Chapter 15 - Anja
Late one evening, the penthouse feels too still, like the whole building is holding its breath.
I slip out of the guest suite in nothing but an oversized t-shirt and soft sleep shorts, bare feet silent on the hardwood.
My throat is dry from hours of staring at the ceiling, replaying strategy sessions and the slow, satisfying collapse of Fadir’s world.
A glass of water is all I want, something simple to chase away the restless thoughts before I try sleeping again.
I pad down the hallway toward the kitchen, but freeze in the wide archway that opens into the living area.
Alexey is seated at the long table near the windows, bathed in the soft golden glow of a single lamp. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, exposing the corded muscle of his forearms. I imagine his chocolate brown hair falls slightly across his forehead, no longer perfectly combed from the day.
He doesn’t notice me at first. His focus is locked on the spread of ledgers and surveillance reports in front of him, one large hand absently rubbing the back of his neck as if trying to ease a knot that won’t loosen.
For once, the mask of the calm, methodical enforcer has slipped.
When he turns his head slightly, I notice there’s a faint tension in his jaw, a weariness in the set of his broad shoulders that I’ve never seen before. The lines around his brown eyes look deeper in the low light. He looks… human.
Tired, and not the untouchable for a Bratva man who runs an empire, but someone carrying the weight of everything, and protecting me, all the while dismantling Fadir piece by piece, and now quietly preparing for the child we created in one impulsive night.
The sight hits me harder than I expect. My breath catches, heart suddenly loud in my ears.
The devil I bargained with, the very man whose steady voice promised “this is business, no physical expectations”, is sitting here alone at midnight, quietly shouldering it all so I don’t have to.
No complaints. No demands for gratitude.
Just the quiet, relentless work of keeping the walls up while the world outside tries to press in.
My old mantra, “all Bratva are evil”, feels suddenly childish and brittle, like cheap glass ready to shatter.
I slip away before he notices, retreating to my suite on silent feet. My heart is pounding so hard it feels like it might crack my ribs. I close the door softly and lean against it, pressing one hand to my chest as if that will steady the chaos inside.
For the next hour, I lie on the bed, staring at the ceiling. I replay every small moment that has accumulated over the weeks like a film I can’t pause.
My mind rambles on all the quiet moments I've shared with Alexey, and how he seems to calm my nerves without even trying.
It clashes violently with every memory of my childhood home.
Yet here, in this penthouse with its clean lines and soft lighting, the Sokolovs I’m seeing don’t match those memories at all.
Alexey never raises his voice to me. He never makes demands beyond the deal we struck.
He gives me space when I deflect questions about my past, simply saying “When you’re ready” before returning to his ledgers.
He protects without smothering. He includes without owning.
But the men from my childhood are nothing compared to the fear they inflicted more recently because of my father’s new debts.
I’ll never understand how he could continue to rack up debt after everything we lost, how he could keep gambling away whatever scraps remained.
Mostly, I’ll never understand why Fadir kept allowing it.
Why did he let my father sink deeper, dangling the possibility of “help” like bait while tightening the noose around me?
Is it just another way to keep me dependent? Another thread of control?
I roll onto my side, hugging a pillow to my chest.
Still, I haven’t admitted to myself how much I look forward to our late-night strategy sessions.
The quiet rhythm of two minds working together, the way his low voice explains the next move without condescension.
The strange comfort of knowing he’s only a few doors away, steady and present even when the penthouse is silent.
The attraction I feel is still buried under layers of self-preservation, lingering distrust from Fadir’s betrayal, and the sharp need for revenge.
I tell myself the agitation in my chest is just adrenaline from the plan moving forward.
Nothing more. Gratitude for the roof, the resources, and the chance to watch Fadir burn.
Yet when I lie awake tonight, the black-and-white world I grew up in feels like it’s slowly losing its edges. The monsters I painted every Bratva man as are blurring into shades of gray I’m not ready to name.
