Chapter 4 #2
“Petros will show you to your room,” he said flatly, voice directed at the space beside me rather than my face.
Then he turned to his son.
“Come on,” he said to Yannis, the edge gone from his tone—not gentle, exactly, but softer. Controlled.
Yannis didn’t move.
He looked up at me instead, his small face pinched with something like panic. His lips parted. Moved. Tried to shape a word.
Nothing came out.
He tried again, brows knitting together, cheeks puffing slightly with effort. The silence slammed back into place like a door locked from the outside.
My chest tightened.
I moved before my fear could catch up with me—kneeling despite the sharp protest of my ribs, lowering myself until I was eye-level with him. I took both his small hands in mine, feeling the slight tremor there.
“It’s okay,” I signed gently, keeping my movements slow, steady. Then I spoke aloud too, my voice rough but warm, so Ruslan could hear. “You don’t have to t-talk. Just sign.”
Yannis exhaled like he’d been holding his breath for hours. His shoulders dropped. Relief flooded his face.
His fingers began to move—quick, eager, precise.
I want to stay with Elena.
The words hit me unexpectedly hard.
I translated automatically. “He says he wants to stay with me.”
Ruslan’s expression didn’t change—but something flickered behind his eyes. A flash of calculation. Suspicion. Something darker, sharper, as though a blade had shifted position just beneath the surface.
“No,” he said calmly. Too calmly. “Yannis, she’ll be living here for a while, okay?” A pause. “But right now I need to ask you a few questions. And you need a bath.”
He reached for his son.
Yannis stiffened instantly—small body locking, fingers tightening in my hands. His eyes went wide, pleading as they searched my face. Panic radiated off him in waves.
Ruslan lifted him anyway.
The motion was effortless, strong arms gentle but unyielding. Yannis made a small sound—not a word, just breath—and twisted to look back at me over his father’s shoulder.
I signed quickly, heart pounding.
Go with him. I’ll be here. I promise.
His gaze clung to mine, desperate, as if he believed that if he looked away for even a second I might disappear. Only when Ruslan shifted him higher on his shoulder did Yannis finally turn his face inward, burying it against his father’s suit.
They disappeared through the interior door without another word.
Only then did I realize how tightly I’d been holding myself together.
I let out a slow, shaking breath.
Behind me, a throat cleared.
I turned.
A man stood a few steps away—mid-forties, sharp suit, sharp eyes, posture military-straight but without the bulk of a bodyguard. He watched me the way someone watches a loaded weapon left unattended.
“I’m Petros,” he said evenly. “Personal assistant to Mr. Baranov.”
“Elena,” I replied, my voice still raspy, each word scraping like gravel over damaged cords.
He nodded once, brisk and assessing. No smile. No warmth. Just acknowledgment.
“Come with me.”
I followed him through the garage entrance and into the house.
The interior took my breath in a way I hadn’t expected—and that terrified me more than if it had been ugly.
White marble floors stretched beneath my feet, polished to a mirror sheen that reflected the soaring ceilings above.
Walls of glass framed the Pacific like a living painting, the ocean rolling endlessly, indifferent to the lives contained within these walls.
The late-day light poured in, soft and golden, catching on edges and corners with surgical precision. Everything smelled faintly of citrus and clean linen, the kind of curated scent designed to suggest purity while hiding whatever rot lay underneath.
There was no clutter.
No personal chaos.
No warmth.
Only control.
The kind of control that came from someone who did not tolerate disorder—emotional or otherwise.
As we walked, relief crept in alongside the terror, unwelcome but persistent.
Ruslan had said the marriage would be for a while. Temporary. A sentence with an end.
That mattered.
If I played this right—if I stayed alive long enough—I could still salvage my inheritance. Harris could be dealt with later. Men like him were transactional. Predictable. Ruslan Baranov was neither.
And separate rooms. Thank God.
I could endure almost anything for a little while. Pain had become a language I spoke fluently. Fear, an old companion.
I had to endure.
Because somewhere in this house was a little boy who had chosen me—me—with a trust so instinctive it felt sacred. And somewhere deep inside me, beneath layers of survival and guilt, the ghost of my sister whispered that maybe—just maybe—Ruslan Baranov knew what had happened to her.
Or worse.
I followed Petros up a floating staircase of glass and steel, each step echoing faintly, my heart pounding too loud in my ears. I wondered how long I could pretend to be brave before the monster in the immaculate suit decided my usefulness had expired.
