Chapter 14 - Keira
I woke to gray light filtering through unfamiliar curtains and the disorienting confusion of not knowing where I was.
Then it came back. The penthouse. The marriage. The kiss. The text message that had sent everyone on high alert.
I lay there for a long moment, staring at the ceiling, cataloging the events of the past seventy-two hours like a patient presenting symptoms. Kidnapping attempt. Forced marriage. Kiss with husband. Death threat. Sleepless night.
Any therapist worth their degree would tell me I was in crisis. That I needed to process, to grieve, to allow myself to feel the full weight of what had happened.
Instead, I got out of bed and took a shower.
The water was perfect—hot and plentiful, the kind of water pressure you only got in expensive buildings with excellent plumbing. I stood under it until my skin was pink, letting the heat work into muscles I hadn't realized were tight, and tried to organize my thoughts into something manageable.
I'd told Rodion I didn't regret the kiss. That was true. I'd also told him I didn't know what it meant. That was also true.
The problem was that I was starting to want to find out.
I dried off and dressed in clothes Nina had sent—simple, elegant things that fit better than they had any right to. The woman had good taste and apparently an accurate eye for sizing. I wondered what else she'd observed about me in our brief meeting.
My phone was gone. I'd almost forgotten—Yegor had taken it last night, right after the threatening message appeared. Security risk, he'd said. They could track it. I'd handed it over without argument, too shaken to protest, but now the absence felt like a missing limb.
My patients. My practice. My entire life, inaccessible.
I needed to do something about that. But first, I needed coffee.
The penthouse was quiet when I emerged from my room.
Morning light filled the main living space, softer than the harsh brightness of the night before.
Without the crisis atmosphere, I could actually see the place—the clean lines of the furniture, the art on the walls, the books lining the shelves of the study I'd glimpsed but never entered.
I made coffee in the gleaming kitchen, orienting myself by the smell and the ritual. Some things were the same no matter where you were. Water, grounds, heat. The alchemy of caffeine.
Cup in hand, I wandered.
I told myself I was just exploring my new home. Getting the lay of the land. But I knew what I was really doing—looking for clues. Trying to understand the man I'd married through the space he'd built for himself.
The living room was tasteful but impersonal. Expensive furniture, carefully chosen art, nothing that revealed anything about the person who lived here. It could have been a high-end hotel suite, designed to impress without intimidating.
The study was different.
I pushed open the door and stepped inside, and immediately felt like I'd crossed a threshold into something private.
This room was lived in. Books everywhere—not arranged for show, but stacked and shelved and piled in the particular chaos of someone who actually read them.
A desk covered in papers and files. A leather chair worn soft with use.
And photographs.
They were clustered on a shelf in the corner, away from the main sight lines—easy to miss if you weren't looking. I moved closer, drawn by the glimpse of faces.
A woman with dark hair and kind eyes, caught mid-laugh at something outside the frame. She had Rodion's smile, or he had hers. His mother, I realized. Antonina. The one who'd died and left them all spinning in her absence.
A formal portrait of four young men in suits, arranged by height.
Rodion was second from the left, younger but recognizable, his smile already carrying that practiced charm.
Beside him, a taller man who must be Demyan—harder, colder, even then.
On the end, a boy who barely looked fifteen, with pale eyes and no expression at all. Kirill.
There was a fourth man I didn't recognize. Older than Kirill, younger than Demyan. He had the same dark hair as the others, the same strong jaw, but his smile was different. More open. Less guarded.
"That's Mikhail."
I turned. Rodion stood in the doorway, dressed in a simple shirt and trousers, his hair still damp from the shower. He looked tired, but his eyes were alert, watching me with an expression I couldn't quite read.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't mean to pry."
"You're not prying. You live here." He moved into the room, coming to stand beside me. Close, but not touching. "That was taken about fifteen years ago. Before everything went to hell."
"Mikhail," I repeated. "I don't think you've mentioned him."
"I don't talk about him much." He reached out and touched the frame, a gesture that seemed almost unconscious. "He died. Eight years ago."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. You didn't know him." He was quiet for a moment, his eyes on the photograph.
"He was the best of us, actually. The one who might have gotten out, done something different with his life.
He was studying to be a doctor, if you can believe that.
A Rysev who wanted to heal people instead of hurt them. "
"What happened?"
"Car bomb. One of the rival families, sending a message to my father. But Mikhail was driving that day. Wrong place, wrong time." His jaw tightened. "He was twenty-six."
"I'm sorry," I said again, knowing how inadequate the words were.
"My mother was the first." His voice was flat, controlled. "I was nine. She was making dinner for us on a Tuesday night. A rival family wanted to send a message to my father. They sent it through her."
I felt the blood drain from my face. "They killed her in your home?"
"In the kitchen. Two shots. Demyan found her." He wasn't looking at me now, his eyes fixed on some middle distance. "He doesn't talk about it. None of us does. But it's there. It's always there."
I thought about my own mother. I knew what it was like to have your mother ripped away in an instant, in the place that should have been safest.
"My mother died when I was twelve," I said quietly.
He turned to look at me, and I saw the shift in his expression. The recognition of shared loss.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. You didn't know her." I echoed his words deliberately, and saw the ghost of a smile cross his face.
"But that's why I became a psychologist. I spent years in therapy after she died, trying to make sense of it.
Of the things my father did to her. And somewhere along the way, I realized I wanted to be on the other side of the conversation.
Helping people find their way through the darkness. "
"Did it work? The therapy?"
"Some of it. Enough to function. Enough to build a life." I moved to the window, looking out at the city. "But you never really get over losing a parent. You just learn to carry the weight differently."
"No," he agreed. "You don't."
We stood in silence for a moment, the morning light painting the room in shades of gold. It was strange, this quiet intimacy. Two people who barely knew each other, sharing the kind of truths that usually took years to excavate.
