Chapter Twenty-Five - Karmia
The convoy drops me at the front steps like discarded cargo. No words pass between Ivan and me, only the hiss of brakes and the shove of Ivan’s hand at my arm before he turns back to the others. The heavy doors close behind me, sealing me in. Silence eats everything else.
The halls stretch ahead, polished marble glowing faintly under sconces, each step I take echoing too loud, too sharp. I feel watched though there’s no one here. The walls themselves seem to lean closer, waiting for me to confess, to break. My own shadow slips across the columns like a specter.
By the time I reach my room, my lungs ache from holding my breath. The door shuts with a soft click, and it’s worse inside—too much space, too much quiet, my heartbeat ricocheting against it.
I pace the length of the carpet, chest tight, hands gripping the torn fabric of my dress. The hem is smeared with dirt and asphalt, the stink of gunpowder still clinging to me. Even my hair smells of it, sharp and oily, the same reek that clung to the men in the convoy.
I squeeze the dress in my fists, wishing I could tear it off, peel away the evidence of tonight, but it wouldn’t matter. The memory is stitched into me now. Rostya’s eyes were cold, furious, but not hollow.
There had been something else glinting in them, something rawer than rage, and it cut deeper than the gun he leveled at me. Rage I could have endured. Possessiveness, I could have spit back in his face.
That flash of disbelief, of wounded fury, as if I’d betrayed something more than strategy—it has me unraveling.
I stop at the window, staring at the glass turned mirror-black by night. My reflection wavers in it, pale and hollow-eyed, hair tangled, mouth trembling. I don’t recognize the woman looking back at me. She doesn’t look like a hacker who thought she could play this game. She looks like prey.
I press my palms to the cold glass and lean forward until my breath fogs the surface.
Outside, the grounds are dark, guards pacing shadows I can’t fully see.
Their boots strike the stone in slow, heavy rhythm.
I can hear them even through the glass, like a heartbeat that isn’t mine, reminding me there’s no escape.
I turn away, but the walls close in again. I pace. Back and forth. My skin crawls with the weight of guilt. Denis had cornered me. He had pressed the phone into my hand with a threat I couldn’t refuse. But Rostya won’t care about coercion. He’ll see betrayal.
He’s not wrong, not really. I carried the knife to his table.
The memory of his face hits again, rage shot through with something that felt personal.
That is what unsettles me most. His fury wasn’t just about control.
It was about me. And for the first time since this nightmare began, fear takes root in a place I can’t dislodge.
Not fear of dying. Fear of what I’ve already broken.
I sit on the edge of the bed, knees drawn tight together, fingers pressed into the coverlet until the seams cut little crescents into my skin.
I can’t stay still. Every sound outside—the slam of a car door, a man’s voice carried faint through stone walls—shoots straight through me.
My shoulders jolt, my breath hitches. I keep expecting the stutter of gunfire, the echo of glass shattering.
I keep seeing Rostya crumpled against asphalt, rival hands stripping away everything he’s built.
The thought won’t let go.
I fold forward, pressing a palm against my stomach. My breath comes shallow, trembling against the weight of my hand. The child I never asked for kicks back in silence, but I feel it all the same.
A living reminder of what I’ve lost. A chain I can’t undo. Yet the horror is sharp, undeniable—there’s a flicker of worry not for me, not for escape, but for him. For Rostya.
“No,” I whisper, shaking my head hard, as if I can rattle the weakness out of me. “He’s my captor. My tormentor.” The words scrape raw, like I’m carving them back into bone where they belong. The worry doesn’t dissolve. It clings, stubborn as ivy, winding around ribs, refusing to die.
I have to do what’s best for me and my unborn child… but I don’t even know what that is anymore.
My thoughts break into shards, flashing images I can’t control. The phone tumbling from my hand into the dark—proof of betrayal etched in every arc of its fall. Rostya’s face lit by headlights, eyes burning as he leveled the pistol at me.
Then, just as vivid, his hand lowering, his decision sparing me. Not forgiveness—never that. A pause. A hesitation I don’t deserve.
The fragments twist, warp into something worse.
I see him bleeding out in some nameless alley, body slack under neon glare, mouth still caught in that snarl of command.
I see him dragged down by Volkov’s men, stripped of everything, the empire gutted.
I see myself standing useless, watching, unable to stop any of it.
I squeeze my stomach harder, breath catching on a sob I refuse to let out. He’s the one who took my freedom, crushed my choices, made me his pawn. I should want him gone. I should want the bullet to find him.
The image of his blood pooling into the street makes my throat close, makes my hands shake until I can’t keep them still.
I stand again, pacing the room like a trapped animal. My reflection in the window stares back—eyes too wide, lips parted, hair a wild halo. A stranger, or maybe the truest version of myself: cracked, terrified, caught in something I can’t fight.
“He’s my captor,” I whisper again, fierce, frantic. Beneath the words, fear beats louder. Fear that he won’t come back. Fear that what I’m carrying isn’t just chains—it’s something I can’t yet name.
