Chapter 15 Bella #2
“Yeah. You both look like you haven’t slept in a year.
” She leans forward, elbows on knees. “Listen, I don’t know what Irina’s up to, but I know how this place works.
You want something, you tell me. You need something for the kid, or you just need to yell at someone who won’t rat you out, I’m your girl. ”
“Why help me?” I ask.
“I’m not helping you at all,” she says.
What’s that supposed to mean?
She stands, stretching, clearly at ease in her own skin. “Try the chocolate, by the way. Best thing you’ll find in this mausoleum. I’ll come back later. And hey—don’t let them scare you. They feed off it.”
She winks and heads for the door, pausing just before she leaves. “Rest. I’ve got a feeling we’re both going to need it.”
The lock clicks shut after her.
Morning comes without warning—just a pale shaft of light on the ceiling, Lily’s soft weight curled against my side, and the distant sound of a door unlocking.
My heart jumps. I get to my feet as a man steps in—not the brute from yesterday, but someone older, suit a little too crisp for this hour, face unreadable.
“You’re wanted downstairs,” he says. His voice is flat, polite enough to not be a threat but firm enough to tell me I don’t have a choice.
I scoop Lily up, keeping her close. The man doesn’t rush us. He leads the way out into a hallway so long it almost echoes, the walls lined with portraits and silver-framed photographs. The silence is heavy, but not empty—more like the hush before something important.
We pass a series of paintings: a winter landscape, a somber woman in pearls, a family crest. Then I see it—a large, formal portrait of a man with cold, striking features. He looks powerful, and unsettlingly familiar. My stomach twists.
We stop just as I’m staring at the painting, trying to place where I’ve seen those eyes before.
“She has your curiosity,” comes a smooth, accented voice from behind us.
I turn.
Irina stands there, already dressed like she’s going to a board meeting or a funeral—black suit, white blouse, every line precise. She gives me a thin, knowing smile, then glances at the portrait.
“That’s my son,” she says, as if that explains everything. Her gaze flicks to Lily, then back to me, measuring. “You recognize him?”
I nod, wary. “He looks familiar.”
She smiles, but it’s more like she’s baring her teeth. “You could say he has a way of leaving an impression.”
We walk together, Irina and I, Lily in my arms. She doesn’t slow for me, and I keep pace because I refuse to look weaker than I am.
One portrait makes me slow down without meaning to. It’s a man in a dark suit, older, severe, the kind of face that looks like it never had to ask permission.
Irina notices my pause. “Don’t waste time on ghosts,” she says, not looking at it. Her voice is flat, bored even, like she has lived under those eyes for decades.
“Where are you taking me?” I ask again, because nobody has actually answered me. “Why am I here?”
She’s silent.
I finally force out, “I don’t understand what you want from us.”
She doesn’t answer right away. Instead, she stops by a window overlooking the estate grounds. The morning light makes her face look older, colder.
“You were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she says quietly. “That’s all it takes. You met a man four years ago. You should have walked away and never looked back. But you didn’t.”
My fingers tighten on Lily’s back.
Every muscle in my body goes still.
Irina’s gaze flicks to my face, catching the reaction. “He walked into your life, and you let him in. You thought it would be a night, maybe two. A story to laugh about later. You had no idea where he really came from, or who was watching him.”
My mouth goes dry. I don’t say his name. I don’t have to. I see a hotel room, an elevator, his hands, his voice. The note I left. The look on his face on the plane.
She’s talking about Aleksander.
I swallow hard, not confirming his name. But I know I can’t just pretend I don’t know him, not with her. She sees through everything.
Irina goes on, voice calm, almost bored. “Men like him don’t come without consequences. When you touch that world, it marks you, whether you notice or not.”
“I left,” I say, the words coming out sharper than I intend. “I ran. I disappeared. I didn’t ask for anything. I didn’t want anything from him.”
“I know,” she says simply.
That throws me. “Then why am I here?”
Irina turns to fully face me now. Up close, I can see the fine lines around her mouth, the set of a woman who has clenched her jaw for years.
“Because wanting nothing doesn’t erase what already happened,” she says.
I shake my head. “You’re overestimating whatever that was. I’m not important.”
A small, humorless smile touches her lips. “You really have no idea, do you?”
“About what?” I whisper.
“How much bigger you are in his world than you realize,” she says.
I stare at her. “I was just…a mistake. A complication.”
