Chapter Nineteen - Karmia
The world narrows. Every morning, I wake to the same painted ceiling, the same velvet curtains, the same silence thick as fog.
Guards prowl the corridors, always close enough to see, never quite far enough to forget. The compound sprawls—gardens, halls, hidden rooms—but each door is a warning, each window a reminder of what’s out of reach. Freedom glitters just beyond the glass, impossible and infuriating.
My days blur together. Meals arrive at regular hours, delivered by silent maids who keep their eyes lowered. I walk the grounds in tight, measured circles under the gaze of Rostya’s men, pacing like a tiger in a too-small cage.
The only sound is the echo of my footsteps, and the hush gnaws at me until I want to scream just to shatter it.
Restlessness chews at my nerves. My mind spins, circling old fears and new anger; Denis Volkov’s offer lurks in the corners, too tempting, too dangerous. He promised freedom, power.
Trust is a currency I can’t afford. I’ve seen what men like Rostya—and the Volkovs—do with women who step out of line. I cannot trust Denis, not when his eyes gleamed with secrets and ambition. I won’t trade one prison for another, no matter how gilded the bars.
One afternoon, when the house is quieter and the guards distracted by a delivery at the main gate, I slip into Rostya’s office.
My heart thuds in my chest, my hands clammy and unsteady as I sort through drawers and shelves.
I am looking for something—anything—that might open a door, that might let me breathe.
Papers rattle. I find account ledgers, coded lists, photographs with names scrawled on the back. In a locked drawer I crack with a stolen key, I find what I didn’t know I was seeking. Documents marked with the Volkov name. Locations. Numbers. Timetables. Prisoner transfers.
Ilya Volkov… where he’s kept, when he’s moved, details of his captivity written in Rostya’s clipped, merciless hand.
A cold sweat breaks out across my neck. This is a weapon. I could trade this to Denis, buy my way out, maybe even strike back at Rostya. I could be free. The idea fizzes through me, electric, bright with the possibility of something new.
As I stand there, the file trembling in my hands, my stomach twists. To trade with Denis is to put myself in his debt. To be caught between two monsters, instead of just one. I see the calculation in Rostya’s eyes, the cruelty in Denis’s. I will not let either of them claim me.
I snap the file shut, shove it back in the drawer, and force myself to breathe. I’ll escape—one way or another. I’ll do it alone. I won’t let another man decide the shape of my life, or the future of the child I carry. My freedom will be mine, or not at all.
***
The house softens with evening, shadows growing long across the marble floors.
Rain begins to tap against the windows, a hush, secretive sound that stirs something wild inside me.
For once, the guards’ patrol is staggered, their voices drifting from the far end of the hall, now distracted by a delivery at the back gate.
I watch, breath held, as their routine fractures just enough.
For a heartbeat, there is a gap. My chance.
Barefoot, I slip from my room, heart pounding so hard I feel it in my fingertips.
I move like a ghost… down the stairs, through silent corridors that twist and turn, each corner holding its breath.
My only witness is the rain, the storm’s clean promise leaking through half-open doors and windows.
I move by memory, clinging to every detail I’ve mapped over weeks of forced captivity.
The house is a maze, but I know it now—where the floor creaks, where the security cameras are blind, where the servants slip away for a stolen smoke.
My breath rasps in my throat. Every shadow feels dangerous, each one pressing close, threatening to swallow me if I falter.
I taste desperation, sharp and electric.
My world shrinks to the next door, the next turn, the next step.
As I approach the outer gates, the smell of rain grows stronger, heavy with earth and freedom.
It’s so close I ache with it, a longing that feels like hunger, like hope.
For a single, reckless moment, I let myself believe I will make it, that I will step into the storm and be free, that I will outrun his shadow, his hands, his name.
I round the last corner, breath hitching. The gate is there, black iron gleaming, almost close enough to touch. I take another step.
A shadow moves, stretching across the flagstones, swallowing the faint light. I freeze, the hope in my chest shriveling to dust. I lift my eyes and see him.
Rostya, standing silent and immovable, his figure carved from the darkness itself. His arms are crossed, his eyes burning in the half-light, catching me in his gaze the way a snare catches an animal.
For a moment neither of us speaks. The rain drums louder, urging me to run, to try. But I can’t. His presence roots me to the spot, as solid and inescapable as the house behind us.
The silence stretches, a verdict passed without a word. He takes a step toward me, and I know—I am caught. Every ounce of desperation collapses into cold dread. The cage has snapped shut, tighter than ever. He’s the lock I cannot break.
Rain spatters on the stone as I stare at him, the gate and the world beyond it so close I can taste it, but Rostya blocks the path, his frame cutting off the last sliver of hope. Something in me shatters.
“Let me go!” My voice is raw, torn from somewhere deeper than fear, deeper than pride.
“You don’t own me! You’re a monster. You’ve stolen everything!
My work, my freedom, my—” I can’t say it, can’t say child, not with the ache so fresh.
Fury roars through me instead. I shove at his chest, my fists small and wild.
“I hate you, do you hear me? I hate you!”
He catches my wrists in one brutal hand, squeezing until my pulse flutters beneath his thumb.
His grip is unbreakable, the hard line of his jaw shadowed in the half-light.
His eyes don’t blink, don’t flicker. He doesn’t shout.
The silence radiates from him, heavier than thunder, promising pain, retribution, something worse than rage.
