Chapter Eighteen - Markian
I wake late, the world pressing down on me with the weight of last night’s vodka and too many bad memories. Sunlight slices through the curtains, too bright, too insistent. My head pounds; my ribs ache where the bruises haven’t yet faded.
I roll out of bed, stretch, and drag a hand over my face, trying to shake off the worst of the hangover. For a few minutes, the only sound is the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall, the distant clatter of someone in the kitchen.
The house feels different this morning, quieter somehow. Too quiet. I brush it off at first. Maybe she’s sulking, I tell myself, pouting in her room or hiding under the covers.
She’s done it before, after a fight or a night when I came back colder than I meant to. It’s a game between us, this push and pull. She gives me attitude; I take it and give it back. That’s just how it works. I almost look forward to it—the fire in her eyes, the sharp snap of her tongue.
Today, there’s nothing. Not even a slammed door or a muttered curse.
By midday, I start to notice the shape of her absence. There’s no sign of her in the halls. No footsteps echoing overhead. No snarky glare from the stairwell as I pass.
The maids move quietly, too quietly, eyes cast down. The chef asks if the girl is joining for lunch. I grunt a vague answer, but something cold and sharp twists in my gut.
“Go check on her,” I bark at a maid, waving her away from the dining room. “Tell her to get her ass downstairs.”
She scurries off. Ten minutes later, she returns, shaking her head, wringing her hands. “She’s not there, sir. Her room is empty. The bed’s made. I didn’t see her.”
I send another, sharper this time. “Look again. Everywhere.” She goes and comes back, pale and breathless. “No sign, sir.”
Still, panic doesn’t settle in, not at first. I’m not that kind of man. I don’t panic. I control. I command. I win.
Still, my voice turns hard when I call Lui in from the garage. “Find her. Now.”
He nods, eyes sharp. “You think she left? Walked out on her own?”
I don’t answer, just grit my teeth. “She didn’t leave. Not without help.” My mind races. The guards posted around the estate. The cameras, the locked doors, the gates that only open from the inside. No one slips out of this house without me knowing.
No one.
Within the hour, the house is a hive of movement.
Lui and the guards tear through her room—closet, drawers, under the bed, bathroom trash.
Her scent lingers, faint and sweet, but the space is empty.
No clothes missing, but her small bag is gone, the Metro card I gave her for emergencies missing from my desk.
The cameras are reviewed, frame by frame.
One shows her, just a shadow in the servants’ hallway, bare feet, a bag clutched to her chest, eyes darting. Then nothing.
She vanishes, as if she melted into the walls. Smoke and mirrors.
My pulse spikes, but not from fear. Never fear. Fury. White-hot, blinding, the kind that cracks bones and breaks hearts.
“How the fuck did this happen?” I snarl, slamming my fist onto the dining table so hard the plates rattle. Lui flinches, eyes wide. “She shouldn’t have made it past the guards. Past you.”
He shrugs, helpless. “She’s clever. Maybe one of the maids helped her. I’ll talk to them.”
“Talk?” I hiss. “If you find out anyone lifted a finger to help her, you’ll do more than talk.” My world narrows to a point. I want to tear the house apart brick by brick until she’s in front of me, spitting mad and scared and mine.
The first night, I wait. I sit in my office, glass in hand, staring at the front door, expecting her to walk through it any minute. Maybe it’s a tantrum. Maybe she wants me to beg, to promise her something softer, something safer. She’s stubborn. She’s always come back before.
But the night passes, and there’s no word. No footsteps on the stairs. No creak of the floor outside my door. Just silence, thick and endless.
The second night, something in me starts to break. I check my phone for messages, for a missed call, for a note slipped under the door. Nothing. I call every number she might have memorized, every contact in the city who might have seen her. The line rings and rings and rings.
The staff walk on eggshells. The guards brace for violence. Even Lui keeps his distance, sensing that my rage is a razor edge.
By the third morning, I stop pretending. She ran away. She took herself—her fear, her wit, her softness, the hurricane of feeling she woke up in me—and vanished like she’d never been here at all. The realization stings sharper than any bullet.
All the walls I built, the rules, the violence, none of it kept her. I wanted her to be afraid of me, to obey.
Now all I am is alone, my hands empty, my bed cold.
I pour another drink, stare out at the city that swallowed her up, and promise myself I’ll find her. No matter how far she runs, no matter how clever she thinks she is—she’s mine. I’ll bring her home, or I’ll burn the world down trying.
A darker thought lingers, twisting beneath the anger: What if she never comes back? What if she chooses a life without me, without the violence, the danger, the chains? What if this is my punishment for letting her in, for wanting too much?
The betrayal gnaws at me. I can survive a hundred wounds, but this one—this loss—is the one that might finally destroy me.
