Chapter 7
LILA
Ivan leaves past noon—pressed suit, sharp lines, not a wrinkle out of place. He doesn’t say where he’s headed, but he doesn’t have to.
“Business,” he called it. I think I know what kind of business, but I don’t ask to confirm. I don’t want the answer. The dark possibilities that surround him terrify me. For now, I’d rather remain ignorant.
The door clicks shut behind him, and I'm alone with Pyotr.
Ivan is dangerous in a sleek, controlled way. Pyotr’s danger circles more like a natural disaster. Six-five at least, with shoulders broad enough to block doorways and a neck thicker than my thigh, he positions himself in front of the elevator. His arms remain crossed and his face expressionless.
I wait five minutes, testing if he’ll move.
Then ten.
He doesn't. Not an ounce of muscle relaxes.
"I need to leave," I say finally.
He stares at the wall above my head as if I haven't spoken at all.
"This is illegal. Kidnapping. False imprisonment." I move closer, trying to make him acknowledge me. "You could go to jail for this."
He gives me nothing. Not even a flicker of recognition. It's like talking to a statue that occasionally blinks.
"Please." I hate the pleading edge in my voice. "I want to go home."
His jaw tightens. That's it. That's the only indication he's heard me at all.
I try reasoning with him. "I have a job. A landlord who'll notice when I don't pay rent. People who'll ask questions. Someone will realize I'm missing."
That gets me more of nothing. "My coworkers will call the police. Dave will wonder where I am."
Still nothing.
"You can't keep people locked up forever. Eventually, someone will notice."
When that fails, I switch tactics. "I'll scream. These walls can't be that soundproof. I'll call the cops the second you turn your back, too. Hell, I’ll break a window. Watch me."
His expression doesn't change.
"I'll tell everyone what Ivan's done, what you're both doing. I'll testify. I'll—"
He shifts slightly, and I take it as progress.
"Just let me walk out," I plead, working the compassion angle instead of continuing on with threats. "I won't tell anyone, I swear. I'll disappear. Move cities. Change my name. Whatever you want. You'll never see me again."
More silence.
Each new attempt crashes against the wall of his silence and breaks apart.
Finally, I give up and explore the penthouse, looking for exits. Searching for options. Desperate for anything that might bring freedom.
The windows are floor-to-ceiling glass, offering a panoramic view of Chicago spread out below like a promise I can't reach.
The balcony door is locked, and when I rattle it, Pyotr lets out a low rumble of warning, like a dog growling. I step away, undeterred from that option but still determined to get out before Ivan’s return.
Soon, I discover that the private elevator requires a code. I try obvious combinations and then random guesses. The panel beeps and flashes an angry red each time.
After the fifth failed attempt, Pyotr moves. It’s a shift of his weight, but the message is clear: stop.
I retreat to the guest room, feeling more trapped than ever. The luxury that seemed impressive yesterday is more like gilding on prison bars now.
My new sketchbook sits on the nightstand. I grab it along with the fancy pencils and settle by the window. If I can't leave, at least I can draw my captivity.
The city is first. All those buildings and streets. The people living ordinary lives, going to work, meeting friends, and making choices about their own damn existence. All so free.
The sketch comes out angry with harsh lines and heavy shadows. The skyline looks beautiful and hostile at the same time, close enough to touch through the glass but impossibly far.
Next is Pyotr. He’s all muscle and murder-face, with scars that probably come with sound effects. I’d draw him in black ink if I could, all doom and gloom. But the eyes… the eyes look almost bored. Annoyed, like he’s already over this whole situation. Same as me.
My reflection hits the glass, and I sketch that train wreck too. Tiny thing in a shirt three sizes too big, hair like it lost a fight with gravity. I look young. Vulnerable. Nothing like the confident woman I pretend to be at the diner.
I look like who I am—someone out of her depth, playing games with people who know the rules while she just learned the board exists.
Hours pass. The light changes, afternoon bleeding into evening. Pyotr doesn't move except once, when someone delivers food. He accepts it, checks it with methodical thoroughness, and brings me a covered plate.
"Eat," he says in heavily accented English.
The first word he's spoken to me all day.
I don't touch it in an act of petty rebellion, even to me. Refusing the food doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t give me power.
He shrugs and takes the plate away before eating it in front of me. Every bite is loud and deliberate, like a silent punishment.