“Stop it,” he says, the words almost soft, almost deadly. “Enough.”
I don’t stop. I twist, spit, try to wrench free, but his body is stone, unyielding, merciless. The rain pelts us both, hair slick to my cheeks, my bare feet slipping against wet marble.
“You’re a coward! You lock me up because you know if I ever got away, I’d ruin you. I’d burn you to the ground—”
He yanks me closer, dragging me flush against him. My breath stutters, hate and terror tangled in my chest. He smells of rain and steel, of violence held on a leash. His silence burns hotter than any blow.
“You’re mine,” he says, voice edged with something that chills and thrills me both. “You want to run? Try.”
I scream again, half sob, half challenge, shoving at him with every bit of fury I have left. “You think I want you? You think this is love?” My nails rake his chest, desperate, hopeless.
Then, as he pins my arms between us, the fight collapses. Our bodies are pressed together, heat rising from his skin, from mine. I feel his heart hammering, hard and furious, matching my own. The storm is not just outside. It’s in us, colliding, consuming.
He drags me back through the corridor, never loosening his grip.
I curse him, spit at him, every word a knife that he takes and turns.
When he slams the door behind us, trapping me against it, the silence breaks not with more rage, but with the desperate, electric need that has always haunted our war.
His mouth crashes against mine, bruising, wild. I bite him, taste blood and rain, but he only groans, crushing me closer. My fists pummel his shoulders, but with every strike, my body betrays me, heat unfurling, resistance melting into hunger.
He lifts me, carrying me to the bed with a roughness that makes me gasp, that makes my anger twist into something hotter, deeper.
“You hate me?” he snarls against my mouth, his hands wrenching my dress up, his teeth grazing my throat. “Prove it.”
“I do,” I gasp, but the words tremble, lost in the slide of his hands, the sharp, demanding grip of his fingers on my thighs. “I hate you!”
His mouth cuts me off. His hands are everywhere—pinning, possessing, devouring. My own grip turns frantic, clawing him closer, fighting for dominance even as I yield. Each touch is a battle, each gasp a surrender. He’s brutal, unrelenting, but I meet him with teeth and nails and desperate kisses.
The world shrinks to the press of his body, the scrape of stubble on my skin, the heat that consumes every inch of space between us. The line between fight and fever blurs. My body arches, demanding more, even as my mind tries to remember why I should run, why I should still want to escape.
He tears the dress from my shoulders, bares me to the storm-lit dark.
His hands claim me, his hips drive against mine, rough and unforgiving, taking what’s already his.
I hate him—I do—but I want this, want him, want the oblivion of fury and pleasure tangled so tightly I can’t tell one from the other.
Rostya thrusts his cock inside me, and I hate how easily I yield for him. My pussy throbs with need, and already I’m slick, holding back a moan as he presses me into the mattress.
I meet every thrust, every command, with my own demands, my own broken, bitten words. I want to break him as much as he breaks me. The sheets twist beneath us, the air thick with the sound of skin, of gasps, of curses whispered against slick skin.
In the end, I shatter—body trembling, head thrown back, his name torn from my throat. I come hard enough to see stars, gasping and shaking.
He follows, fierce and unyielding, locking me in place as if even now he fears I’ll vanish.
The silence afterward is full and empty all at once. I lie beneath him, spent and shaking, the memory of rage still buzzing under my skin. He doesn’t move, just holds me pinned, his breath rough in my ear.
When it’s over, the room is thick with heat and the faint scent of rain.
I lie sprawled beneath him, my skin slick, my chest rising and falling too fast, pulse thrumming in every fragile place he’s touched.
The ache in my limbs is matched only by the riot in my mind.
I stare at the ceiling, blank and wide-eyed, the storm outside mirrored inside me.
I hate him. I hate him more than ever. The words echo in my skull, desperate, raw. I hate the way he cages me, the way his hands command and consume. I hate how I flinched from freedom and ran into his arms with fists clenched and mouth hungry.
Worse, far worse, is the way my body answered him. The way I shattered beneath him, clinging and gasping and wanting. The betrayal is sharper than his grip on my wrists, deeper than any wound he could leave.
I squeeze my eyes shut, willing the shame away, but it lingers—the memory of his touch, the relentless hunger, the brutal comfort I found in his violence. I roll to my side, gathering the sheets around me like armor, but they offer no shield.
My thoughts whirl back to the secret tucked away in Rostya’s desk.
A file on the Volkovs, on Ilya, on all the pieces of this war he thinks he controls.
That knowledge burns in my chest, a quiet, persistent ember.
It is the one thing that is truly mine, the only thread I can clutch when everything else is his.
I imagine what I could do with it. The possibility of freedom, of leverage, flickers at the edge of my exhaustion. It isn’t much, not against the brute force of his world, but it’s something. I tuck the hope away like a blade, a promise I refuse to let go.
Sleep won’t come. Not after this. I lie in the dark, sweat cooling on my skin, every breath a struggle. Around me, the cycle closes in—rage and surrender, desire and defiance, always twisting back on itself. I don’t know how long I can endure it, or who I’ll be when it finally breaks.
But for now, all I have is this secret, and the stubborn, flickering hope that one day, I’ll find the door out. Until then, I’m trapped in the cage we built together, equal parts prisoner and accomplice, unable to see where one ends and the other begins.