speaker.
"—three dead, four more in the hospital. They came in through the back entrance, hit the office before anyone knew what was happening—"
"Where was security?" Vasily's voice was ice.
"Dmitri had men on both doors. They were professional, boss. Quick in, quick out. Knew exactly where to go."
"The leak."
"Has to be. No other way they'd know about the cash pickup schedule."
I pressed myself against the wall outside the study, my breath shallow. Three dead. An attack on one of his clubs. A leak that was feeding information to his enemies.
The violence I'd been insulated from on this island—it was still happening. Still claiming lives. And Vasily was at the center of it, even from thousands of miles away.
"I'm coming back," he said. "Arrange the plane for tomorrow morning."
"The men will be glad to see you, boss. They've been asking—"
"I don't care what they've been asking. I care about finding whoever's feeding Pankratov information and making an example of them." A pause. "Have Semyon meet me at the penthouse. We need to go through every possible source of the leak."
"Yes, boss."
The call ended. I heard movement inside the study—footsteps, the clink of glass—and quickly retreated before he could find me eavesdropping.
But I couldn't stop thinking about what I'd heard.
Tomorrow morning. He was leaving tomorrow morning.
***
He found me in the library an hour later.
I'd tried to return to work, but the numbers swam before my eyes. All I could think about was the attack, the dead men, the war Vasily was flying back to fight. A war that existed, in part, because of his obsession with me.
"You heard," he said from the doorway.
I didn't bother denying it. "Three dead?"
"Yes." He moved into the room, lowering himself into the chair across from mine. He looked tired, the lines around his eyes deeper than they'd been this morning. "Pankratov hit The Trophy Room during a cash pickup. Knew exactly when and where to strike."
"The leak."
"Someone in my organization is feeding him information. Has been for weeks, maybe longer." His jaw tightened. "I should have dealt with this sooner. Should have been in New York instead of—"
"Instead of here. With me."
He didn't deny it.
"Tell me about him," I said. "Pankratov. I want to understand what you're fighting."
Vasily was quiet for a moment, studying me. Then he leaned back in his chair and began to speak.
"Aram Pankratov leads the Armenian organization in New York.
We've had territorial disputes for years—gambling dens, protection routes, the usual friction.
But it's escalated in the past eighteen months.
He wants what we have. The ports, the clubs, the distribution networks.
He's been pushing, testing, looking for weaknesses. "
"And then he found one."