Chapter Twenty-One - Seraphina
The next day dawns gray and close, the air in my room thick with old perfume and the faint scent of last night’s fear.
My heart hammers in my chest as I curl up on the window seat, a small phone hidden in my hand. I’d swiped it the night before, a moment of recklessness as we left the Sharov gathering—slipped it from a guest’s purse while no one watched. A desperate move, but desperation is all I have left.
I check the lock twice, listening for footsteps. The house is quieter than usual, but that doesn’t mean I’m alone. Miron’s men are ghosts, slipping through the halls, listening at doors. I hold the phone close, pressing my thumb against the smooth glass. I have one chance, maybe less.
My mind spins through possibilities. I could call home—my parents, my friend Izzy. But what would I say? What could they do against someone like Miron? Fear and shame knot in my stomach. They’d only get hurt.
I scroll through numbers, thumb trembling. There’s only one that makes sense—the FBI agent. The one who called after I first found the files. I memorized his number, just in case. I never thought I’d use it, but here I am, alone and shaking, with nowhere left to turn.
I dial, breath held tight, waiting for the ring. Once, twice, three times—and then the line clicks.
A man’s voice, calm and measured: “Agent Marsh. Who is this?”
I almost hang up. My voice sticks in my throat, but I force it out in a whisper. “I—I need help. Please. My name is Seraphina Hale. I’m being held by Miron Sharov. He’s keeping me here. I know things about the corporation, the laundering, the murders. I know too much. You have to help me.”
There’s a pause, a soft intake of breath. His voice changes, becomes coaxing, careful. “Sera, you’re safe. You did the right thing calling me. Can you tell me where you are?”
My relief nearly knocks the wind out of me.
Tears prickle in my eyes, my hands shaking as I press the phone tighter.
“Yes, I can. I’m at his estate. North of the city, outside the old industrial park.
There are guards—so many guards. I’m on the third floor, east wing, big bay window.
Please… please hurry, I don’t know how long I have. ”
He’s quiet, typing quickly. “Stay calm, Sera. Help is coming. Is there a way out, if you need to run?”
I bite my lip, glancing at the locked door, the window that won’t open more than a crack. “Maybe. I’ll try if I have to. Please just come.”
“I promise. Don’t hang up. Just stay on the line.”
I nod, then realize he can’t see me. “Okay. I won’t. Please hurry.”
My head spins, the adrenaline flooding my veins, mixing relief with a new edge of terror. I never thought I’d actually reach someone. That the nightmare might break. That I might have a chance.
Outside my door, floorboards creak in a slow, measured step. Voices, low and too close. My blood runs cold. Someone’s outside.
I press myself back against the wall, clutching the phone, breath silent as a held knife. The line hisses in my ear—Agent Marsh still speaking, promising safety, telling me to stay calm.
All I can hear now is the hush outside my door, and the certainty that I am not alone.
The door creaks again. My heart stutters, cold sweat breaking over my skin. I try to hide the phone, but there’s no time because he’s already inside.
Miron’s presence fills the room, all sharp angles and cold authority, but it’s the phone in his hand that makes my blood freeze. On its speaker, the voice that had just promised rescue echoes back in tinny, distant words: “…just stay calm. Help is coming…”
It takes a moment for the truth to land. Miron was the agent all along. He was the one coaxing me, drawing out every detail, listening to my fear, my hopes. There was never any rescue coming. My world narrows, a hard knot twisting in my gut. Betrayal is a bitter taste in my mouth. I can’t breathe.
He holds my gaze, eyes flat, cold not with mischief or calculation, but with a fury that feels like a physical force.
The anger in him is vast, controlled, but I can see how much effort it costs him to keep from exploding.
His jaw ticks. For one terrible, breathless moment, I think he’ll kill me right here. Just another problem to be erased.
I shrink away, spine pressed to the wall, phone clutched so hard the plastic cracks beneath my grip. My thoughts race, panic crowding out reason. I can’t run. I can’t even scream. Miron takes a step closer, then another, moving with a slow, inescapable certainty.
He doesn’t shout. He doesn’t strike. He just takes the phone from my hands, thumb crushing the power button, ending the last fragile thread of hope. He pockets it, still silent.
“Miron—” My voice is a rasp, desperate. “I’m sorry. Please!”
He cuts me off, voice like ice. “Don’t speak.”
That single command roots me to the spot.
