Chapter 10 - Ruslana
I am still a prisoner, but at least I am not going insane.
It’s still boring as hell—but I can do my best to keep myself busy during the day while Avraam is busy.
This new routine is far better than the old one. I wouldn’t have lasted another day chained to that bed. Now, I can explore the entire mansion. He doesn’t restrict me from going anywhere, which surprised me.
“I’m heading out. I don’t know how long I’ll be,” Avraam says, picking up his black, leather laptop bag off the counter and glancing towards where I am making a cup of coffee in the kitchen.
“Ok. Um—I’ll be here,” I laugh lightheartedly, joking around.
I have to.
I have a new plan, since he allowed me this freedom.
I am going to win him over by being nice.
I will earn his trust slowly over time and at some point he will slip up and forget something. It will give me the opportunity to escape. All I need to do is be patient—and nice. No more arguing, no more feisty or rude comments. And no more unplanned escape attempts. They are a waste of time and energy and it makes him lock down his security tighter.
Right now, I have free roam inside the mansion, but outside, the security is like a fortress.
Patience is my new best friend, even though I’ve never been good at it.
Avraam narrows his eyes towards me for a moment and I smile, sipping my coffee.
“Alright,” he says after a while. “I’ll see you later.”
Then he turns and walks out of the kitchen and I find my eyes trailing over his body, watching his ass, biting my lip.
He really is gorgeous. But whatever.
He has me prisoner. He’s an asshat. No matter how hot he is, he’s still not in my good books.
It’s still really difficult for me to be locked up like this. But for someone who got kidnapped, I think I’ve got it easy. I can read, watch movies, there is even a gym upstairs, and the food is incredible.
I wait, listening carefully for Avraam’s car.
It moves down the driveway.
Sneaking a peak out of the window, I see him pull out of the gate and disappear down the road. It’s time to carry on with my investigation.
He doesn’t leave the house every day and often works from his home office—but whenever I am alone here, I try to find out anything I can about him.
Today, I want to get into his office and scratch around.
Sliding the little hairpin from my hair, I grin. It’s amazing how this little thing has become my key to almost everything.
I set my unfinished coffee down on the kitchen counter and bolt upstairs. There is no way to know if he will be gone for an hour or several hours. Moving fast is the best option. The sooner I break into the office, the more time I will have to look around.
The office door is as easy to lock pick as the bedroom door. I’m getting really good at it by now.
It swings open and I wait, listening for an alarm or commotion from outside to indicate that someone knows I’ve broken in.
Nothing happens so I stand up, grinning, feeling rather successful.
The drawers are neat, organized and minimalistic. He is a man who likes control, I think—judging by how he has his paperwork filed and neat.
Drawer after drawer, I rifle around and find general admin paperwork, accounting and schedules. He runs a few businesses like my brothers do. It all looks so similar. The same patterns, the same methods.
In one drawer, I find a photo album and pull the pages open, flipping through images of a much younger version of him with who I assume are his parents and a little girl. Perhaps his sister.
They clearly grew up poor, living in a run-down house, his clothes aren’t fancy—but they look happy. His family looks happy.
At some point, there are no more photos, only newspaper clippings.
I read through them and my heart sinks.
Avraam lost his parents in a very violent way, the injustice of it is cruel and unfair. After going through that there are no more happy family photos, only one or two pictures with him and his sister. Both of them looking miserable.
Then, the articles tell a story about a young man who came from nothing and started building business after business—growing an empire.
He fought for everything he has in this life. He worked hard, clawing his way from nothing to what he has today.
Of course, I know the legal businesses are just fronts for what he really does. The same way my brothers have fronts.
Knowing that he lost parents so young, I feel much more connected to him than I expected. We both went through that—but I had my older brothers and sister to help me through it.
He didn’t have the same kind of support. He was the oldest, he had to take care of his sister.
I guess that’s what made him so hard—so willing to do whatever was necessary for his family.
Rodion is the same. He would sacrifice anything for us.
I bite at my lip, comparing him to my brother, I can’t help but think that Avraam is a good man, somewhere deep inside. Despite what he is doing to me.
A noise outside makes me jump, I realize I’ve been far too absorbed in this photo album and I’ve lost track of time.
Working quickly, I hurry to pack it all away, doing my best to put everything back exactly as I found it. I close the drawers, look around, and then rush out of the office, pulling the door quietly closed behind myself.
The lock clicks into place from the other side and I breathe a sigh of relief. He will never know I was in there.