For the first time, I wonder what it would mean to stop running from unknown dangers and people that may no longer exist.
What if the patient, a restrained man sitting at that table under the single lamp, isn’t a cage waiting to close around me, but something safer than I’ve ever known?
The thought terrifies me.
Because if the shadows aren’t real anymore… then maybe I don’t have to keep running. I’m not sure I’m ready for what happens when I finally stop.
***
I wake up gasping, sheets twisted around my legs like ropes trying to drag me back under. The penthouse is eerily shadowed except for the faint glow of city lights filtering through the windows of the guest suite.
My heart is still racing, the dream clinging to me like smoke, memories of boots thudding across old floorboards, glass shattering, my father’s slurred voice begging while I press myself into the corner of the closet, knees to my chest, praying the monsters won’t find me.
I sit up, pressing the heels of my hands to my eyes until stars burst behind my lids. The trauma never leaves. It just waits for the quiet moments to rise up and swallow me whole.
We lived in a squat, peeling house on the edge of town where the cornfields met the railroad tracks. The day my mom left, I came home from school to find her side of the closet empty and a single note on the kitchen table: I can’t do this anymore. Tell your father I’m sorry.
No explanation. No goodbye hug.
Just the smell of her cheap perfume lingered in the air for weeks like a ghost that refused to move on. Dad started drinking more heavily after that. Gambling harder.
The kind of man who chased the next big win like it's oxygen, even when the wins never came and the debts piled up like snow in January.
By the time I was a young teenager, the Bratva knew our address by heart.
Every time someone showed up at our door, I would curl up in the dark with my hands clamped over my mouth so I wouldn’t scream.
The smell of mothballs and Dad’s winter coat pressed against my face.
I stayed there for what felt like hours after they left, long after the taillights disappeared down the road.
Dad’s gambling didn’t stop. Even after the house was almost lost twice, even after the men came back again and again, he continued racking up debt as if it were a game he could still win.
I’ll never understand how he could keep doing it, or how he could look at the fear in my eyes and still roll the dice one more time.
Then Fadir… God, Fadir.
Later, when I was living with him, I learned he quietly allowed my father’s debts to deepen.
He never told me, but I once found records of small loans funneled through shell companies, just enough to keep Dad desperate and me dependent.
Fadir liked having leverage. He liked knowing I had nowhere else to run.
The gossip at the diner whispered about Viktor’s latest screw-up, about how his daughter’s “big-city dreams” would probably end the same way everything else did in that family… badly. I swore I’d never crawl back. Never let anyone use my past against me again.
Yet here I am, living in a Bratva enforcer’s penthouse, and the past keeps reaching for me.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand, needing to move before the memories drag me under completely.
The guest suite is quiet and safe with its white linens, soft lighting, and the faint scent of cedar from the closet.
Nothing like the cramped, chaotic house I grew up in.
I pad barefoot to the window and press my forehead against it, staring out at the park below.
Alexey is only a door away. The thought should scare me more than it does. He’s part of the same world that once sent men to smash our furniture. But he’s nothing like those men. He’s patient and, dare I say, almost compassionate.
Still, the trauma whispers that safety is an illusion. That powerful men always find a way to use you. That one day, the mask will slip, and the monster underneath will look just like the ones who laughed as they destroyed our home.
I close my eyes and let the tears come. They’re hot, silent, and full of anger at myself for still being afraid after all these years. The world I grew up in is losing its edges. Bratva aren’t all monsters.
Alexey isn’t. But admitting that feels like letting go of the only armor I’ve ever had.
What it would mean to let myself believe that the man across the hall might be the first person who sees my past and doesn’t try to use it against me.
The thought terrifies me.
But for the first time, it also feels… possible.
I wipe my face with my hands, then crawl back into bed, pulling the covers up to my chin. The penthouse is silent, and across the hall, Alexey sleeps behind a closed door, steady and present even in the quiet.
I don’t know if I’m ready to stop running.
But tonight, for the first time, I wonder what it would feel like to try.