Elena
Weeks pass, and I learn the rhythm of Maksim’s estate whether I like it or not. Then my body breaks that rhythm in a way I can’t ignore.
I know my cycle, and when it doesn’t come this month, my stomach tightens.
I’m regular. I can blame stress for a delay of a few days, maybe a week, but I’m over three weeks late, and it’s eating at my mind.
There’s a lot I can do to keep myself busy, so I finish the files Leonid sends, send them back with two corrections, and keep my pen moving even when it starts tapping too fast against the desk.
At lunch, I move food around the plate more than I eat it. Mrs. Wentworth takes one look, swaps it out without a word. I push that back too.
“Pickled,” I tell her. “Bring something pickled.”
She frowns, but she takes the plate away.
I sit there staring at the empty place setting, wondering when exactly I started wanting sharp, salty things more than anything warm or rich.
Pickled cucumbers. Green mango chutney. Lemon with salt.
Even plain crackers sound better than meat right now, and the thought turns my stomach enough to make me look away.
Lately, everything gets under my skin faster, and by evening my body feels used up in a way I can’t explain cleanly.
It starts in the legal room after dinner.
I’ve been staring at the same construction file for forty minutes, one elbow on the desk, fingers pressed to my temple, trying to force my eyes through another page of numbers and language that refuses to sit right.
The wording is off. The chain is off. My patience is worse.
The door opens behind me.
Maksim walks in with his jacket still on and his tie loosened, looking like the day hasn’t managed to put a dent in him. He doesn’t ask what I’m doing. He drops a second file beside my elbow with a flat thud.
“Compare the signatures.”
I go still for a second, then lift my eyes to him slowly. “You could at least pretend I’ve got some choice.”
“You don’t.” He pulls off his coat and hangs it over the back of the chair across from me. “This matters for you.”
Something in me turns hard at that.
I know what he means. I do. The work matters. The timing matters. My name is buried in all of it, whether I want it there or not. But I am tired, my head hurts, and I am sick of him deciding what shape my day takes before I’ve even caught up to it.
I shove my chair back hard enough for the legs to drag across the floor. “That’s your problem.”
He plants both hands on the back of the chair and looks at me over it. “Which one?”
“That you keep doing this.” I wave at the file, at him, at the whole room.
“Giving orders and calling it necessity. Acting like I owe you gratitude because your commands happen to be useful.” My voice climbs before I can pull it back.
“Eat this. Read that. Take the car. Stay in range. Sit in. Sign nothing. Sleep now. You do it over and over like I’m something to manage. ”
He studies me for a long second, then says, “You’re upset.”
I let out a laugh that has no humor in it. “That’s your read?”
He pushes away from the chair. “Take the night off.”
I stare at him.
“Watch something,” he says. “Get out of your head.”
“With you?” I ask before I can stop myself.
His mouth shifts once, not quite a smile. “If you want.”
That only makes me angrier, because he says it like he’s offering me something simple when nothing with him is simple anymore.
I gather the papers into a stack, corners knocking out of line under my hands. “I’ve got a headache,” I say. “I’m done for tonight.”
This time, he doesn’t stop me.
Back in my room, I shut the door and stand there with my hand on the handle.
The headache has been building for days, always worse by evening, and tonight my whole body feels heavy. I turn on the bathroom light, squint, and open my period tracker. The missed date sits there in plain red. I count backward once, then again.
Three weeks late.
I step on the scale because I need something else to blame.
The number is up. I stare at myself in the mirror.
Hair the same. Skin the same. Eyes still mine, still watching, still thinking too fast. Nothing looks different.
Something is. I feel it in how I move, slower getting up, slower turning.
I feel it in the dull ache that shows up by evening and stays.
In the sudden roll in my stomach that comes out of nowhere and leaves just as fast.
I brace both hands on the sink, shut my eyes, and splash cold water over my face.
Then I stand there dripping and count it through again, day by day, until there’s no way left to talk around it.
I’m trapped in this house, in his world, and inside my own body, carrying a secret that’s already running out of time.
The next morning, I find him in the downstairs office. He looks up when I step in. One hand is flat on the desk. The other still holds the same file page we were on last night. Good. He can sit with it.
“I need to go out,” I say. I don’t sit.
He doesn’t answer right away. He just looks at me, taking his time like he’s waiting for me to hand something over for free. It gets on my nerves every time.
“What for?” he asks after a full minute.
“Pharmacy.”