I watch him, wild-eyed, heart jackhammering in my chest. He reaches out and takes my arm.
His grip is viselike, not cruel but without tenderness.
He drags me out of the room, down the corridor, every step echoing in the hollow quiet.
My mind reels with terror. I glance at the faces of his guards as we pass—some avert their eyes, others look on with blank indifference. No one will help me.
He pushes open the heavy door to his bedroom.
The air inside is colder, darker, the curtains drawn tight.
At the head of the bed, thick metal rings are bolted into the wall—nothing decorative about them.
He pulls a length of chain from the drawer of his bedside table, the links heavy, the sound sharp and final.
“Don’t do this,” I whisper. “Please. Please, I’ll behave, I won’t try to run again—”
His eyes narrow, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “You already had your chance. You threw it away.”
He binds my wrists, attaching the chain to the ring above the bed. The metal bites cold into my skin, and I bite back a sob. His hands work with a brutal efficiency, not lingering, not gentle. When it’s done, he steps back, staring at me—chained, helpless, caught like some creature in a trap.
He paces for a moment, hands raking through his hair, the silence between us stretching into something unbearable.
Finally he stops, voice low, shaking with barely controlled rage. “You think you can outsmart me? You think I wouldn’t be watching? Listening? There is nowhere you can run that I won’t find you, Sera. No one you can call that I can’t reach first.”
I meet his gaze, defiant even as I tremble. “You lied to me.”
He laughs, short and bitter. “I protected you. You chose to become prey.”
I jerk at the chains, frustration and humiliation burning through me. “You call this protection?”
He comes close—too close—leaning over the bed until I can smell his anger, sharp as vodka and smoke. “It’s the only kind I know. The only way to keep you alive. If you’d gone to the real FBI, to anyone else, you’d be dead by now.”
I stare at him, unblinking. “So what am I now? Your prisoner, your trophy, your pet?”
He doesn’t answer at first. Instead, he crouches, eyes level with mine, voice a knife’s edge. “You’re mine. You always have been.”
For a long, shuddering minute, he just watches me—reading every flinch, every ragged breath, every defiant glare I can muster. Then he stands, turning his back, shoulders rigid.
“You will stay here. You will not speak to anyone. You will not leave this room unless I say so. Do you understand?”
I nod, the motion small, tears pricking at my eyes.
Miron stands framed in the light. He’s still angry, the storm in his eyes undimmed.
He doesn’t speak as he crosses the room, his steps unhurried, measured, but there’s no mistaking the tension in his shoulders.
He looks at me—at the way I sit, legs drawn up, back pressed to the headboard, chain stretched taut.
I glare at him, refusing to shrink away.
“You want to fight?” His voice is quiet, dangerous. “You want to show me you still have teeth?”
I bare them, meeting his gaze without flinching. “You want a pet you can control, go buy a dog.”
His lips twitch, not quite a smile. He stalks closer, stripping off his jacket, the movements sharp and efficient. “You belong to me,” he says again, softer this time, as if testing the truth of it between us. “I want all of you, not just obedience.”
He sits at the edge of the bed, close enough that I feel the heat of his body, the rough scrape of his hand as he reaches out.
His palm traces the line of my jaw, the side of my throat, down to the collarbone exposed by the slip of my nightgown.
He lets his thumb linger over the pulse that leaps under my skin.
I jerk my head away, but his grip is gentle, unyielding. “You can fight all you want,” he murmurs, “but you don’t want to run from me. Not really.”
The chain rattles as I move, the sound embarrassingly loud. My cheeks burn, but I glare up at him, every muscle drawn tight. “I don’t want this,” I say, but the protest falters. My body betrays me—the way I lean into his touch, the way my breath comes quick and shallow.
He leans down, his lips brushing my ear.
“Liar.” His hand slips into my hair, tilting my face up so he can kiss me—hard, bruising, possessive.
I resist for a heartbeat, but when his tongue teases the seam of my mouth, I open for him, hungry and angry, desperate to take back control even as I give it up.
His hands move with ruthless purpose, pushing my nightgown down over my shoulders, baring me to the cold air and his gaze.
He kisses along the curve of my neck, down to my breasts, biting just hard enough to make me gasp.
I arch into him, the chain biting at my wrist, but I don’t care.
All I can feel is the ache low in my belly, the way he touches me like he has every right.
“You hate me,” he whispers, lips ghosting over my skin. “But that doesn’t matter.”