Chapter 3
THREE
ANYA
I hesitate, but I pick up the phone. The clock on the stove reads five in the evening. That makes it one in the morning in Moscow. He will be awake. He has not slept properly in years since mother died. He certainly has not slept these past eighteen days.
I dial from memory. The line rings once. Twice. On the third ring, it connects. “Da,” he answers. His voice is controlled. Awake.
“Papa.”
There is a sharp inhale. Then the sound of something hitting the floor. “Anastasiya?” His voice breaks on my name. It has not done that since I was a child. In the background I hear movement. A door opening. Feet moving fast.
Then he starts shouting, no longer the controlled leader.
“Tikho! Tikho, chert vas vsekh poberi! Eto ona! Eto Anya!” Quiet.
All of you, quiet. It is her. It is Anya.
Another voice tries to speak, but he cuts them off.
“Zamolchite! Nikto ne govorit!” Silence.
No one speaks. Then he is back on the line, breathing hard. “Anastasiya. Tell me where you are.”
“I am safe,” I say immediately.
“Where are you, moya devochka?” Little star. He’s called me that since before I can remember.
My eyes burn with tears and I take a shuddering breath. “In America. He took me here.”
He pauses, I can feel him thinking. “Who took you?” He says in a low, dangerous voice.
My thumb traces the edge of the table unconsciously, back and forth, back and forth. “It was him. It was Volkov,” I answer.
There is a sharp crack in the background, like something striking wood. “He had help?” my father asks.
I shift in the chair, the legs scraping softly against the floor. I hate that Roman can see how rigid my spine is. “Da.”
“Names. Tell me who helped him.”
“I do not know their names.”
“You saw their faces, no?”
“Da.”
“And you remember?”
“Da.”
“Klyanus’ Bogom… yesli on polozhil na tebya ruku…
” I swear to God, if he laid a hand on you…
His voice lowers further. Controlled. Measured in a way that feels worse than rage.
“On mertv.” He is dead. “On mertv v lyubom sluchaye,” he continues, almost thoughtful now.
“No ya ub’yu ego tak medlenno… chto on budet molit’ o smerti.
” He is dead no matter what. But I will kill him so slowly he will beg for death.
“On budet zhelat’ ee,” he says quietly. “I dumat’, chto ona nikogda ne pridet.
” He will wish for it. And he will think it will never come.
I close my eyes. “Papa…”
“Skazhi mne,” he says, the steel returning. “Kak on tebya ranil.” Tell me how he hurt you.
My free hand curls into my lap, fingers digging into the fabric of my shirt. I stare at the grain of the table so I do not see the warehouse. The rope. The blood. “He wanted information,” I say carefully. “He did not get it.”
When he speaks again, his voice is ice. “Khoro sho.” Good. Then there’s silence. In the background, his voice snaps again. “Soberite lyudey. Seychas.” Gather the men. Now. “Podnimite vsekh.” Wake everyone.
“Volkov is dead,” I tell him.
The air on the line changes.“Who killed him?”
“The man I am with. And his friends.”
“And you trust him, this man?”
I look at Roman across the table. At the quiet strength in the way he sits. At the bruised skin across his knuckles. “Yes.”
Another silence. Footsteps in the background. Orders being given. “Location,” my father says.
“I will not tell you over the phone.”
His breath turns heavy. “I am coming,” he says immediately. “Send me the address. I leave within the hour.”
My chest aches at the certainty in his voice. He would cross oceans without hesitation. He always has. “You cannot simply—”
“I can do anything,” he snaps. His control fractures for just a second. “You think I will sit in Moscow while my only daughter is across an ocean after being taken? After eighteen days of not knowing anything?”
Eighteen days. I picture him alone in his office at three in the morning. Phone in his hand. Waiting. This is all my fault. “I am safe,” I repeat.
“Until I see you, you are not safe.” There is more shouting in the background. “Podgotovte samolet. Nemedlenno.” Prepare the plane. Immediately.
My eyes sting, but I blink the tears away. I do not cry easily. He raised me not to. “Papa…”
“Who is this man,” he asks, his voice settling back into something precise and cold, “that you remain with him instead of coming home?”
I look at Roman again. “He found me,” I say. “He stood between me and men who would have dragged me back.” And even as I say it, I feel the split inside me. The daughter who never wanted to disappoint him. And the woman who made a choice anyway.
“Put him on the phone, Anastasiya.”
I don’t argue. I don’t hesitate. I hold the phone out to Roman. “My father,” I tell him.
Roman stands, takes the phone from my hand, and lifts it to his ear.
“Dobryy vecher,” he says. Good evening.
I freeze. He really does speak Russian.
On the other end, my father says something sharp and fast. I can’t make out the words from where I stand, but I know the tone.
Roman listens without interrupting. His face doesn’t shift. “Da,” he replies evenly. “Ona v bezopasnosti.” Yes. She is safe.
My pulse beats harder.
He shifts slightly, one hand resting on the table as he looks at me. “Ya ne derzhu ee,” he says. “Eto ee vybor.” I am not holding her. It is her choice.
My father speaks again. Longer this time.
Roman’s jaw tightens just slightly. “Volkov mertv,” he says. Volkov is dead. There is a pause. “Ne ya.” Not me. “Prezident kluba Iron Reapers.” The President of the Iron Reapers club. Silence stretches between them. “Eto bylo reshenie kluba,” Roman adds calmly. It was the club’s decision.
Whatever my father says next must be sharp, because Roman’s gaze hardens slightly.
“Bol’she on ee ne kosnetsya.” He will not touch her again.
There’s another long pause. Roman’s voice lowers, steady and deliberate.