The manor is cold, empty, haunted by her absence. I stalk the halls, searching for a scent, a thread—anything to anchor me in this unfamiliar quiet.
There’s nothing. She’s gone. I’m left with the echo of her voice in my head, her laughter, her stubborn defiance, all of it slipping through my fingers like smoke.
I barely sleep. The world outside goes on as if nothing has changed, but my world has shrunk to the space she left behind—her empty room, her pillow, the clothes she didn’t take.
I find myself searching the same corners again and again, retracing her steps, as if I might find some hidden message, some clue to where she’s run.
The truth stares me down every time: she left me. She ran, and she isn’t coming back.
On the fourth morning, a knock comes at my office door—hard, tentative. I turn, already irritated, ready to bark at whoever dares to disturb me. It’s one of my younger guards, nervous, holding something small and carefully wrapped in tissue paper.
“Sir,” he says, voice tight. “We found this hidden in her handbag. Didn’t want to bring it in front of everyone.”
I gesture for him to leave it on the desk. He sets it down and backs out, closing the door behind him. The silence is suffocating. I sit for a long time, staring at the little bundle. I don’t know why, but I’m afraid to open it.
I feel it in my bones, this is the answer to everything, the one thing I missed, the one thing I should have seen.
My hands are steady as I unwrap the tissue, layer by layer. Inside is a plastic stick, cheap and ordinary, but what it means is anything but. Two unmistakable pink lines stare back at me. Positive. Pregnant.
She was carrying my child.
A strange numbness floods me. I sit back in my chair and just stare. She was pregnant. With my blood. My legacy. She never told me. She never left a note, never said a word. No goodbye.
For a long time, I don’t move. I try to make sense of it, to fit this new truth into the story I’ve been telling myself.
Had she planned to run all along? Was she always going to take my child and disappear?
Did she think I would hurt her, or the baby?
Did she ever believe I could be anything other than the monster everyone sees?
My mind circles back, sharp and hungry. She was carrying my child. And she still ran.
The betrayal stings anew, but it’s different now. It’s bigger than anger, sharper than jealousy or heartbreak. This isn’t just about her, or about me. It’s about something that should never be taken from me. My blood. My heir. My legacy.
A new obsession takes root. Darker, deeper, more dangerous than before. The rage coils in my belly, cold and controlled. She thought she could run? That she could hide my seed, my future, and vanish into the city? She thought she could erase my mark and raise my child as if I never existed?
No one takes what’s mine and survives.
My hands curl around the pregnancy test, knuckles white. All the old vows come roaring back—protection, ownership, legacy. She thought she could take it all away, as if I would just let her walk. She was wrong.
I stand, every nerve alive, every muscle humming with purpose. My mind begins to work—methodical, relentless. It might take weeks. It might take months. Hell, it might take years. But I will find her. I will find my child.
Lui enters quietly, reading the look on my face. He sees the test in my hand, the rage simmering in my eyes, and he knows. He says nothing, only waits for orders.
“Put the word out,” I say, voice cold and final. “She’s to be found. No harm—just bring her back. If anyone helps her, they answer to me. You understand?”
He nods, eyes wary. “What about the kid?”
I stare at him until he looks away. “The kid is mine. Everything else is noise.”
As Lui slips out, I sit back in my chair, mind spinning.
The city is vast, and she is clever, but she cannot outrun me.
She cannot keep my child from me. I will turn over every stone, shake every tree, burn every bridge if I have to.
I will find her, no matter how far she runs, no matter who she becomes.
There is no more mercy in me. No more hope for forgiveness, or soft words, or second chances.
She made her choice. Now she’ll learn what happens to those who run from Markian Sharov.
My child—my blood—will not grow up thinking I am a ghost or a monster someone can escape. My legacy will not be stolen.
***
As the morning sun cuts through the windows, I pocket the pregnancy test and stand. The hunt begins now. And I will not rest until I have them back under my control, where they belong.
The world may think I’ve lost, but Markian Sharov does not lose what’s his. He never has. He never will.
I feel the pregnancy test’s weight in my pocket like a brand against my skin. My thoughts sharpen, anger and determination fusing into something implacable. All softness is gone; there’s only resolve now. I call Lui back, my tone absolute.
“Start with the train stations, the airports, every bus terminal in the city. Pay off whoever you have to. I want her found.”
He nods, vanishing to spread the word. I stare out the window, jaw tight, mind already mapping every possible route she could have taken. She thinks she can outsmart me, disappear with my child. She’s wrong.
I promise myself again: no one escapes me. No one takes my blood and hides it away. I will find her, whether it takes days or a lifetime. My world has narrowed to a single goal; bring her back, at any cost.