I squirm, half amused, half furious. "Are you allowed to… eat my food like that?"
He doesn’t answer. Simply chews, eyes forward, like I’m invisible.
Night falls, and Ivan still isn't back. I wonder if this is the rest of my life—waiting, drawing, going slowly insane as Pyotr stands guard and Chicago glitters beyond the glass.
I need to get out. Need to do more than sit here accepting this.
Ivan's office door is locked, but that only makes it more tempting. What's he hiding in there? Evidence of his crimes? Money? Weapons? A phone line that works?
I dig through my duffel bag until I find a bobby pin and straighten it out, bending it into shape for the task ahead. I've picked exactly one lock in my life—my own bathroom when I was twelve and locked myself in by accident. But how hard can it be?
I start working the latch, careful to stay out of Pyotr’s line of sight. Turns out, the lock puts up a challenge.
I'm crouched at the door, bobby pin shaking in my sweaty fingers, when his voice cuts through the silence.
"Tsk tsk."
I jump so violently that I drop the pin. It bounces across the marble floor with a tiny metallic sound that feels deafening.
Rather than Pyotr, it’s Ivan, standing by the elevator, still in his suit but with his tie loosened. There's a dark stain on his sleeve that might be blood. I don't look closely enough to confirm.
"Breaking into my office?" He walks toward me, eyes dark with an emotion that isn't quite anger. "Bad girls don't get rewards. They get punished."
The way he says ‘punished’ sends heat straight through me, despite everything.
"You're insane!" I scramble to my feet, back pressed against his office door. "I'm not going to sit idle while you—"
"No?" He's close now—too close. "What will you do instead? Pick more locks?" His hand comes up, fingers catching a strand of my hair. He tugs it gently, tilting my head back.
My breath catches. "Let go."
"Dmitri's men are looking for you, you know." His thumb brushes my jawline, just under my ear. "They've already been to your apartment."
"You're lying." But my voice comes out breathless.
He pulls out his phone with his free hand, the other still tangled in my hair. He taps the screen and holds it out to me, his body pressing closer to keep me trapped against the door.
The photo knocks the air from my lungs.
My apartment door is kicked in, hanging crooked from its hinges. Inside, everything is destroyed. The couch is slashed open, its stuffing everywhere. My drawings are torn from the walls. The TV is smashed. Books scatter across the floor like corpses.
"Still think you can go back to your old life?" His voice drops to a whisper against my temple. His lips almost—almost—brush my skin. "Or are you ready to admit you're safer here... with me?"
His other hand finds my hip, thumb pressing into the hollow there.
"In my penthouse. In my bed."
I can't speak. Can't process what I'm seeing. Those monsters destroyed everything I owned, every small piece of security I'd managed to scrape together.
"Fuck you," I whisper finally.
"Eventually." He pockets his phone. "But I told you—I like to savor. Draw out the anticipation until you're desperate."
"That'll never happen."
He smiles. "We'll see. Step three tomorrow, little dove."
My stomach flips. "Which is?"
"I'm going to stroke myself while you watch."
The words settle over us, heavy and intimate, and I also can’t process them. I look at him, wide-eyed and silent.
"Sweet dreams," he says before disappearing into his office, leaving me reeling with my destroyed life on his phone screen and his promise echoing in my head.
I don't sleep.
How could I? I lie in the guest bed, silk sheets twisted around my legs, and replay everything.
The apartment. My destroyed belongings. Tangible evidence that this isn't a game or a fantasy. This isn't a situation I can walk away from when I get bored.
And Ivan’s words... Christ, they echo through my mind.
Step three.
Is he really going to do that tomorrow?
I grab the sketchbook again to distract myself.
First, I draw his hands. Hands that have killed, that have hurt, that somehow make me feel safe and terrified simultaneously. The long fingers, the calluses I noticed when he fed me strawberries.
Then his profile. Sharp jaw, straight nose. The scar through his eyebrow. Beautiful yet harsh, like a knife blade catching light.
Next are his eyes. Those impossible blue depths that see too much. That looked at my drawings and my books and my margins to see who I am underneath the diner uniform and the pretend normalcy.
The sketches get progressively more detailed. More intimate.
By three, I'm drawing his mouth.
At four, his throat.
I've moved lower by six and have to stop because my hand is shaking.
That, and I'm so turned on I can't see straight.
What's happening to me?