Chapter 6 - Avgust
The drive back felt too long. Too exposed. Too quiet.
Ilana didn’t say a single word the entire way, and neither did I. She sat curled against the door, knuckles white around the seatbelt, shoulders trembling every few breaths as if her body hadn’t yet caught up to the fact that the danger was gone.
Temporarily gone.
I kept one eye on the road as Mikhail drove us back, waiting for headlights that never appeared. Still, it wasn’t enough to ease the coil of tension across my shoulders. I wanted her inside. Behind walls. Behind locks. Safe. Within reach.
Completely out of danger.
By the time we pulled through the gates and the guards let us inside the estate, my jaw hurt from how tightly I’d been clenching it. The SUV rolled to a stop right in front of the gates as rain slid down the windshield, blurring the world outside. For a moment, neither of us moved.
Then Ilana exhaled.
The sound was so small, so fragile, that it made something sharp twist inside my chest.
I stepped out first, opened her door, and waited for her to move. She didn’t. Not until I reached in and offered a hand, I didn’t think she’d take.
But she did.
Her cold, damp, and trembling fingers slipped easily into mine, and I felt the same jolt I had felt the night of the auction.
That inexplicable recognition that overtook me whenever she was close.
That tug across my ribs. That urge to shield her from every single threat before she even realized they existed.
“This way,” I murmured, even though she already knew her way inside the house.
Despite that, she followed without argument, steps shorter than usual as she breathed unevenly. I didn’t release her hand until we were inside the foyer, the doors shutting behind us with a heavy thud that echoed loudly through the hall.
Safe.
For now.
The second the lock clicked, I turned to her.
“What the hell were you thinking?”
My voice came out low and controlled, but the edge was unmistakable. I was worried for her and wanted her to be safe, but none of it changed the fact that I was pissed. So, so pissed. She flinched then, not dramatically, but just enough for me to see the aftershock still pulsing beneath her skin.
Good. She needed to understand that fucks ups like these were intolerable.
“You walked into the woods. Alone,” I said, pacing once before stopping in front of her again.
“You left the house. Actually, to put it more accurately, you ran away from the house. You walked into a dead zone where no guards could see you or reach you, and no one could hear you. Do you understand how reckless that was?”
Ilana stared at the floor, then at her hands, and then finally at me. Her lashes were damp, her eyes rimmed with the kind of exhaustion that could break a person in half if they weren’t careful.
“I needed to call my brothers,” she whispered. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
“They wouldn’t have reached you in time,” I said. “Even if you had somehow managed to get through.”
“I had to try.”
“Your trying nearly got you dragged away and kidnapped again. Have you stopped to think about what might have happened if I hadn’t come for you in time? What might have happened if those men took you with them again?”
The tremor that ran through her body at my words made all of my anger collapse in on itself so fast it was almost painful.
She wrapped her arms around her middle as if trying to hold herself together.
“I thought… I thought maybe it was over. I did not know those men would find me. That they would be so close.”
“People like that don’t let go,” I answered, quieter now.
“They know you are with me, and they might have come sniffing around a Chernykh property just to find you and get you again. This is what always happens when a girl is auctioned. They won’t stop looking for a while now, especially since I have killed two of their men. ”
She let out a shaky breath. “I didn’t think it through. I just wanted… out.”
That hit a place inside me I didn’t want examined.
Her desire to escape wasn’t a surprise. I expected it.
But the fear behind her voice did something to me I could not properly name.
I could see there was still a piece of her that hadn’t recovered from the hands reaching for her, from the rain-blurred faces that had hunted her down, and that shifted my irritation into something else entirely.
I stepped closer. Slowly. Carefully.
“Ilana.”
Her chin lifted just an inch, hesitant, like she wasn’t sure if I was about to trap her or hold her up.
“You are not safe without me.”
The truth tasted brutal in my mouth. But she needed to hear it.
Her lips parted, but whatever argument she meant to make died before it reached her tongue. She shook her head, not in defiance but in disbelief. “I shouldn’t have to be protected like some… fragile thing.”
“Then stop pretending you aren’t scared,” I said quietly. “And stop trying to run away from me and this house and the safety this place provides you. You need time to heal from what you have already been through without adding onto that wound.”
