Chapter 13 – Eleanor
The house felt like a tomb, beautiful and suffocating in equal measure. Three days had passed since Maxim’s revelation about the war, three days since our heated confrontation in my room, three days since he’d kissed me like a man drowning and I was his only source of air.
And in those three days, he’d grown colder than winter in Chicago.
He still provided everything I needed. Meals appeared at perfect intervals, my studio remained stocked with supplies, and security moved like shadows around the property.
But the man himself had retreated so far behind his walls that I wondered if I’d imagined the vulnerability I’d glimpsed that night.
“You’re pacing,” Anya observed from her perch on my studio couch, where she was reviewing fabric orders on her laptop. “You’ve been pacing for twenty minutes.”
“I’m thinking.”
“You’re obsessing. There’s a difference.”
I paused by the window, staring out at the meticulously maintained grounds. Somewhere out there, armed men patrolled the perimeter, ready to kill or die to keep me safe. The irony wasn’t lost on me that I’d never felt more trapped.
“He’s pulling away again,” I said finally.
“Maxim?”
“Who else? God, Anya, for a few minutes the other night, I thought we were finally getting somewhere. He let me see him, really see him. And now it’s like he’s punishing himself for it.”
“Or punishing you.”
The words stung because they felt true. “What did I do wrong?”
“Nothing. That’s the problem.” Anya closed her laptop and gave me her full attention. “Eleanor, my brother has spent fifteen years perfecting the art of emotional distance. You’re asking him to unlearn a survival mechanism that’s kept him alive.”
“I’m asking him to trust me.”
“Same thing, in his world.”
I resumed my pacing, energy crackling under my skin like electricity with nowhere to go. The walls of the studio suddenly felt too close, the air too thin. I needed space, needed perspective, needed to talk to someone who wasn’t related to my emotionally constipated husband.
“I need to get out of here,” I said.
Anya’s expression sharpened. “Eleanor, that’s not a good idea. Not with everything that’s happening.”
“Just for a few hours. I want to see Arlette, have a normal conversation with someone who isn’t carrying a gun or analyzing my marriage like it’s a business transaction.”
Arlette was married to Rafael, so she’d understand, more than anyone, the strains that came with being a Bratva wife.
But Anya clearly didn’t agree, frowning. “Maxim will lose his shit if you leave without telling him.”
“Then I won’t tell him.” The words came out more defiant than I’d intended, but I didn’t take them back. “I’ll take security, I’ll be careful, but I’m not a prisoner, Anya. I’m his wife.”
“In his world, those might be the same thing.”
“Well, in my world, they’re not.”
She was quiet for a long moment, studying my face with those sharp hazel eyes that saw too much. Finally, she sighed. “If I can’t talk you out of this, at least promise me you’ll take Viktor and two others. And you’ll stay in public places.”
“I promise.”
“And Eleanor?” Her voice carried a warning. “Don’t make me regret covering for you. I’ll have to report that you’re running an errand for safety concerns.”
An hour later, I was sliding into the backseat of a sleek Mercedes, flanked by security that looked more like a presidential detail than a shopping escort. Viktor, the head of my protection team, adjusted his rearview mirror to keep me in sight.
“Mrs. Voronov, where would you like to go?”
“The Drake Hotel. I’m meeting a friend for lunch.”
The drive through Chicago felt like emerging from underwater.
The city pulsed with life and energy, people hurrying along sidewalks with purpose and freedom I envied.
Normal people with normal problems, who didn’t have to worry about Bratva wars or husbands who loved them with bullets instead of words.
Arlette was waiting in the hotel’s elegant restaurant, her perfectly styled blonde hair catching the afternoon light streaming through tall windows.
She looked like everything I used to be: polished, privileged, blissfully unaware of the darkness that lurked in the spaces between respectability and reality.
Except that wasn’t quite true. She was familiar with the shades of gray that characterized our world.
“Eleanor!” She stood to embrace me, her smile bright and genuine. “You look…different.”
“Different how?”
“I don’t know. Sharper, maybe? Like you’ve been tempered by fire.” Her smile softened now, a bit sad. “I know what that’s like.”
We settled into our seats, and I found myself drinking in the normalcy of it all. The clink of silverware against china, the murmur of polite conversation, the simple pleasure of choosing what to eat from a menu instead of having meals appear like magic.
