Chapter Eleven - Vivienne
The air smells dank and rotten, even worse than I remember.
I sit up too fast, chest tight, and take in where I am.
It’s not a cell, not in the way people imagine them.
This place is draped in velvet curtains that touch the floor, soft sheets that slip over my skin, furniture carved from dark wood that gleams under the low light.
A chandelier hangs above, glittering with crystal drops that scatter fragments of light across the ceiling.
Everything screams wealth, power, control.
The cuff tells the truth.
I stand, tugging once more at the chain that links me to the bedframe. It doesn’t give. I crouch, fingers testing the lock, nails scraping against steel. No weakness.
Not a guest. A prisoner in a cage dressed as a palace.
I move through the room in tight circles, chain dragging against the floor with every step. Seven paces from bed to window. Four to the dresser. Three to the door. My body memorizes the measurements, as if knowledge alone could carve a path to freedom.
The windows are locked. Heavy panes that rattle but don’t open, the kind that could take a crowbar without breaking.
The door, when I try it, is the same—solid, silent.
I remember that my bag is gone. My phone too.
Everything abandoned or stripped from me until there’s nothing left but this room, this silence, and the thoughts I can’t push down.
Time stretches. No clock ticks. No voices pass outside. I try to lie back on the bed, to close my eyes, but the silence is too sharp. Every second feels like a rope pulling tighter around my throat.
I don’t know how long passes before I hear it.
The lock turning.
I sit up instantly, spine straight, my hand twitching toward the cuff as if I could cover it. The door opens.
He steps in.
Alexei Sharov doesn’t rush, doesn’t storm, doesn’t draw a weapon. He closes the door with the same deliberate calm he carries into every room, as though he owns not only the space but the air itself. He takes in the sight of me—chained, waiting—and then crosses to the chair opposite the bed.
He sits.
The silence that follows is unbearable. My pulse hammers, but I force my face blank, my breathing steady. If he wants fear, I’ll give him steel.
His gaze drops once to the cuff, then rises to mine. “Comfortable?”
The word is smooth, mocking. I don’t answer.
He leans forward slightly, elbows braced on his knees. His voice is low, steady, cutting through the quiet like a blade. “Who paid you?”
I keep my silence.
“Who else is involved?”
Nothing.
“How long have you been working against me?”
Each question is precise, sharp, meant to draw blood. He doesn’t raise his voice, doesn’t snarl. He doesn’t need to. The danger is in the calm, in the certainty threaded through each word.
I hold my ground.
Then I let the words slip free, the ones I’ve kept locked inside, buried so deep they almost choke me as they surface.
“Your family ordered my father’s death.”
The room goes still.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. His expression remains carved from stone, but something shifts beneath it. A flicker in the eyes, so brief I might have imagined it.
I lean forward, the chain clinking against the bedframe. “You can keep asking me who I work for, who I serve, how long I’ve been playing this game. None of that matters. This is about you. About what you did.”
His jaw tightens, almost imperceptibly. “Explain.”
The command in his tone sends a shiver down my spine, but I bite it back. I shake my head.
“No.”
The refusal tastes like iron, heavy and final.
“This isn’t negotiation,” I tell him, my voice rough around the edges. “It isn’t bargaining. I don’t want your money. I don’t want your threats. I want you to hear me.”
My chest aches, but I keep going, my words coming sharper, faster, fueled by the rage I’ve tried to smother for years.
“You took him from me. My father. You didn’t pull the trigger yourself, but the order came from your family.
You built your empire on blood that didn’t belong to you.
On families you tore apart. On lives you left in pieces.
Now you’re asking me to explain myself?”
The silence presses in again, thicker now.
I laugh once, bitter and raw. “This isn’t my confession. It’s yours.”
His eyes hold mine, unblinking. The weight of that stare makes my skin burn. He doesn’t deny it. He doesn’t confirm it either. His calm expression doesn’t crack, but the stillness of him—the quiet thinking behind his eyes—is worse than rage.
I want to see fury. I want to see violence. I want him to lash out, to prove me right. But he doesn’t.
That terrifies me more than anything else could.
I lean forward again, my voice dropping, nearly a whisper. “I want you to live with it. I want you to know that no matter what power you hold, no matter how untouchable you believe you are, it’s rotten. You’re rotten, because of what you took.”
My hands tremble, but I don’t hide it. Let him see. Let him know what it cost me to sit here and say it.
“You think you’re in control, Alexei. You’re not. You’re carrying ghosts whether you admit it or not, and mine will never leave you.”
The cuff clinks faintly when I shift, a small reminder of where I am, what power he holds.
He still doesn’t speak. That silence, thick and waiting, tells me more than words ever could.
It tells me he’s listening. It tells me he’s thinking.
The moment he stands, the room feels colder. Alexei doesn’t slam the door or rattle the chain at my ankle as he leaves. He doesn’t even look back. He simply walks out, his silence pressed sharp into me like a blade that hasn’t drawn blood yet.
The lock clicks into place.