Irina’s eyes harden. “If you were just a complication, you wouldn’t be here. I don’t waste time on wallpaper.”
Lily shifts in my arms, making a soft little sound. I press my cheek to her hair, trying to steady myself.
“So this is punishment,” I say. “For crossing some invisible line I didn’t know existed.”
“This is consequence,” Irina replies. “You can call it whatever helps you sleep.”
“I can’t sleep,” I say, voice cracking. “You broke into an apartment. You scared my child. You dragged us away from the only person I trusted. For something that isn’t even my fight.”
Irina’s gaze sharpens. “It became your fight the moment you let him touch your life.”
I swallow hard. The memory of his hands on my skin, of his voice in the dark, feels suddenly dangerous instead of intoxicating.
“And now?” I ask. “What happens now?”
“For now, you stay here,” she says. “You eat. You rest. The child recovers from whatever this latest nightmare has done to her. You stay alive.”
“As leverage,” I say, the word bitter on my tongue.
She doesn’t flinch. “As insurance,” she corrects.
“For who?” I push.
Irina’s expression closes up again, shutters coming down. “That’s not your concern. Your concern is that this house is the only place you’re not exposed to people far less…restrained than I am.”
A shaky laugh escapes me. “You call this restrained?”
“You’re breathing,” she says. “Your daughter is in your arms. That’s more than many people get when they brush against his world.”
Aleksander’s presence hangs between us, obvious, heavy.
I don’t say his name. I don’t need to. We’re both thinking it.
Irina steps back, smoothing an invisible wrinkle from her sleeve. “You may think I’m overestimating your importance,” she says. “You’ll see how wrong you are when he realizes you’re gone.”
A cold weight settles in my stomach.
He’ll come.
That’s what she’s counting on.
And I’m standing here with Lily on my hip, trapped in a house built on grudges I don’t understand, realizing that three years ago I didn’t just fall for the wrong man.
I stepped into a war I never agreed to fight.
They bring us back to the room after that conversation with Irina, and for a while I feel like my body is just…empty. Running on fumes.
At some point I curl up on the bed with Lily, just to calm her down, telling her silly stories until her eyelashes droop. The mattress is absurdly soft, the sheets cool and clean. It feels wrong that something can be this comfortable while my brain is chewing itself alive.
We both end up passing out.
When I wake, the light in the room has shifted. The sky outside the big window is darker, a deep blue fading toward night. My muscles ache in that slow, heavy way that comes from too much stress and not enough food.
Lily is stretched out on her back beside me, babbling softly to herself, holding her own foot and poking at her toes like they’re the most interesting thing she’s ever seen.
“Hey, munchkin,” I murmur, brushing her hair back. “You have a good nap?”
She gives me a sleepy little smile and goes back to mumbling nonsense, kicking her legs against the duvet.
I pull myself up and pad over to the window.
Outside, the estate looks different at night.
The driveway is lit, the big front fountain glowing in pale yellow light.
And there are cars. A lot of them. Sleek, dark shapes gliding in through the gates, one after another.
Men in suits getting out. Women in dresses that skim glitter and silk.
Voices float up faintly when doors open, then vanish again.
A party.
Here.
My stomach tightens. It feels surreal, watching people arrive like it’s just another evening out, while I’m locked upstairs with a toddler, trying not to panic.
“Mama,” Lily calls behind me, and I turn. She’s sitting up now, reaching for me.
I go back and scoop her up, resting her on my hip. “That’s right. I’m here.”
As if on cue, the doorknob turns.
I tense, tightening my grip on Lily.
The door opens and Selene slips in, closing it behind her with her foot. She’s in black jeans and a thin knit top, hair pulled back messily, a dress draped over one arm.
“Knock knock,” she says lightly. “Well. Not really. They don’t love it when I knock.”
I glance at the dress. It’s simple but expensive, deep green, the kind of thing that fits in at a rich person’s party without screaming for attention.
“What’s going on outside?” I ask, nodding toward the window. “There are cars coming in. People.”
Selene drops the dress over the back of a chair and crosses to the window, peeking out. “Yeah. That would be tonight’s spectacle.”
I frown. “Spectacle?”
She gives me a crooked smile. “Party. Celebration. Meeting. Depends who you ask. Around here, any excuse is a good excuse to bring out the crystal and the really good vodka.”
My stomach twists again. “They’re having a party while I’m locked in here.”
“Of course,” Selene says. “You’re new, not the main event.”
Her tone is dry enough that I almost laugh. Almost.