Chapter 23 - Elisse
One week after the attack, the Chernykh mansion felt like a museum of my childhood.
It was still familiar and immaculate, but it was slowly beginning to feel unbearable.
The walls were the same muted ivory. The chandeliers still cast golden light over polished marble floors.
The staff moved quietly, efficiently, as if nothing had detonated in the center of our world seven days ago.
I had not cried in front of anyone, and that seemed to disappoint them more than if I had.
I forced myself out of bed every morning, but that was the extent of my cooperation.
I wore black almost every day, not as mourning, not as symbolism, but just because it required the least amount of thought.
My hair stayed loose, un-styled. I ignored the trays of food left outside my room.
I ignored the way the guards trailed me subtly, as if I might vanish again or as if I was planning to run away.
I wasn’t grateful. I wasn’t relieved. I was furious.
At them. At him. At myself. At everyone who even tried to breathe near me.
As I stepped into the dining room at breakfast, everyone knew better than to address me directly since I had been lashing out. Except for Iosif, who still attempted conversation.
“You should rest. You have dark circles under your eyes, and it looks as if you haven’t eaten anything in days,” he had said evenly across the breakfast table.
“I have been resting for a week if you had cared to notice,” I replied without looking up.
“You still look exhausted.”
“I am.”
Avgust, who was sitting right beside Iosif, jumped into the conversation as gently as he could. “It’s alright, Elle. We are just glad that you are safe and finally home.”
“I was safe exactly where I was one week ago, as well if the two of you would have cared to notice or listen to me or would have believed me while I was screaming at you that I did not want to go back.”
The fork in his hand stilled at my retort.
“You were in a war zone.”
“You two were the ones who barged in with your men and made it a war zone. Before that, it was just my house.”
Silence followed that, and no one argued with me, mostly because they just didn’t know how to.
They had given up much too soon. Because the truth sat between us like a landmine: they had stormed in believing they were rescuing me, and instead, they had destroyed the only place I had chosen to stay.
I mostly didn’t speak to anyone at all, but all of them continued to hover.
Zhenya, who was staring at the exchange with horror, suddenly chimed in. “You are being impossible to even talk to, Elle, and yes, I understand where your anger is coming from, but we are just family,” she muttered, putting in a forkful of pancakes in her mouth.
“He is family too, but no one seems to care about that, so I can’t bring myself to care about this,” I replied flatly.
I was unbearable, and I knew it, but I didn’t care.
I left the breakfast table, not wanting to make myself any angrier.
At night, when the house went quiet, the silence felt different from what it had been in the penthouse.
There, silence had been charged, but here, it only felt suffocating.
I kept replaying the moment when Fyodor had stepped out of the elevator.
The look in his eyes was etched in my memory.
The fracture when he left still replayed in my mind every second of every day. He thought I had betrayed him, and that thought followed me everywhere. When I woke up the next morning, I barely made it to the bathroom in time when the nausea hit without warning.
It was sharp and violent, and I gripped the marble counter as my stomach twisted. I hadn’t eaten much in days. There was nothing substantial to bring up. Just bile and emptiness. I rinsed my mouth and stared at my reflection.
Pale. Hollow. Angry. And unrecognizable. I was no longer the girl I had been just one week ago in the yellow sundress.
“Stress,” I muttered to myself.
Of course it was stress. What else could it be? But the next morning, it happened again, and this time in the hallway. Clara found me kneeling on cold tile, one hand braced against the wall.
“Elisse,” she said softly, crouching beside me. “You need to eat.”
“I’m fine.”
“You are clearly not.”
“I said I am fine, please leave me alone.”
She didn’t argue and simply helped me up.
I shrugged her off once I was steady. But by the next day, the staff had stopped offering sympathy and had moved to quiet concern, which irritated me even more.
The nausea came in waves now, and it was happening all the time.
Mid-morning. Late afternoon. Once in the middle of the night.
I stood over the sink again, shaking slightly, when Ilana’s voice came from the doorway.
“That’s the fourth time.”
I froze.
“What?”
“In a week,” she said calmly.
I turned slowly.
“I haven’t even been eating.”
“That’s why it’s concerning.”
“I think it’s just stress. Please don’t tell my brothers, or they will start forcing me to see a doctor.”
“Are you sure it’s just stress?”
“Yes.”
Clara appeared behind her, arms crossed.
“You’ve barely eaten,” Clara said gently. “And yet—”
“And yet what?”
“And yet you’re still getting sick.”
“I am exhausted from all the crying and missing.”
“Yes,” Ilana agreed. “But this isn’t just exhaustion.”
I laughed once, humorless.
“What exactly are you implying?”
Neither of them answered immediately, but the silence and the careful look that passed between the two of them was enough to tell me exactly what they were thinking. Something flickered at the edge of my mind.
No. No. It wasn’t. It couldn’t be. Clara stepped closer.
“Elisse,” she said softly, “is it possible?”
“Is what possible?”
Ilana didn’t soften her tone.
“You were married.”
My pulse stuttered. “Yes.”
“And the way you have been crying about Fyodor and have been begging to go back, it only means that the two of you were intimate.”
I looked away. “That’s not your business.”
“No,” Ilana agreed. “But this might be.”
The room seemed to tilt slightly, but the memory hit all at once.
The penthouse. The night after the masquerade.
The hunger and urgency that came without any hesitation or protection.
Even before that and even after the confession.
We hadn’t used protection even once, and I had wanted him to come inside me.
I couldn’t even remember the last time I had my period.
My hand gripped the edge of the counter.
“That’s not possible,” I said automatically.
“Why not?”
“Because—”
Because the timing was wrong. Because the universe wouldn’t be that cruel. Because this couldn’t possibly get more complicated than it already was.