“So,” Arlette said once we’d ordered, “tell me everything. And I mean everything. The wedding photos Rafael posted were gorgeous, but they looked more like a mafia summit than a celebration.”
“That’s because it basically was.”
She laughed, thinking I was joking. “Come on, seriously. What’s married life like? Is he treating you well?”
How could I explain that my husband protected me like I was made of glass while simultaneously keeping me at arm’s length like I was a loaded weapon? That he’d kill for me but wouldn’t let me close enough to comfort him after his nightmares?
“It’s complicated,” I said finally.
“All marriages are complicated. But do you love him?”
The question hit me like a physical blow. “Yes. God help me, yes.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“He doesn’t know how to let me love him back.”
Arlette leaned forward, her expression serious. “Eleanor, I’ve known you since we were teenagers, and I’ve never seen you back down from a challenge. Why are you backing down from this one?”
“I’m not backing down. I’m just…I don’t know how to fight for someone who won’t let me in the ring.”
“Then drag him in. Men like your husband—like our husbands—they don’t know how to ask for what they need. They burn cold, Eleanor. If you want warmth, you’ll have to pull him out of the fire yourself.”
“And if I get burned in the process?”
“Then at least you’ll know you tried. But first, talk to him. Really talk to him. Not around the problem, not over it, but through it. Make him see that you’re not going anywhere, no matter how hard he tries to push you away.”
We finished lunch talking about safer topics, her new job at an art gallery, mutual friends from college, her children, the kind of surface-level conversation that felt like a luxury after months of navigating the depths of Bratva politics.
When she hugged me goodbye outside the hotel, I felt something settle in my chest. A resolution, maybe. A plan.
“Thank you,” I said against her shoulder.
“For what?”
“For reminding me who I am.”
The ride back to the house started peaceful enough.
Viktor navigated Chicago traffic with professional efficiency while I stared out the window, rehearsing what I wanted to say to Maxim.
How I could make him understand that I wasn’t some fragile flower that would wilt at the first sign of his darkness.
We were twenty minutes from home when everything went to hell.
The first shots came from nowhere, bullets spider-webbing the rear window in a crystalline explosion of safety glass. Viktor cursed in Russian, yanking the wheel hard to the right as more gunfire erupted around us.
“Get down!” he shouted, but I was already diving for the floor, my heart hammering against my ribs as the world outside turned into chaos and violence.
Two motorcycles had flanked our car, riders in black masks and leather unloading automatic weapons like they were spraying water from garden hoses. The sound was deafening, a metallic symphony of destruction that seemed to go on forever.
Viktor tried to accelerate, to outrun them, but they’d chosen their ambush point well. Construction barriers forced us into a narrow corridor with nowhere to escape. I felt the car shudder as bullets found the engine block, heard the sickening hiss of punctured tires.
Then Viktor’s window exploded inward, and blood painted the dashboard in abstract patterns.
His body slumped forward, and the car veered toward a concrete barrier with the inevitability of gravity.
Distantly, outside my window, I saw the two other guards who had accompanied us going down in a shower of bullets, having gotten out of their own car to attempt to engage the attackers.
The impact of the collision threw me against the door, my shoulder screaming as we came to a grinding halt. Steam rose from the destroyed engine, and in the sudden silence, I could hear my own ragged breathing and the distant sound of motorcycle engines circling back.
They weren’t done with me.
I fumbled for the door handle with shaking fingers, knowing I had to move, had to run, had to do something other than wait for them to finish what they’d started. The door was stuck, warped from the impact, and panic clawed at my throat as I threw my weight against it.
Finally, it gave way, and I tumbled onto broken asphalt, my palms scraping against the rough surface. I could hear the motorcycles getting closer, could see the shadows of the riders moving through the smoke and dust.
This was it. This was how Eleanor Beaumont Voronov died, not in her bed at ninety surrounded by grandchildren, but on a Chicago street with bullets in her back and blood on her wedding ring.
Then the sound of screeching tires cut through my despair.
A black SUV materialized through the smoke like something from a fever dream, doors flying open before it had fully stopped. And stepping out like an avenging angel wrapped in expensive wool and lethal intent was my husband.
Maxim moved like death given form, his gun already in his hand, his face a mask of cold fury that would have terrified me if it had been aimed at me instead of the men trying to kill me.