I keep it short. He’d only pick at anything longer.
He pushes back from the desk and straightens. “What happened?”
“Nothing dramatic,” I say. “I need vitamins. Supplements.” Then I add, “Your hospitality comes with a vitamin D deficiency.”
A corner of his mouth lifts. His head tilts a fraction. One brow goes up. He looks at me like he’s waiting for the catch. When I don’t offer him any, he says, “You have people for that.”
“I don’t want people for it.”
He looks at me another second, then reaches for the phone and calls Mrs. Wentworth.
When she answers, he says, “She’s going to the pharmacy. You’ll go with her.”
Oh, great. Mrs. Wentworth.
A woman with eyes for everything behind those red-rimmed ladybug glasses, always clocking me, always adding things up. Maksim doesn’t leave gaps. Of course he sends her.
As if that isn’t enough, he adds, “Car in ten minutes. Two men.”
“Three will follow anyway,” I mutter.
I don’t wait for his answer. I turn and walk out before he can read anything else off my face.
The drive drags as we roll into the district, same black SUV, same spacing, the lead car cutting through traffic while the one behind holds tight like it’s tied to us.
Two men in front, one watching the road, the other checking mirrors, both clocking me every time I shift like I might bolt if they give me half a chance.
Mrs. Wentworth doesn’t talk during the drive, and she stays close when we step out, one pace back, one pace to the side, never in my way and never far enough to disappear.
Inside the pharmacy, the lights are bright enough to make me squint. Shelves run in straight rows. Boxes sit lined up clean and even. Everything looks tidy, watched, and easy to scan. That only makes me more aware of the men trailing me through it.
A man behind the counter steps forward at once. “Can I help you?”
“Vitamin D,” I say. “And cod liver oil capsules, if you have them.”
“Of course. Standard bottles of one hundred and fifty capsules. We also have imported stock. Higher strength.”
Damn. “Show me.”
I turn slightly, letting my back block Mrs. Wentworth while my eyes keep moving. The man starts up the aisle. “This way.”
Mrs. Wentworth leans in beside him. “Do you have Ginkgo? I need it for my balance.”
“We do, Madam. People take it for many things.”
She’s caught on.
Good. Let her hold him.
I move off at an easy pace. One aisle, then the next, shelf by shelf.
Then I see it.
Tucked near the back beside fertility kits and the vitamins people buy fast and hide faster.
Small box. Plain white and blue. No branding tricks.
I pick up two and slide them between other items. At the counter, I pay without looking up.
The girl bags everything neatly, her eyes flicking once to the men behind me, then back to the register.
Mrs. Wentworth joins me, pleased with herself. “Reasonable prices,” she says lightly.
“Wonderful,” I reply.
Back in the car, I keep the bag in my lap while Mrs. Wentworth sits beside me, still none the wiser about what’s inside.
Good for her. The estate gates open for us, then close again behind the car.
I walk inside, nod once at Mrs. Wentworth, and head straight up to my room.
I lock the door and my hands stay steady until I open the bag. Then they don’t.
I take the box into the bathroom and shut the door behind me. Then I just stand there with it in my hand. If I don’t move, I don’t have to know yet.
I sit on the edge of the tub and stare at the strip in my hand until the second line stops looking like bad light. I check the instructions, take the second test, and wait again. When that one turns positive too, I set both on the closed toilet lid and brace my hands on my knees.
Then I wrap them in tissue and shove them into the back of the drawer under spare towels.
I rinse my hands twice, stand at the sink, and look at a face that still looks like mine.
Nothing gives it away yet. I hold on to that.
If this reaches Maksim’s world, it stops being private.
Men will count blood before I’ve even had time to think.
I don’t sleep.
By morning I’ve hidden the tests, put the vitamins out where anyone can see them, and started changing small things. Less food. More water. Slower stairs. Mrs. Wentworth notices first and swaps my breakfast for crackers, apple, and pickled cucumber without asking.
Maksim notices three days later. In the legal room, he sets down his pen, comes around the table, and looks at me too closely.
“You barely touched dinner,” he says.
“Are you tracking my meals now?”
“I’m tracking you.”
Then he slides the water glass into my hand and asks, “Are you sick?”
That’s when the fear settles properly. I can’t tell him. I can’t tell anyone here. If this gets out, it stops being news about my body and becomes a matter for men with power, blood, and opinions. By the time they’re done with it, there may be nothing left that still feels like mine.