“You’re late for your period as well, aren’t you?” Clara said gently.
“I’ve been under extreme stress.”
“Yes.”
“That can affect your periods as well. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Yes,” Ilana said calmly. “It can.” Silence pressed in.
“When was your last cycle?” Clara asked carefully.
I swallowed and counted backward, my stomach dropping.
“Oh,” Zhenya’s voice muttered faintly from the doorway.
“Get out,” I snapped, but she came inside anyway.
The bathroom felt too small and too bright.
“What exactly is happening here?” she asked, staring at the three of us.
“You’re not suggesting—” I began, completely ignoring Zhenya.
“We’re suggesting you take a test so we can be sure and rule this out,” Ilana said evenly.
My heart was pounding so loudly I could hear it.
“This is ridiculous.”
“Is it, though?
“I’ve been shot at.”
“Yes.”
“I’ve barely slept.”
“Yes.”
“I hate everyone in this house.”
“That’s unrelated.”
Clara’s lips twitched faintly while I continued to stare at the sink in quiet horror, my hands trembling.
My chest tightened painfully. I knew it was important to take a test, but all of it felt wrong without Fyodor.
I wanted him to be with me before I took the test. I wanted him to hold me while we waited for the results.
I wanted him to shout with happiness when the results turned out positive.
But he was not here. He might never be here.
“Bring it,” I said as tears began to fall out of my eyes, and Ilana quickly walked away, but returned within minutes with a kit in her hand,
“You just keep them in your room?” Zhenya asked, understanding the situation without being explained anything.
“I am married. Of course I do.”
Clara placed it on the counter gently without any drama or commentary. They were clearly giving me the choice to pick it up whenever I wanted to, and I appreciated them for it. I needed space. If Fyodor couldn’t be here with me, I just wanted to be alone and do this at my own pace.
“Do you want us to leave?” Ilana asked, and I nodded.
“Yes. Just outside, I mean. I will call you when I am done,” I replied, still grateful that they were there at least.
They quickly stepped out, and the door clicked shut behind them as the room went silent.
I stared at the small white stick in my hand, realizing how absurd and impossible it was.
My hands were shaking as I followed the instructions, but I quickly went through with the motions.
Minutes felt like hours, and I paced once.
Twice. I continued telling myself it would be negative.
That it was just stress and trauma, and exhaustion.
My alarm beeped, and I finally looked down.
Two lines. Clear and unmistakable. The world didn’t explode, and there was no dramatic crash of thunder.
No gunfire. No shattered glass. Just a quiet, devastating certainty.
I sat down slowly on the edge of the bathtub, realizing how my body felt detached and distant from everything.
I was pregnant.
The word echoed in my mind like a foreign language.
I pressed a hand to my abdomen instinctively.
There was nothing there yet. No visible change.
But everything had changed. Everything. The door opened softly and Ilana stepped inside first. She didn’t ask anything but simply looked at the stick on the counter, and she knew.
Clara and Zhenya followed, and Ilana nodded at them. They all knew now.
“Elisse?” Clara whispered.
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. The composure I had clung to for seven days shattered without warning.
The tears came fast, violent, and ugly. I folded in on myself, hands covering my face as sobs tore through my chest. It wasn’t just shock.
It was grief and relief and terror and love.
All colliding at once. Clara knelt in front of me, arms wrapping around my shoulders. Ilana stood close, steady, solid.
“This changes everything,” I choked out.
“Yes,” Ilana said softly.
“I don’t even know what I want.”
“That’s a lie,” Ilana said quietly. I looked up at her through blurred vision.
“I have to tell him. All I know is that I want to tell him. He needs to know, and he needs to be here with me, and I want him to hold me and kiss me and tell me everything is going to be alright. Please bring him to me, Ilana. Please call him and ask him to come get me. Please.”
There was no hesitation in that. No debate. Clara squeezed my hand.
“Please don’t cry like that, Elle,” Zhenya said, as she sat down on the floor beside me and hugged me from the other side.
I could see she was crying as well, her own tears falling down.
I wanted Fyodor because he would have looked at me differently if he had known.
Because he had thought I betrayed him. Because this child belonged to both of us.
And despite everything, I still loved him. I loved him more than anything else in the world. The realization settled deep and unshakable.
No amount of anger or pride or family loyalty could ever erase that. Ilana studied me carefully.
“Are you sure about this child?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, still sobbing softly. Ilana sat down on the floor in front of me, taking my hand in hers.
“Are you sure you want to keep the child? Because none of us will stop you if you decide not to. Motherhood is not easy, and you are already going through so much, and Fyodor is not here.”
“Yes,” I said after a few seconds, Ilana’s words ringing through my years. “Right now, this feels like the only thing I feel sure about. This child belongs to Fyodor and me. This is the symbol of our love. I can never give up on it.”
“But what if he doesn’t come back? You will still want to keep this child without him?” Clara asked, appearing concerned.
“He will come back. He has to.”
“And if he doesn’t?” Zhenya asked, repeating Clara’s question.
I wiped my face with the back of my hand.
“Then I’ll make him.”
For the first time in a week, something inside me felt clear.
It was not easy or calm, but at least I was certain.
They had stormed a penthouse, believing they were rescuing me.
They had fractured a man who thought I betrayed him.
They had written a narrative I hadn’t agreed to.
This changed the story. This changed the stakes.
I stood slowly, my hands steadier now as if having this child had somehow filled me with newfound confidence.
“I am not staying here much longer. I am going to him, and no one will be able to stop me from that,” I said, a little more sure of myself with every passing minute. I was done being a pet in everyone else’s game.
It was time I did this for myself.