Chapter 9
ELENA
The three weeks since our wedding had been miserable inside Ruslan Baranov’s enormous mansion.
Not loud. Not dramatic. Just cold and controlled.
Ruslan never shouted at me. He never threatened me outright. He didn’t have to.
Everything about my life there felt planned—my movements, my silence, even my loneliness.
I was kept apart without being locked away, made invisible without being hidden.
Nothing happened by accident.
I saw it most clearly in Yannis’s daily routine.
From the moment the sun rose, his day was mapped out down to the minute.
Private tutors came and went in steady rotation, teaching him advanced mathematics and Russian literature that felt far beyond what a child his age should be learning.
A Mandarin instructor—brought in from China, highly qualified and serious—worked with him for hours until every word came out perfectly, his young voice shaping the language with unsettling accuracy.
Afternoons were spent on physical training.
A former Olympic coach ran the sessions—strict, unsmiling, the type of man who believed children should be disciplined early and pushed hard. There was no room for play, only results.
Then there was the television appearance.
Once a week, a local California news crew came to the estate. They’d discovered Yannis’s intelligence and calm manner and turned him into a story—a child prodigy, serious beyond his years, brilliant and composed.
Under the studio lights, he answered questions politely, speaking with confidence, sitting perfectly still. Viewers loved him. Social media praised him. Commentators admired Ruslan as a devoted, impressive father.
That was no accident.
Ruslan made sure the story looked that way.
I understood what he was doing.
Every hour Yannis spent studying, training, or performing for cameras was an hour he wasn’t with me. Every achievement pushed into the spotlight pulled him a little farther away.
Slowly, deliberately, the bond between us weakened.
Ruslan was making sure his son no longer needed me.
He had said it plainly on the second day of our marriage, his voice calm and final:
“The only reason you’re still breathing is because Vanya needs you.”
It wasn’t a threat. It was a fact.
My life had value only as long as I was useful.
And yet—despite knowing this, despite the cold way he looked at me whenever we crossed paths in the vast halls of the house—I couldn’t stop myself from feeling things I shouldn’t.
My heart betrayed me, quietly, constantly, in ways I hated myself for.
In the dining room, he sometimes glanced at me for a second—just long enough for me to notice—before looking away again, as if even brief eye contact was something he refused to allow.
In the hallways, he passed me without speaking.
He never brushed against me, never slowed down, but his presence still felt heavy. Even after he was gone, the faint scent of his cologne lingered, reminding me he had been there.
The nights were the hardest.
I slept alone in the large bed we were supposed to share, surrounded by silence. I stared at the ceiling for hours, unable to rest, listening to the quiet sounds of the house. Guards moved somewhere beyond the walls. The place never truly slept—and neither did I.
And in the dark, my thoughts turned against me.
In my mind, we weren’t enemies tied together by revenge and blame.
We were something else.
I imagined us walking together along a coastline at sunset, barefoot, the air warm, his hand holding mine as if it belonged there. In those thoughts, his expression wasn’t cold or angry. It was calm. Protective.
Sometimes I imagined us sitting at a small café in another country, sharing quiet moments, speaking softly, touching without fear or tension—just two people, unguarded.
And in the most dangerous thoughts of all, there was no anger between us. No power, no punishment, no past standing in the way. Just closeness. Just peace.
Those thoughts disgusted me.
I hated myself for wanting anything from a man who had caused me so much pain. For imagining tenderness where none had been offered.
But feelings don’t follow logic. And hope—no matter how foolish—can survive even where it doesn’t belong.
So I endured.
One silent day after another. One quiet night after another.
Trapped not only inside Ruslan Baranov’s mansion—but inside my own heart, which refused to let go of what could never be.
In my dreams, we were somewhere far away—alone, safe, untouched by reality.
We danced barefoot on a quiet beach late at night. The sand was cool, the waves gentle around our feet.
The sky was full of stars, brighter than I’d ever seen. He held me close, steady, real. His forehead rested against mine, and for once, he wasn’t cold or distant.
When he spoke of the future, his voice wasn’t sharp or cruel. It sounded unsure. Afraid. Like a man who was scared to lose something that mattered.
They were beautiful dreams.
Impossible ones.
Every morning, I forced myself to remember that they weren’t real. They were only the result of loneliness. Of wanting comfort in a place where none existed.