"I need to contact my patients," I said, breaking the spell. "I have appointments scheduled. People who are expecting me. I can't just disappear."
"I know. We've been working on that." He straightened, shifting back into practical mode. "Your old phone is gone—we had to destroy it. But we've set up a secure line. Untraceable. You can use it to make calls, send messages. Whatever you need."
"What do I tell them? My patients?"
"Family emergency. Indefinite leave. Whatever feels true enough to be believable."
"It is a family emergency," I said dryly. "Just not the kind they'll imagine."
"No. Probably not."
He pulled a phone from his pocket and handed it to me. New, sleek, completely anonymous. "The number's already programmed in. Yegor's contact is there too, in case you need anything. And mine."
I took the phone, feeling its weight in my hand. Such a small thing. Such a huge lifeline.
"Thank you."
"You don't have to keep thanking me."
"I know. But I keep meaning it, so I keep saying it."
He smiled at that—a real smile, not the charming mask he wore for everyone else. It transformed his face, made him look younger, softer. More like the man in the photograph with his brothers, before years of grief had hardened him.
"I'll leave you to make your calls," he said. "Take whatever time you need."
He left, closing the door softly behind him, and I stood alone in his study with a phone in my hand and a decision to make.
My patients first. That was the professional thing to do. I scrolled through my mental list—the appointments I'd need to cancel, the referrals I'd need to make, the careful lies I'd need to tell.
But that wasn't what I did.
Instead, I dialed Amber's number from memory and waited for her to pick up.
"Hello?" Her voice was cautious, the tone people use for unknown numbers.
"It's me."
"Keira?" Relief flooded her voice. "Oh my God, I've been trying to reach you for two days. Your phone kept going straight to voicemail. I was starting to worry."
"I know. I'm sorry. Things have been..." I searched for a word that wasn't a complete lie. "Complicated."
"Complicated how? Are you okay?"
I sat down in Rodion's leather chair, pulling my knees up to my chest like I used to do when I was a child. "I don't know how to answer that."
"That's not reassuring."
"I know." I took a breath. "Amber, I need to tell you something. And I need you to not ask too many questions, because I can't answer most of them."
The silence on the other end was heavy with concern. "You're scaring me."
"I'm scaring myself." I closed my eyes. "I got married."
"You what?"
"Two days ago. I got married."
"To whom? You haven't even been dating anyone. You told me last week there was no one."
"There wasn't. And then there was. And then things happened very fast, and now I'm married." I laughed, a slightly hysterical sound. "I know how that sounds."
"It sounds insane. Keira, what's going on? Are you in trouble?"
"Yes," I admitted. "But I'm safe. I'm protected. The man I married—he's protecting me."
"From what?"
"I can't tell you that."
"Keira—"
"I mean it, Amber. I can't. Not because I don't trust you, but because knowing would put you in danger. And I'm not going to do that."
She was quiet for a long moment. I could picture her sitting in her living room, Lily probably playing on the floor nearby, her whole normal life spread out around her like a safety net I didn't have.
"Is he good to you?" she asked finally. "This man you married?"
I thought about Rodion. About the way he'd stepped between me and the guns without hesitation. About the kiss that had left me shaken. About the photographs of his dead brother and mother, and the grief he still carried.
"I think so," I said. "I think he's trying to be."
"That's not the same as yes."
"No. But it's the best I can offer right now."
"And you're sure you're safe?"
"As sure as I can be."
Another long pause. "I don't like this," she said. "I don't like any of this. You've always been so careful, so controlled. This isn't like you."
"I know."
"But you're not going to tell me more."
"I can't."
She sighed, a sound of resignation and worry mixed together. "Okay. I'm not going to pretend I understand, because I don't. But I'm here. Whatever you need, whenever you need it. You know that, right?"
"I know."
"And Keira? Call me. Regularly. So I know you're still alive."
"I will. I promise."
"I'm holding you to that."
We said goodbye, and I sat in the silence of Rodion's study, the phone pressed against my chest. Amber's voice had grounded me somehow, reminded me that there was a world outside this penthouse, outside this crisis. A world I might be able to return to someday, if I survived long enough.
I spent the next hour making harder calls.
My receptionist Margaret first—family emergency, indefinite leave, please cancel all appointments and refer urgent cases to David Chen.
Then, a few patients directly, the ones I worried about most, the ones who might spiral without warning.
Brief conversations, reassuring words, promises to return as soon as I could.
Lies, all of it. But necessary ones.
A knock at the door made me look up. Rodion again, his expression more serious this time.
"Everything okay?"
"I talked to my friend. Amber. She's worried, but she won't push. And I've cancelled my appointments. Margaret is handling the referrals."
"Good." He hesitated in the doorway. "Kirill wants to talk to both of us. Something's happened."
"What kind of something?"
"The Petrovics have gone quiet. No chatter, no movement, nothing." His jaw tightened. "That's not good. It means they're planning something big."
I stood, setting the phone on his desk. The brief moment of normalcy was over. Reality was back, with all its sharp edges and dark corners.
"Then let's go find out what they're planning."
He looked at me, something flickering in his eyes. Surprise, maybe. Or respect.
"You don't have to be part of this," he said.
"Yes, I do." I moved past him into the hallway. "It's my life they're planning to destroy. I'd rather know what's coming than hide in a room and wait for it."
He fell into step beside me, close enough that our shoulders almost touched.
"I'm starting to think I underestimated you," he said.
"Most people do." I glanced at him. "It's one of my few advantages."
He smiled at that, and something in my chest loosened slightly. We weren't okay—not yet, maybe not ever. But we were something. Two people moving in the same direction, facing the same threat.
It wasn't love. It wasn't even trust, not fully.
But it was a start.