Her breath caught.
And there it was, the truth in her eyes. Raw, unhidden, trembling.
Not fear of me. But fear of what had happened. Fear of what could happen again.
Her shoulders dropped the smallest degree. “I’m fine.”
“You’re shaking.”
“It’s the rain.”
“You’re lying.”
Her lower lip wobbled just a little, but it was enough for me to see it before she looked away again.
Something fierce and protective surged through me.
Without thinking, I reached for her hands, which were still ice cold, clenched so tightly together that her knuckles had lost all color.
I pried them open slowly, letting my fingers warm hers.
She didn’t pull back.
Not even once.
“Come here,” I said, the words leaving me before I could stop them.
Her breath hitched as I drew her into me. Her body fit against mine with a softness that contradicted every sharp edge inside my world. Her cheek pressed near my collarbone, her breathing unsteady but beginning to slow down.
She wasn’t fighting me. She wasn’t even pretending. But I could see that she was tired.
I wrapped an arm around her waist, the other settling at her back. And held her the way you hold something you aren’t ready to lose yet.
“You’re safe now,” I murmured into her hair. “I’ve got you.”
Her voice muffled against my chest. “I didn’t want you to find me like that.”
“Like what?”
“…terrified.”
“I’d rather find you terrified than not find you at all.”
She swallowed hard, the motion brushing against my shirt. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”
“You don’t get to tell me what I should or shouldn’t say.”
A soft, trembling exhale escaped her mouth that sounded nothing like resistance and everything like surrender.
She was exhausted beyond pretension, her body constantly melting into mine.
After a long moment in the quiet foyer, she pulled back just enough to look up at me.
Her eyes were glassy, vulnerable, and I felt something inside me tilt dangerously.
“Can I ask you something?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“Why do you care this much about me?”
“What do you mean?”
“You bought me from an auction, even when you clearly do not do this for fun, like the other sleazy men that were present there that night. You married to keep me safe. And when you found out I had run away from you, you came looking for me and saved me again rather than letting me die out there. Why?”
Because I feel like I’ve seen you before.
Because your eyes are refusing to leave me alone since the moment I saw you at the auction.
Because the thought of you disappearing into some cellar makes my blood run violent.
I didn’t say any of that.
Instead, I said, “You’re under my protection now. That’s enough.”
“I was under no one’s protection in Russia, and I was safe. I should have never come here,” the words were nothing but a mumble, but I heard them, my eyes widening at once.
“You were in Russia?” It came out sharper than I intended, making Ilana turn to look at me. Something in her expression shifted, and for a few seconds, I could see vulnerability that had been present moments ago replaced by confusion.
She blinked, startled. “Um… yes. I studied there for my degree in art history.”
“Your accent,” I said, watching her carefully. “You don’t sound Russian.”
“I’m not.” She said quickly. Way too quickly. I watched closely as she forced a small, shaky smile on her face. “I just went there as a tourist to study and managed to develop a good taste for art, history, and museums.”
She said it lightly, and I let it go. But a thin thread of curiosity threaded itself through my ribs.
Later.
For now, she was trembling again, and the urge to pull her back into my arms resurfaced violently.
“Come with me,” I said, taking her hand in mine as I guided her towards the living room where the fireplace had thrown the entire area into orange flickers. “You need to sit down.”
She didn’t argue. She sank into the sofa with a quiet sigh, arms folding around herself as if she were trying to keep her bones from rattling.
I grabbed a blanket from the armchair, draped it over her shoulders, and crouched down in front of her.
Her knees brushed against my chest, and her breath caught at the contact.
Mine nearly did too.
“Ilana,” I said softly, “look at me.”
She did. Slowly. Carefully. Her eyes were wide and full of honesty.
“You’re safe here with me,” I told her, voice low enough that it barely traveled beyond us. “You’re safe with me.”
Something softened in her expression and turned unguarded.
Her lips parted slightly, but she didn’t speak.
She didn’t even have to. I felt the subtle shift run through the space between us, the air tightening until it was almost impossible to breathe without tasting her fear and vulnerability and the quiet trust she hadn’t meant to give me.