The staircase opened into a vast corridor, then into an enormous living room.
I stopped short.
The space felt less like a house and more like a temple—ancient Greece resurrected and reimagined through obscene wealth and modern brutality.
Tall fluted columns rose from polished travertine floors, their capitals carved with acanthus leaves and stylized griffins.
Between them stood life-sized bronze statues of Greek heroes—Hercules frozen mid-labor, Achilles caught in the moment before violence, Apollo poised with his lyre. Discreet spotlights bathed the metal in warm light, making the figures gleam like molten gold.
A massive fresco dominated the far wall: the gods of Olympus feasting atop Mount Olympus, painted in deep indigos, rich reds, and burnished golds. Zeus reclined at the center, thunderbolt resting casually at his side, expression bored—as if omnipotence itself had grown weary.
The furniture echoed the same theme—low, curved sofas upholstered in crimson velvet, bronze tripod tables, and a long dining bench that looked as though it had been lifted from a Mycenaean palace.
It was breathtaking.
It was terrifying.
My gaze drifted to one statue set apart from the others.
It stood near the grand staircase, taller, commanding the room without effort. Carved from white Pentelic marble so pure it almost glowed, the figure was unmistakable.
Ruslan Baranov.
Same broad shoulders. Same sharp jaw. The same dangerous stillness captured perfectly—muscles at rest, but coiled, ready. The sculptor had even rendered the eyes in obsidian inlay, giving the illusion that the statue watched whoever dared enter the space.
I felt exposed under that gaze, as though even stone could judge me.
“Isn’t this... Ruslan?” I asked quietly, my voice barely carrying.
Petros glanced over, unimpressed. “Yes. A gift from an Athenian sculptor who owed him a favor.”
Owed him.
I swallowed. I couldn’t look away. The statue stared back—cold, beautiful, eternal. A man turned myth by the fear of others. A king carved in marble while still very much alive.
What kind of man commissioned—or accepted—his own likeness as a god among gods?
Petros cleared his throat, the sound snapping me back to the present. “You can admire the house later, ma’am. I have other duties. I just need to show you your room.”
My room.
The word landed heavier than it should have.
I tore my gaze away from the marble king and followed Petros up the floating staircase, my bare feet whispering against glass and steel. The higher we climbed, the quieter the house became, as if sound itself knew better than to linger too long in Ruslan Baranov’s domain.
At the end of the upper hallway stood a door that didn’t just suggest power—it announced it.
The panels were thick oak, dark and ancient-looking, inlaid with intricate meander patterns picked out in gold leaf, the same endless Greek key design that symbolized eternity.
The only sign we were still in the twenty-first century was the matte-black hardware and the discreet digital panel set flush into the wall beside the frame. It looked less like a bedroom door and more like the entrance to a vault—or a temple.
Petros stopped beside it. “Press your thumb three times on the scanner.”
I hesitated for half a second, then obeyed. The glass surface was cool under my skin. A soft green light pulsed with each press. Somewhere inside the wall, a lock disengaged with a muted click.
“Your thumbprint is now registered,” he said, pushing the door open. “You can lock and unlock it yourself. No one else has access without Mr. Baranov’s override.”
That sentence settled in my chest like a stone.
Without Mr. Baranov’s override.
So—privacy, but conditional. Safety, but borrowed.
The bedroom was enormous.
White walls stretched upward, unbroken and immaculate.
A king-sized platform bed dominated the center of the room, dressed in crisp charcoal linens that looked untouched, unused. The mattress was low, severe, and unmistakably expensive—designed for sleep, not comfort.
I swallowed.
“I’ll need to go back to my place eventually,” I said, breaking the silence. “To get my things.”
Petros nodded as though he’d expected it. “Let me know when you’re ready. I’ll arrange a driver and an escort.”
I turned to look at him. “Escort?”
His expression didn’t change, but something tightened around his eyes. “If you need to go anywhere—anywhere at all—you must inform me first. We’ll provide appropriate security.”
Appropriate security.
I let out a humorless breath. “Because I’m married to him now.”
“Yes.” A beat. “Because you’re Ruslan Baranov’s wife now. That makes you a potential target. We have enemies here. Many of them.”
Enemies plural. Of course.
He paused at the threshold, then added more quietly, almost kindly, “Good luck, ma’am.”
And with that, he turned and walked away, his broad shoulders retreating down the corridor. The sound of his footsteps faded. The door clicked shut behind him with soft finality.