Chapter 9 #2
“Uh... I just remembered,” he stammered, already sliding off the stool. His voice cracked into something thin and nervous. “I’ve got something... important. Really important.”
He stood so quickly his knee struck the bar, the half-full glass wobbling dangerously before settling. He didn’t even notice.
“Later, Elena,” he said, backing away now, palms lifted in a gesture that was half apology, half surrender. “Take care.”
Then he turned and nearly jogged toward the exit, shoulders hunched, head down, disappearing into the night as if the club itself had become hostile territory.
I watched him go without blinking.
A hollow laugh slipped out of me—soft, fractured, stripped of humor. The sound surprised even me. It echoed somewhere deep in my chest, ricocheting off all the empty places inside.
For weeks, I’d let him believe I was just another lonely woman with a wedding ring that felt more like a shackle than a promise. Another sad story soaking into a barstool. The moment I said the name, the illusion shattered. No flirtation survived reality when reality wore Ruslan Baranov’s face.
The bartender leaned closer, concern etching faint lines around his eyes. He’d been watching me night after night, memorizing my patterns the way bartenders do when they know a customer is unraveling.
“Another one, Ms. Elena?” he asked gently.
I shook my head, my throat too tight for words. Then, after a beat, “Just... hand me the bottle.”
His brows lifted. “Ma’am—”
I didn’t wait for permission. I reached across the bar, fingers closing around the neck of the Macallan before he could pull it back. The glass was cool against my palm, solid, real.
I slid off the stool, heels clicking once against the floor before I kicked them off and carried the bottle toward the small dance floor tucked near the back of the club.
The band had shifted gears. The tempo slowed. The saxophone dipped into something lower, heavier—music that curled around the ribs and squeezed.
Smoke hung thicker here, lights dimmer, bodies blurred into silhouettes swaying together.
I didn’t care that I was alone.
I didn’t care that people stared, their eyes lingering too long, curiosity flickering as they tried to place me.
I closed my eyes.
I let the music pour into me, seep into the cracks, and I began to move.
Slow at first. A sway of hips. A roll of shoulders.
Then looser. Wilder. As if motion itself could purge me—shake loose the grief, the rage, the yearning lodged beneath my sternum.
I am a wife paying the price for a crime I did not commit.
A substitute for my sister’s sins.
My husband is my judge, my jailer, and my sentence.
He will never forgive me—not because I am guilty, but because I am available. Because I am here. Because my sister is not.
Until he finds her, I am the stand-in.
The reminder.
The punishment.
He looks at me with disgust, with hatred that has nowhere else to land. Every day, every silence, every cruelty is shaped by the same truth: I am not the one he wants, but I am the one he has.
I am not his wife in any real sense.
I am leverage.
And maybe one day—if fate is merciful, if his search ever ends—he will find my sister and release me.
But until then, this is my life.
What a terrible fate it is, to be alive only because someone else is missing.
I danced like someone trying to outrun herself, like if I moved hard enough, fast enough, I could sweat the pain out through my skin.
A woman married to a monster.
A woman whose father had murdered her mother, faked his own death, and let his daughter rot for ten years while he lived rich and untouched.
A woman whose survival depended on a traumatized boy who clung to her because his world had already ended once.
A woman owned by a man who looked through her as if she were nothing—and yet somehow held her entire existence in his hands.
The bottle tilted back again. The burn was brutal and welcome.
Most nights, when I returned to the mansion, Ruslan would be in the living room—laptop open, jaw clenched, the cold blue glow of the screen carving harsh shadows across his face. I’d murmur a quiet, useless “I’m home.”
He never answered.
Not once.
He wouldn’t even lift his eyes.
I’d climb the staircase alone, each step echoing too loudly in the vastness of the house, slip beneath the cold, immaculate sheets of our enormous bed, and lie there staring at the ceiling until exhaustion dragged me under.
Sometimes he came to bed hours later.
Sometimes he didn’t come at all.
Either way, the space between us felt like an ocean—wide, dark, and impossible to cross.
He hated me.
He’d made that brutally, unmistakably clear.
He owned me.
He’d made that clearer still.
The music pulsed through my veins like a second heartbeat—wild, relentless, almost merciful.
I’d surrendered to it completely, eyes closed, lashes damp, arms lifting and falling as my body moved on instinct alone.
My hips traced slow, aching circles, not for anyone watching, not for attention, but because standing still felt like suffocating.
