ELENA
I keep my eyes shut and pull the pillow over my head, then drag the blanket up over my face and try to settle myself before the thoughts get out of control.
I managed to convince him last night that it was something I ate from the bakery and that I was fine. He only said, “Then I’ll send a maid to your room.”
I press a hand over my stomach and breathe slowly, and in my head I keep saying the same thing. I’m okay. You’re okay. I’ve got you.
It doesn’t stick.
My mind fills right back up. Maksim. The house. The doctor I have to see. Then my thoughts veer to how men talk around me now, as if my body is already halfway into some future they’ve all agreed on without me.
The baby turns every thought heavier, because I’m not just waking up inside this life anymore. I’m bringing someone else into it, and every time that lands cleanly, it hits me all over again.
By the time I throw the blanket back, staying in bed feels worse than getting up.
The floor is cold under my feet as I cross the room.
I grab the robe hanging by the wardrobe, pull it on over my nightgown, and tie it tightly.
Then I shove my sleeves up and head out before I can talk myself into crawling back under the covers for another useless shot at sleep.
The hall is still dim, and the house is running on lamps and routine at this hour. I take the stairs slowly, one hand skimming the rail, and when I reach the ground floor, I can feel the draft coming in from the east side of the house. That wakes me up faster than anything else has.
I make my way to the morning room because it’s the one place in this house that doesn’t feel crowded by other people’s decisions. A guard stands by the door, and he straightens when he sees me.
“Morning,” he says.
I nod and keep walking, hoping he doesn’t try to talk to me because I’m not up for that right now.
His mouth twitches, and he steps aside.
The room opens around me in pale stone, long glass, and the first weak edge of morning beyond the trees. I find one of the mats stacked near the wall, carry it to the window, and set it down. Then I sit cross-legged, rest my hands on my thighs, and close my eyes.
I breathe in through my nose and let it out slower through my mouth. I do it again. Then again.
My thoughts still come, but they stop slamming into each other. They line up. Maksim. The estate. Sergei. The baby. Fear still sits there, but it stops running every breath.
I stay like that until my legs start to tingle and a thin line of silver shows at the glass, then spreads into a pale wash across the floor.
When I get up, I feel steadier, more inside my body.
The kitchen is already awake by the time I get there. Mrs. Wentworth stands at the counter with her glasses low on her nose, directing one of the staff with the kind of authority that doesn’t need volume.
She looks over as I step in. “You’re up early.”
“I could say the same about you,” I say, smiling.
“I’m useful before breakfast,” she says. “You, on the other hand, look like you’ve been arguing with your own head.”
I pull out a chair and sit. “My head fights dirty.”
“That, I believe.” She turns to the kettle. “Tea?”
“Yes, please.”
A few minutes later, she sets a cup in front of me, then adds wheat biscuits to a small plate and pushes it over. The Darjeeling smells warm and floral, and I wrap both hands around the cup before taking a sip.
She watches me over those red-rimmed glasses for a moment, then says, “You think too much.”
I glance up at her. “Anyone in my place would.”
Her face softens a little, and she gives a small nod like she’s granting me the point. “Yes,” she says. “But things have a way of settling down, and sometimes they do it faster once people stop fighting every single breath of it.”
I take another sip, then pick up a biscuit and break it in half. “That sounds suspiciously hopeful.”
“It sounds experienced,” she says and reaches over to straighten the spoon beside my saucer. “Drink your tea, Elena. One thing at a time. That’s how people get through ugly seasons.”
I look down at the steam rising from the cup, then back at her.
For the first time since waking up, I believe I might make it through the day without coming apart.
When I leave the kitchen, I still feel wound tight, but I feel better too, and the shift is real enough that I catch it before I can talk myself out of it.
In the east hall, a maid in a stiff black apron comes toward me with fresh linen in her arms. She mumbles a greeting and looks away so fast color climbs into her cheeks. I step aside and say, “I’m not contagious,” and she nearly drops the stack, and I’m sorry the second it leaves my mouth.
I try to soften it. “Your name?”
“Lidiya, Miss,” she says, then scurries past me with the linen hugged to her chest.
My feet take me through the side hall and down the short stone passage that leads to the oldest part of the estate. Morning light falls across the walls in broken strips as I go, and the smell changes fast—old incense, smoke, cold stone.
The rest of the house has been reinforced and wired for control, but the chapel was left alone. It shows in the dark icons, the worn floor, and the beeswax candles burned down in brass stands. No guards wait here. No cameras catch the corners.
I step inside, sit for a minute, and bow my head. Please let me keep this child safe. Let me get through this with my mind still my own. When I come back out, my steps are steadier and my spine is straighter as I head for the main house.