I sit there for what feels like hours, staring at the velvet drapes as the air turns heavy again.
The interrogation was brutal, but the silence he left behind is worse.
Silence leaves room for the mind to rot, for questions to coil tight in the chest. What’s next?
Punishment? Exile? Something far crueler?
I can’t guess. With Alexei, guessing is useless.
I stretch my legs, the chain clinking softly, and pace as much as the cuff allows. Seven steps to the window. Three to the door. I count them until I’m dizzy, until my jaw aches from grinding my teeth.
Eventually I give in to the exhaustion in my limbs. I strip the sheets from the bed and lie down, not to sleep—I’ve barely woken up—but to breathe. The fabric is soft, absurdly so, whispering over my bare arms, brushing against my throat. Luxury pressed over steel. A lie dressed as comfort.
Time slides by. Minutes or hours, I can’t tell. My body aches for release, for something other than waiting, so I rise and head toward the bathroom tucked behind a gilded door.
It’s no less extravagant than the bedroom. Marble floors, a clawfoot tub gleaming under dim light, gold fixtures that glint against the porcelain sink. Steam curls as I twist the faucet, water rushing hot, filling the room with the hiss of promise.
I undress slowly, peeling fabric from my skin, dropping each piece onto the tiled floor. My reflection catches me in the wide mirror: pale, tense, a woman bound in chains yet moving like she owns herself. I hold that image for a moment, needing to believe it.
The water is scalding when I step under the showerhead, and I welcome the sting.
It races down my body, over shoulders tight with tension, down my spine, along thighs that have carried too much.
My head tilts back, eyes closing, lips parting around a breath that comes ragged at first, then steadier.
Steam wraps me in heat, loosening knots in my muscles.
I soap my skin slowly, deliberately, as if each stroke could wash away the memory of his questions, the weight of his silence, the ghosts I dragged into the room between us.
My hands linger at my throat, then slide lower, circling the ache in my chest, the heat coiling lower still.
I don’t let myself chase it far. It’s not release I want, not really. It’s distraction. For a few stolen minutes, I pretend the chain isn’t there, that the door isn’t locked, that Alexei Sharov doesn’t sit somewhere in this estate deciding whether I live or die.
When I step out, the mirror is fogged, my skin damp and flushed. I towel myself off, wrapping silk against bare curves, and push the bathroom door open.
He’s waiting.
Dimitri sits on the edge of the bed, arms crossed, eyes sharp under the dim light. He doesn’t rise when I enter, doesn’t look away.
The cuff at my ankle glints as I step back into the room. His gaze follows the movement, then flicks up to my face.
“Nice cage they’ve given you,” he says, his accent heavier than Alexei’s, his voice rough like gravel dragged across stone.
I grip the towel tighter around myself. “Do you usually watch women while they shower, or am I special?”
A corner of his mouth lifts, though it isn’t amusement; it’s something darker. “If I wanted to watch, I wouldn’t wait until you were finished.”
The air tightens between us. I force myself not to shrink, not to cover more skin than the towel already hides.
“What do you want, Dimitri?” My voice is steady, though my pulse isn’t.
He leans back, spreading his hands over his knees. “To tell you what happens to liars.”
My chest tightens, but I don’t let it show. I step forward, closer to the dresser, to my clothes folded neatly there. “Then tell me.”
His eyes track me as I move, slow and deliberate. “Some are beaten until they beg. Some are cut until they talk. Some vanish without a trace, their names swallowed by the ground. Alexei decides which.”
“What will happen to me?” I ask, my fingers brushing the fabric of a blouse, pretending my hand doesn’t shake.
Dimitri tilts his head, studying me like he’s dissecting a puzzle. “You’re different. He doesn’t know if you’re enemy or ally, and that makes him hesitate. No one else gets hesitation from him. Not me. Not anyone. Just you.”
The words ripple through me, but I don’t let them root. I turn slightly, meeting his gaze. “You’re warning me?”
“I’m reminding you.” His voice hardens. “Whatever you think you’re playing at, it won’t last. You’re alive now because he hasn’t decided yet. Don’t mistake that for mercy.”
The silence after hangs heavier than the steam still clinging to my skin.
I slip into my blouse slowly, each button a small defiance, and finally say, “I never mistake him for merciful.”
Dimitri stands then, finally moving toward the door. He pauses with his hand on the handle, glancing back over his shoulder.
“Good,” he says simply.
Then he leaves me alone again, the echo of his warning thick in the air, the chain at my ankle colder than before.
The door shuts with a hollow thud, and I’m left staring at the velvet drapes as if they might answer the questions clawing at me. My skin is still warm from the shower, but inside I’m frozen.
Dimitri’s words circle like vultures— you’re alive now because he hasn’t decided yet.
I sink onto the bed, tugging the blouse tighter around me, the cuff clinking against the frame. My chest rises sharp, refusing calm. I tell myself I won’t break, not here, not for them. Yet when the silence swells again, I realize breaking might not be a choice.