He was a stranger to me.
And he always would be.
One day, this would end. Maybe with divorce papers quietly placed in front of me. Maybe with him returning to Greece without a word. Either way, I knew I would disappear from his life as suddenly as I had been pulled into it.
The thought never fully left me. It wasn’t sharp enough to make me cry—but it was always there, heavy in my chest.
To keep myself from drowning in the silence of that mansion, I started leaving at night.
Almost every evening, once the house settled and everything went quiet, I slipped out to a small jazz club in West Hollywood. It became my escape. The same worn leather stools. The same slow music filled with longing and regret. The same warm glow of whiskey behind the bar.
It wasn’t freedom—but it helped me breathe. It reminded me I still existed outside that house.
Tonight was no different.
The club was calm and low-lit, the air thick with smoke and music.
I was already on my third drink when I noticed him again—a man in his late thirties, maybe older.
He wore an expensive suit that didn’t try too hard. Nothing flashy. Just confidence.
His smile was smooth and practiced, but there was something distant in his eyes, as if he was always holding something back.
“Hey,” he said, sliding onto the stool beside me as though he’d always belonged there.
“Hi.” I didn’t look at him. I lifted two fingers at the bartender instead.
The glass arrived almost instantly.
I downed it in three quick swallows, welcoming the burn as it scorched its way down my throat.
Pain that I chose felt safer than the kind that found me anyway.
He watched me with that careful, observant expression he always wore—the look of a man who noticed too much and said too little.
“Elena,” he said gently, as if my name might break if he handled it wrong. “Are you ever going to trust me enough to tell me why a married woman comes here almost every night alone—drinking, unhappy, clearly carrying something she won’t say?”
I let out a quiet, humorless snort. Then I gave him the same lie I’d been using from the start.
“My husband sold a baby elephant,” I said flatly. “I begged him not to. He didn’t listen.”
I stared into my glass. “The mother was left behind. Alone. I used to watch them together—playing, staying close. I’ll never see that again. And it hurts more than it should.”
It wasn’t entirely untrue. Ruslan had sold Luna’s calf without hesitation, despite my tearful, furious pleading.
I could still see the way the mother elephant had circled the empty enclosure, low mournful sounds echoing through the estate. The memory burned like acid.
The man chuckled, unconvinced, crossing one leg over the other. “People love animals, sure. But nobody grieves an elephant for three weeks straight.” He tilted his head, studying me. “Come on. What’s the real story?”
I stared at the bottles lined up behind the bar—labels from places I’d never been, lives I’d never lived.
My voice came out flat, stripped of emotion. “My husband doesn’t care that his wife comes to a club alone almost every night.” I paused, letting the truth settle between us. “That tells you everything you need to know about the kind of man he is.”
Silence stretched. Heavy. Loaded.
The saxophone wailed softly in the background, a sound like heartbreak given breath.
Then, almost casually—as if mentioning the weather—I added, “His name is Ruslan Baranov. Heard of him?”
The temperature around us seemed to plummet.
I finally turned to look at him.
He’d frozen mid-motion, glass suspended halfway to his lips. Color drained from his face, his pupils blown wide with instant, unmistakable recognition.
The easy confidence evaporated, replaced by the sharp awareness of a man who had just realized he’d wandered far too close to something lethal.
“You’re...” He swallowed hard. “You’re the Greek legend’s wife?”
“That’s right.”
I turned fully toward him then, resting my elbow on the bar, offering a small, tired smile that didn’t reach my eyes. The kind of smile born from exhaustion rather than humor. “So,” I asked quietly, “still want to be my knight in shining armor?”
For a long moment, he said nothing.
Then he slowly set his glass down, the faint clink echoing louder than it should have. His gaze flicked around the room—at the exits, the shadows, the corners where danger might hide.
When he looked back at me, the flirtation was gone. Replaced by something like fear. And something like respect.
“I think,” he said carefully, “I just realized I’ve been sitting next to a storm... and mistaking it for rain.”
I let out a soft, bitter laugh.
“Welcome to my life.”
He swallowed hard, Adam’s apple bobbing visibly as his gaze darted around the room again—toward the shadowed corners, the darkened hallway near the restrooms, the reflective glass behind the bar—as if armed men might materialize out of smoke and music at any second.