I reach the legal room. Leonid is coming down the hall with quick steps, a file tucked under his arm and his glasses low on his nose. He sees me by the door, slows, and gives me a look that says he’d rather not start his morning with me.
“Early,” he says, short and curt.
“Apparently, I’m not the only one,” I say, aiming for friendly in my own way.
He opens the door, and I step in before he can stop me.
Work is already moving. One clerk is at the cabinet pulling binders and stacking them at the far end of the table.
Another is sorting papers into dated piles with extra care because Leonid is in the room.
Maksim is in shirtsleeves, one hand on the table, reading over a file Leonid marked up in blue.
His eyes lift to mine.
“You’re up.”
“I noticed.”
Leonid doesn’t look pleased by the back-and-forth. He sets one file down, reaches for another, then says to Maksim, “The pending file needs to be finished today.”
His look at me says the rest. Leave.
I don’t. I walk straight to the table, pull the blue folder from the stack beside Maksim, the one I know because I took it from under Leonid’s nose, and set it down in front of Maksim hard enough to make Leonid stop where he stands.
“That can wait,” I say. I tap the cover once. “This can’t.”
Maksim looks at the file, then at me. His eyes stay on my face long enough to push at my nerves. I don’t move. I keep my face straight and make him work for whatever he thinks he sees.
Leonid starts again. “Maksim, this isn’t the time.”
The clerks stop what they’re doing and look between us.
Maksim doesn’t look at Leonid. “It is now.”
That shuts him up.
Maksim straightens, gives one short nod to the clerks, and they gather what’s in their hands and clear out without a word. Then he turns to Leonid.
“Give us the room,” he says, his deep-set gray eyes fixed on him, dark enough that Leonid gets the message.
Leonid goes still, the file still in his hand. He looks at me once, then leaves, closing the door with care behind him.
I pull the file open, turn three pages, and plant my finger on the stamp block near the bottom. “This one,” I say.
Maksim comes around the table. He stops close enough that I can feel his attention settle where I’m pointing.
“What about it?”
“It was processed outside his loop.” I tap the registrar mark again. “Same naming pattern. Same sequence habit. Same fake boredom in the drafting. But the registrar is different.”
His brow pulls tight. “Meaning?”
I look up at him. “Meaning this part stands on its own.”
He says nothing.
I turn the next page, then the one behind it, and line them up with the older warehouse continuation we already flagged weeks ago.
“Look at the chain. The shell feeds into the warehouse group. The warehouse group feeds into the holding company. Sergei built his private notes around the later transfers, but this acknowledgment was already accepted before he buried the rest.”
Maksim’s eyes move across the pages fast now.
“If I sign here,” I say, pressing my finger to the continuation line, “this part can move without him.”
We agree to meet after dinner, and the day gets swallowed by work. I sit through two smaller reviews, and he lets me speak through one of them without stepping in. He listens, asks one question, then lets me finish.
That stays with me.
After dinner, I walk into the legal room. He’s already there, shirt sleeves rolled, one hand on the table, files spread out in front of him. A glass sits near his elbow. The cigar burns down slowly between his fingers. He looks up when I come in. His eyes hold mine.
“Close the door,” he says.
I do.
“Come here.”
I move to the table and set my hands on the maps. He shifts a page toward me.
“Read.”
I lean in and start going through the routes, dates, signatures. He steps in beside me, close enough that our shoulders touch when I move. I keep reading. He doesn’t step back. I can feel him there, heat, smoke, the weight of him at my side. It gets harder to stay on the page.
“Focus,” he says.
“I am.”
“You’re rushing.”
I slow down, go line by line, and point to a discrepancy. “This one doesn’t track.”
He leans in closer to look. His arm comes around the table, braced near my hand. I don’t move.
“Say it again,” he says.
I repeat it, but my voice slips a little, and I know he hears it. His head turns. Now he’s looking at me. I hold it for a second, then look back down.
“Keep going,” he says.
I do, but the space between us has changed. Every shift brings him closer. My hip brushes the edge of the table, and he adjusts, closing the distance without asking.
My breath tightens. I steady it and keep working. He moves again, and this time his hand settles on the table beside mine, close enough that I feel it without contact.
“Read that section,” he says.
I try. The words sit there, but I’m aware of him in a way I can’t push aside. I glance up. He’s watching. His gaze drops to my mouth, then comes back to my eyes. His shoulders set, and something in his expression tightens.
I don’t step back and neither does he. He leans in first. The kiss is brief, firm, his mouth pressing once like he’s testing it.
I hold still. Then my hand fists in his shirt and drags him back before I can think it through.
He comes in harder this time, closer, and the papers slide under our hands. The table digs into my hips.
I don’t even think about stopping.