Every beat shook loose something sharp inside me. Every sway was an attempt to forget.
The bottle of Macallan hung from my fingers, heavy and familiar, the amber liquid sloshing dangerously close to the rim. Half-empty. Or half-full.
I wasn’t sure anymore.
The strobe lights fractured it into molten gold, catching on the glass like fireflies trapped in whiskey.
I tipped it back, took a burning swallow, and let the alcohol scorch a path down my throat.
For a moment—just one fragile, stolen moment—I felt almost free.
Then a hand closed around my wrist.
Thick. Damp. Possessive.
I flinched so hard my breath left me in a sharp gasp, eyes flying open as my body jerked back on pure instinct. The music still thundered, but suddenly it felt distant, distorted, like I was underwater.
A man stood far too close.
Mid-forties, maybe. Chubby, soft in places that spoke of indulgence and entitlement.
His wrinkled button-down clung to his stomach, damp with sweat, and his face was flushed an ugly, blotchy red.
Cheap tequila rolled off him in nauseating waves, sour and sharp.
His fingers tightened on my wrist as if he had every right to touch me.
“Hey, girl,” he slurred, lips curling into a grin that made my skin crawl. “Stop dancing like you’re crazy. Dance with me instead.”
Something hot and feral snapped awake inside my chest.
I wrenched my arm back hard enough that the bottle nearly slipped from my grasp. “No.”
One word.
Flat. Absolute.
He blinked, clearly not accustomed to refusal. Then he stepped closer, invading my space again, his chest almost brushing mine, his grip reaching for me once more.
I leaned forward instead.
Close enough to see the broken capillaries in his cheeks. Close enough to smell the rot of liquor and arrogance on his breath.
“Leave me the fuck alone!” I screamed, my voice ripping through the music like shattered glass.
The bass stuttered around my words, but they landed anyway—sharp, undeniable.
Heads turned. Conversations faltered. A few dancers froze mid-motion, eyes wide, mouths parted.
The spotlight swung lazily across us, catching his face in stark relief.
Humiliation flashed first. Then rage.
His jaw tightened, lips curling back as he hissed something ugly under his breath—something I couldn’t hear but didn’t need to. For a split second, I thought he might grab me again. Might shove. Might retaliate.
Then he stepped back.
Once. Twice.
And just like that, he melted into the crowd, swallowed by bodies and shadows, disappearing as though he’d never existed at all.
My hands shook.
I exhaled slowly, chest heaving, forcing my shoulders to relax as adrenaline drained from my veins. I closed my eyes again, willing myself back into the music, back into that fragile bubble where nothing could touch me.
That was when the music cut off.
Not faded. Not transitioned.
Cut.
The silence hit like a slap.
A ripple of confused murmurs spread through the club, tension snapping tight as a wire. I opened my eyes, heart stuttering painfully as I turned toward the entrance.
Four LAPD officers were moving through the dim space with unmistakable purpose.
Uniforms crisp. Faces hard. Flashlights slicing white beams through smoke and shadows, illuminating startled expressions, glittering dresses, raised hands clutching drinks.
The crowd parted instinctively, fear and curiosity clearing a path before them.
And they were walking straight toward me.
My stomach dropped so hard I thought I might be sick.
The lead officer—a woman with a tight bun pulled so severe it looked painful, eyes sharp and utterly unimpressed—stopped directly in front of me.
“Miss Elena Baranov?” she asked.
The world narrowed to the sound of my own heartbeat.
I couldn’t seem to find my voice. My tongue felt thick, useless.
I managed a single nod.
“You are under arrest.” Her tone was calm, practiced, merciless.
“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you?”
Each word landed like a stone dropped into my chest, sinking deeper, heavier.
“I...” My lips moved, but nothing came out at first. I swallowed hard. “Yes.”
“Hands behind your back.”
Cold metal closed around my wrists with a final, unforgiving click.
The cuffs bit into my skin, tighter than I expected, anchoring me to the reality I’d been desperately trying to outrun.
The bottle was taken from my hand.
Someone murmured. Someone else whispered my name like it was gossip worth savoring.
They guided me forward, firm hands at my elbows, steering me through the parted sea of faces.
I felt their stares like needles—curious, judgmental, hungry. Past the bar. Past the band. Past the place where I’d tried to bleed myself empty through music and motion.
The door opened.