I can hear him getting out of his car, talking to one of the guards. I bolt into the library, my heart racing as I grab a book and curl my legs beneath me on the giant arm chair.
Slow deep breaths help me calm myself down and by the time I hear the front door open I think it will look to him like I’ve been relaxing here for a while.
His footsteps carry up the stairs.
“Ruslana?” he calls out into the house.
“I’m in the library,” I call back.
Standing in the doorway, looking towards me, Avraam appears to be exhausted.
I squint towards him, worried, even though I shouldn’t care about him at all—I can’t help it. I feel closer to him now that I know about his past, and his childhood, all the things he had to overcome.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, putting the book down on the side table next to me and pulling my legs out from beneath myself to sit up straighter.
I want to go to him, to comfort him, but I force myself to remain seated.
“It was a long day, that’s all,” he sighs.
It wasn’t just a long day, something else is going on.
“Did you eat yet?” I ask, standing up, still holding myself back from walking towards him. Why do I want to wrap my arms around him and tell him everything is ok?
“Not yet, the chef says dinner is in the oven. I’m going to climb into the shower and then I’ll be done in a moment.” He turns to walk away from me, and I can see the defeat in his posture. This isn’t just a long day—something happened. I want to know what. Did it have something to do with my brothers?
Downstairs, I wait in the dining room, anxiety tainting my thoughts.
Avraam sits down, looking comfortable in a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie. He sighs heavily, rubbing his hands over his eyes.
“You look exhausted,” I comment, standing up to dish up some food for him.
I slide the plate towards him across the table. “Oh, thank you, you didn’t have to do that for me,” he says, tilting his head to the side and watching me.
“It’s really no problem,” I smile, shrugging my shoulders. “Do you want to talk about it?” I ask, trying not to sound pushy.
“About what?”
“Whatever is bothering you. And don’t tell me it was just a long day. I’ve seen you coming home day after day, even after long ones, you have never looked this drained or stressed before. Not even when I was causing trouble for you,” I add in the joke to try to ease the tension and relax him.
He chuckles, but it’s short-lived. “Yeah, you’re right. Today was worse than normal.”
Using his fork he pushes the food around his plate absentmindedly.
“You can talk, Avraam. Who am I going to tell anyway?”
He sighs, putting the fork down, he looks across the table at me and I can see he wants to tell me.
I put my fork down as well and lean back, waiting.
“It was supposed to be a straightforward collection from one of my businesses. A new client who placed a good order and wanted to collect instead of us delivering. Usually, we insist on delivering the first few times until we get to know the people—but someone I’ve worked with before vouched for this client.”
I nod, not letting myself interrupt.
“They arrived and everything went pear-shaped. They obviously had some other plan up their sleeve. Maybe the goal was to take more than they ordered—I don’t know. Things got violent and they started shooting, my men took them down quite quickly—but not before a lot of my workers got injured. And three of them were killed. Two of those employees were involved only in the legal side of the business. They didn’t even know they were working in a place that is just a front for everything else. They didn’t deserve what happened—,“ Avraam sighs heavily, closing his eyes for a moment. He shakes his head, “They didn’t deserve it.”
I watch him closely. He is genuinely hurt by what happened. He isn’t even bothered by the operation going south or the loss of his product—the only thing he’s focused on is the people who died.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I say softly.
“It was my fault, Ruslana. Those people are my responsibility. It is my job to make choices that keep them safe. Over and above everything else, I should be able to keep my people safe.”
His vulnerability is breaking my heart.
I stand up from my chair and walk around the table. I don’t even know what I’m doing, I should just stay seated and mind my own business, but instead, I wrap my arms around his shoulders and hug him.
At first he is tense, clearly also unsure what to do, but then he rests his head against my chest and takes a deep breath.
I think about how he lost his parents so young and he didn’t have anyone to comfort him after a difficult day. He was the one who had to comfort his sister and take care of her.
He deserves someone to take care of him, too. Everyone deserves that.
I run my fingers through his dark, wavy hair, looking down at him, feeling connected to him in a different way, a dangerous way that might start toying with my heart.
The way he cares for his worker,s though, it shows me a different side to him that I am glad I had a chance to see. He isn’t a monster. Not like I first assumed.
Avraam clears his throat loudly and moves away from me, looking awkward.
“Um. Let’s eat before the food gets cold,” he stammers, turning back towards the table.
I walk back to my seat, knowing that my embrace made him uncomfortable, but I’m glad I did it.
I’m glad I snuck into his office, too. The little bit that I have learned about him has made me hungry to know more.
He is far more fascinating than I could have imagined.