Emma
Take control.
The words linger after he says them, settling into me slowly, like they’re testing whether I’ll reject them or let them take root.
Avros sits close enough that I can feel the heat of him, but he isn’t touching me now. The absence of his hands is almost louder than their presence was. My pulse is still skidding beneath my skin from the kiss, from the way my body reacted him before my mind finished catching up.
I’ve spent my whole life being controlled by schedules, by expectations. By pain I learned to ignore because acknowledging it would have meant stopping. Ballet taught how to hollow myself out for something that can’t be survived.
So when he tells me to take control, my first instinct is to laugh.
Instead, I inhale slowly, filling my lungs before releasing the breath. The way I’ve always done before a difficult sequence, before a moment that demands everything I have left.
“What you do,” I say quietly, “it’s dangerous…”
He doesn’t deny it. “Yes.”
That honesty sends a shiver through me. I don’t need details to understand what danger means in his world. I’ve already seen the edges of it. Felt it. Smelled it. I know there are parts of his life I’ll never be allowed to witness directly, rooms I won’t enter, decisions I won’t be invited into.
I also know what danger looks like when it wears a polite smile and waits until no one’s watching.
“I’d be tying myself to that,” I continue. “To you. To your enemies. To things I don’t understand and might never understand.”
“You’d be protected from it,” he says. “By me. Because of me. When you marry Bratva, you become part of the family.”
I close my eyes, imagining two futures side by side.
In one, I leave. I go back to my apartment, back to physical therapy and polite sympathy and quiet pity.
Back to a company that will replace me as soon as they can justify it, to directors who will call me brave in the past tense.
Back to men like John who sense weakness the way sharks sense blood.
To a world that will keep telling me to smile through resentment and call it resilience.
In the other, I stay.
I bind myself to a man who makes no attempt to be anything other than what he is. A man whose world is brutal and structured and unapologetic. A man who waited for me to be finished with that life before taking me from it.
I open my eyes.
Avros is watching me, like he’s already accepted whatever I choose and is prepared to build around it.
That steadiness does something to me.
“I don’t want to become someone small,” I say. “I don’t want to disappear into your life the way I disappeared into ballet.”
“You won’t,” he says immediately. “You’ll be anchored to me, not erased by me.”
The conviction in his voice makes my chest tighten.
I nod once, more to myself than to him.
“Do I have a room?” I ask.
He doesn’t reach for my hand. He simply turns and walks beside me, matching his pace to my uneven steps without comment as we cross to the stairs that lead to the mezzanine.
“Do you need help?” he asks at the foot of the stairs and I shake my head no.
I take them one at a time, holding on to the thick banister, enjoying the smooth, warm pine beneath my palm.
There are two doors leading from a wide landing space.
“Storage,” he points to the one furthest away, “and the plant room for the solar panels.” He walks to the door nearest to us and swings it open.
“This will be our room, but you can use it alone, for now.” The twitch in his jaw tells me he doesn’t love that arrangement. That it costs him. It partly thrills me and partly sends a swell of gratitude through me.
I’m not completely naive. I know he could take me, force me, bend me to his will. Break me down until there’s not enough of me left to fight compliance. But it’s clear that just isn’t who he is.
He waits for me to enter first.
The room is simple. Spacious. Furniture that looks like it was chosen for function and comfort, not aesthetics. Clean lines. Soft, warm light. Nothing overwhelming.
I step inside and turn back to him.
For a moment, neither of us moves.
The air between us feels stretched thin, charged with everything from the last eighteen months.
My body leans toward him without permission, the pull instinctive and confusing and achingly strong.
I can see it in his eyes too. The restraint, the effort it’s taking for him to stay where he is instead of closing the distance.
He reaches out, stops himself halfway, and lets his hand fall back to his side.
A breath shudders out of me.
“You sleep here tonight. I’ll bring up your bag. We can go back for your things tomorrow and end your lease. You can decide if you would like to resign from the company or not. Whatever you choose, I will support you.” His eyes never leave mine. Dark promises and sparkling truth.
“I’ll let you settle in and I’ll take the chair tonight.” He points to an oversized armchair in the corner, one built for nights snuggling up with a book and a mug of something hot.
I nod, even though some traitorous part of me aches at the boundary.
The door closes softly behind him, the sound final without being unkind.
I stand there for a long moment, listening to my own breathing, to the quiet hum of a place that already feels more like shelter than captivity.
My mind is still a mess. Fear. Desire. Grief. Relief. They twist together until I can’t tell where one ends and another begins. But beneath all of it, something steady is forming, something clear.
I chose this because the life I’m leaving behind was already breaking me, piece by piece, and I’m done pretending endurance is the same as living.
I sit on the edge of the bed and press my palm to my chest, grounding myself in the decision before I can talk myself out of it.
Avros’s world is dangerous, but it’s honest about the cost.
He doesn’t make me feel like I’m waiting to be discarded. In the few hours since he burst into my life fully, he has made me feel like I’m stepping into the next stage of my life on my own terms. Even if the man I’ve chosen to stand beside is the most dangerous man I’ve ever known.