“Esli vy priedete kak otets, vam budet otkryta dver.” If you come as her father, the door will be open.
A breath. “Esli net… vy vstretite soprotivlenie.” If not, you will meet resistance.
My breath stalls as I look up at the man who has been my anchor since he stormed in.
Oh dear God. You do not tell a man like him that if he does not come as a father, he will meet resistance.
My stomach drops hard, like I’ve missed a step in the dark.
For one wild second I imagine my father’s face on the other end of the line.
The stillness. The way his eyes go flat before something terrible happens. He will kill him for this.
Roman does not fill it. He does not soften what he said. He stands there with the phone at his ear, one hand braced against the table, posture relaxed but unyielding. Across an ocean, my father says something low. Roman listens. Doesn’t flinch or apologize.
The quiet stretches longer than it should. Long enough for my pulse to pound in my throat. Long enough for me to imagine planes being fueled and men being armed.
Then Roman answers, calm as before. “Ya ponimayu.” I understand. He lowers the phone and holds it out to me. Our fingers brush as I take it back, my pulse anything but steady.
I lift it to my ear. “Papa?”
His breathing is controlled again. “I am coming,” he says before the line goes dead. I put the phone down and look up at him. “They’re coming,” I say.
“I assumed.”
I look at him. At the bruises on his knuckles. At the quiet control in his posture.
I yawn long and heavy. “I am tired,” I admit.
“You should go to sleep.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“You can,” he says simply. He doesn’t try to convince me. Doesn’t offer comfort he hasn’t been invited to give.
“Good night,” I say quietly then turn down the hallway and go back to the guest room Roman showed me earlier. I close the door gently behind me and lean against it for a second.
In the bag of clothes he brought me in the hospital, I remember seeing a pair of soft cotton pajamas. I grab them and change slowly, every movement reminding me of bruises I would rather not think about.
The mattress dips under my weight. The sheets are cool against my skin. I pull the covers up to my chin and stare at the ceiling.
I’m not sure why, but being in Roman’s home makes my shoulders loosen in a way they haven’t in weeks. There’s something about him. Something steady. He does not hover or crowd me. He simply stands there like a wall you can lean against without asking permission. It is a strange comfort.
I think back to the phone call with my father.
The way his voice broke when he said my name, then hardened when he spoke of Volkov.
He has given me anything and everything I could ever want, for that I should be grateful.
I love my father. That has never been the question.
But I wish he wasn’t coming. My life before this was never my own.
Every decision was made for me. All appearances were strategic.
Every friendship was watched and commented on.
I was raised to understand alliances, not freedom.
And now, for the first time, I am in a place where no one is telling me where to sit or who to marry or how to move.
The thought terrifies me almost as much as it steadies me.
I roll onto my side and close my eyes because I’m too tired to untangle any of this tonight and too tired to decide what it all means.
Tomorrow will come soon enough, and when it does, this fragile sliver of space I’m standing in, this brief illusion of choice, will disappear because my father will arrive and the plane will land and his men will move.
Decisions will be made around me instead of with me, and I will step back into the world I was raised for, back under his protection and back under his control.
So I let the quiet of this house wrap around me while it still can, and I breathe it in like it might be the last time I’m allowed to.
I don’t know how long I sleep, but I wake up screaming with tears streaming down my face.
The room is dark. For a split second, I am back in that concrete room in the warehouse.
The air is damp. The lightbulb is swinging overhead.
I jerk upright, heart hammering, my breathing coming too fast. Someone grabs my wrist and I swing at them.
My fist connects with solid muscle. “Anastasiya.” It’s him, Roman, my savior.
I blink, and the room slowly comes back into focus. The dim outline of the dresser takes shape against the far wall, and the faint shadow of the window stretches across the floor in silver-blue light. Roman is sitting on the edge of the bed staring at me.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper automatically.
“For what?”
“I thought…” My breath stutters. “I thought I was still there. In the chains.”
“You’re not,” he says quietly.
My hands are shaking and I hate that he can see it.
He shifts slightly closer, but doesn’t touch me again. “Do you want space,” he asks, “or do you want me here?”
The question surprises me. Not, do you need me, or, I’m staying. He’s giving me a choice. “I don’t want to be alone,” I admit.
He nods once and shifts back against the headboard.
Without saying a word, he reaches for me and draws me toward him.
He’s in black sweats and nothing else, bare chest warm and solid in the dim light.
His arm settles around my shoulders and his other hand slides to the back of my head, fingers threading gently into my hair as if anchoring me to him.
I go still for a second, unsure what to do with the closeness.
Then my cheek presses against his chest and I feel it, the steady rhythm of his heartbeat under my ear.
Slow and even. Unhurried. He smells like soap and something darker underneath, something that feels like safety and him.
But my lungs haven’t caught up yet. My breathing is still too fast, still trapped somewhere between memory and now.
“Match me,” he murmurs.
“What?” I gasp, trying to catch enough air.
“Breathe when I breathe.” He says, and I listen. I inhale with him then exhale with him. His chest rises under my cheek and my pulse begins to slow. “You’re safe,” he says quietly.
I close my eyes. The nightmare tries to drag me back under, but his arm tightens just slightly, anchoring me. “I’m sorry,” I whisper again.
“For surviving?” he asks. The question is so simple it makes my throat ache.
“For putting you in this position.”
His hand stills in my hair. “You didn’t put me anywhere, moya ptichka,” he says. “I walked into it knowing what it means.” His words settle deep. His thumb brushes once over my temple.
Outside, the house is silent. Across an ocean, my father is mobilizing men. But here, in the dark, Roman’s breathing stays steady. And slowly, against his chest, I fall back asleep.