The door opens without warning, a soft creak that jerks me out of my pacing.
I whip around, breath sharp in my throat.
It’s only one of the maids—small, quiet, her head bowed as she slips inside.
She carries a tray balanced with tea, steam curling in delicate ribbons, and begins straightening the clutter I’d made tossing cushions and blankets across the room.
Normally they move quickly, in and out, no words wasted. Tonight she lingers. Her hands fuss with the corner of the bedspread, smoothing fabric that doesn’t need smoothing. Her eyes flick toward me once, then again, before she sets the tray down with deliberate care.
When she finally speaks, her voice is barely above a whisper. “He has never been like this for anyone.”
I freeze, the words hitting harder than gunfire. “What?”
The maid glances at the door, as though afraid someone will hear.
“Rostya. He… he does things for you he’s never done.
Ordered food, your food. Made sure the kitchens prepared it exactly as you like.
He sent for fabrics you touched in the market, though you didn’t know he saw.
Even the tea. This is your favorite, isn’t it? ”
The steam rises, fragrant, unmistakably mine. My mouth goes dry.
Her eyes soften, but her voice stays hushed, urgent. “It’s not only because of the child. He makes sure you’re comfortable. You’re… special to him. He doesn’t say it, but it’s there. His way of caring is silent, but it’s there.”
The words land like stones in my chest, one after another, dragging me down.
My knees weaken, and I sit heavily on the edge of the bed.
The tray of food earlier—the one I dismissed as manipulation, another way to tie me tighter to his leash—flashes in my mind.
The quiet gestures I ignored or spat on, the little comforts arranged without acknowledgment.
All of it reshapes under the maid’s whispers, the edges tilting into something else.
My pulse races, my thoughts a blur. I don’t want to believe her. I don’t want to see meaning where there should only be control.
Except her voice trembles with sincerity, and the truth is, I felt it too. I felt the difference in the way he looked at me tonight before the bullets fell.
The maid straightens the last pillow, her task finished, and dips her head. “Forgive me,” she murmurs. “I only thought you should know.”
Then she’s gone, the door clicking shut behind her, leaving me in the silence she’s cracked open.
The room feels emptier now, the shadows longer. I stare at the untouched tea, at the faint curl of steam that thins and disappears. My hands twist in my lap, nails biting skin, the ache sharp.
Guilt swells, sticky and suffocating, impossible to scrape away. I betrayed him. I carried the phone that nearly cost him everything.
Still, her words cling to me.
I drop my face into my hands, the whisper of his eyes, his gun lowered, replaying until it’s all I can see.
The hours stretch, pulled taut until they feel like they might snap. The clock on the mantel ticks with surgical precision, each sound a needle stitching panic tighter into my chest. I pace the room, chewing raggedly at my nails until the taste of iron floods my tongue.
Over and over, the same question loops in my skull, relentless as the ticking clock: What if he doesn’t come back?
The thought chokes me. My throat closes, breath snagging as if I’ve been struck.
I see him in flashes—Rostya sprawled across wet pavement, blood soaking his suit, enemies’ boots grinding him into the dirt.
I see him cornered in some dim alley, gunfire shredding the air until his body gives way.
The images are brutal, too vivid, and the ache they leave in my chest is unbearable.
I hate myself for it. He’s my captor, the reason I’m locked in this gilded cage, the man who stole my choices and branded me as his. I should want him gone, should be praying for the bullet that ends his reign.
Every time I imagine that empty chair across the table, that voice gone silent, the weight in my ribs grows heavier, unbearable. My heart betrays me again and again.
I move to the window, barefoot on cold marble, and curl into the sill like a child. The glass breathes cold against my temple as I stare down at the driveway, the estate stretched silent and still below.
Every distant rumble of an engine claws at me, heart lurching into my throat, hope sparking only to gutter when the sound fades into nothing.
My nails scrape the glass as I whisper to myself, voice raw, almost a growl. “Stop it. Stop caring. Stop feeling.”
The words are empty, brittle as dust. The truth presses heavier with every passing second—something inside me already belongs to him.
It isn’t survival, isn’t fear, not anymore. It’s the way my chest tightens at the thought of his absence, the way his silence fills this room louder than the clock. I don’t want it. I don’t want this treacherous, impossible thing clawing up through the cracks of my resolve.
It’s there. The beginning of love. The most dangerous weakness of all.
I press my knees to my chest, arms wound tight, watching the gates below as though staring hard enough will conjure headlights from the dark. Nothing comes. Only shadows shifting in the wind, guards pacing with rifles, their boots too far away to hear.
The night stretches on, cruel and endless.
My reflection stares back from the glass, hollow-eyed, lips pressed tight, a stranger trapped between dread and longing.
Headlights never pierce the drive. The silence remains, and I can’t decide which terrifies me more: that he never returns, or that I want him to.