Chapter Twenty-One - Janice
I wake alone.
The sheets beside me are cool, creased where Dimitri’s body pressed hours ago.
Sunlight cuts harsh through the windows he never closes, and I squint against it, disoriented.
My body aches in ways that remind me exactly what happened last night—his hands on the desk, his mouth demanding answers I couldn’t give, the way I’d shattered under his touch while guilt burned through my chest.
The phone is still hidden in that trash can. The drive is still in his desk drawer.
I’m still a coward.
I drag myself from bed, muscles protesting. The bathroom mirror shows evidence I can’t hide—marks on my throat, bruises fingerprinted into my hips, the flush that won’t quite fade from my cheeks.
The shower runs hot enough to hurt. I stand under the spray until my skin pinks, scrubbing at places his hands touched, his mouth tasted. The water can’t wash away what happened. Can’t erase the moment I chose him over the plan, chose his touch over my freedom.
Did you get it?
The message from last night pulses behind my eyes. I’d read it three times before deleting it, before turning the phone off and shoving it deeper into the closet, as if distance would make it disappear.
They’re waiting for an answer. Waiting for the drive that proves Dimitri’s operations, that gives them ammunition to destroy everything he’s built.
I almost took it. The drawer was open and I was looking at the laptop and drive when he appeared in the doorway, when those gray eyes pinned me in place and demanded truth I couldn’t give.
The water runs cold. I shut it off, wrap myself in a towel that costs more than my old monthly rent, and stare at my reflection through steam.
Who am I now? Not the girl who published that exposé, righteous and naive. Not the woman who agreed to help strangers destroy her husband.
Someone in between. Someone who doesn’t know which version wins.
I dress in jeans and a soft sweater, casual clothes that feel like armor against whatever today brings. The penthouse is quiet when I emerge—no Dimitri, no staff immediately visible. Just me and the oppressive weight of marble and money.
Coffee waits in the kitchen. Always coffee, always perfect, always timed to when I wake. I pour a cup and move to the windows, watching the city stretch below. Somewhere out there, people live normal lives. Make choices that don’t involve betrayal or possession or secret phones hidden in closets.
I hate them a little.
Movement in the courtyard catches my eye. I lean closer, squinting against the glare.
Dimitri kneels near the gate, his back to me. He’s still wearing yesterday’s shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows, hair disheveled in a way I’ve never seen. His attention is fixed on something small, something that trembles in his hands.
I’m moving before I decide to, abandoning my coffee, slipping through the penthouse and down the private elevator that opens directly to the courtyard. The morning air is sharp, autumn finally asserting itself, and I wrap my arms around my middle as I approach.
He doesn’t turn. “Careful. She’s terrified.”
I crouch beside him, and my breath catches.
The kitten is tiny, gray-striped and matted with dirt. One of her paws is caught in wire from the fence, blood crusted around the metal. She mewls when Dimitri touches her, high and pitiful, but doesn’t try to run.
“How long have you been out here?” I ask.
“An hour. Maybe longer.” His hands move with impossible gentleness, working the wire free fraction by fraction. “She was caught when I came down. Probably all night.”
I watch his fingers—the same fingers that dug into my hips last night, that has wrapped around throats and pulled triggers—ease wire from torn skin with surgical precision. The kitten shakes but doesn’t fight, some instinct recognizing safety even through pain.
“Almost,” he murmurs. Not to me. To her.
The last bit of wire comes free. The kitten’s paw is mangled, blood fresh where the metal cut deep. She cries again, trying to pull away, but Dimitri cups her in his palms like she’s made of glass.
“We need a vet,” I say.
“I called one. He’s on his way.”
Of course he did. Dimitri Rudenko doesn’t wait for office hours or appointments. The world bends when he requires it.
The kitten settles slightly in his hands, exhaustion winning over fear. Her breathing is too fast, ribs visible through matted fur, but she’s alive. She made it through the night.
“Can I?” I reach out without thinking.
Dimitri shifts, transferring her carefully to my palms. She weighs nothing, all bones and terror. Her good paw kneads against my thumb, claws like needles.
“She’s so small.”
“Too small to be alone.” His voice is rough, scraped raw by something I don’t recognize. “Someone abandoned her. Left her here to die.”
I stroke her head with one finger, feeling the rapid pulse under fragile bone. She leans into the touch, eyes squeezing shut. Trusting me because she has no other choice.
My throat tightens. “People are cruel.”
“Yes.” He stands, brushing dirt from his knees. “They are.”
The vet arrives within fifteen minutes—middle-aged, competent, asking no questions about being summoned to a private residence before dawn. He examines the kitten on a table Dimitri produces from somewhere, murmuring assessments I half hear through my pulse.
“She’ll need antibiotics. The paw will heal, but she’ll always have a limp. She’s malnourished, probably weeks underfed. Someone had her, then dumped her.” He looks up. “You’re keeping her?”
I open my mouth. Dimitri speaks first.
“Yes.”
The word is absolute.
The vet nods, unsurprised. He treats the wound, administers medication, leaves supplies and instructions Dimitri absorbs with the same focus he brings to business negotiations. Money changes hands—far more than necessary, I’m certain—and then we’re alone again.
The kitten curls in Dimitri’s coat, wrapped in expensive fabric, breathing steady now. Sedated for the pain, the vet said. She’ll sleep for hours.
“We should name her,” I say. The words feel absurd. We’re discussing pet names while secret phones burn holes in closets, while strangers wait for intelligence I haven’t delivered.
“Misha.” He doesn’t hesitate. “It means bear. She fought like one.”
“She’s the size of your fist.”
“Size doesn’t determine strength.”
His eyes find mine, and the weight of last night settles between us. The things unsaid. The drawer I’d been caught opening, the explanations I’d fumbled, the way he’d chosen to believe me anyway.
Or pretended to.
“I wasn’t trying to steal from you,” I say. The lie tastes bitter.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“No.” He adjusts the coat around Misha’s sleeping form. “I want to, though.”
Honesty. Raw and cutting. I don’t know what to do with it.
We move back inside. Dimitri settles on the couch with Misha still bundled against his chest, and I watch from across the room. He’s killed men. I’ve seen him do it, watched bodies fall with precision that spoke of practice. He’s threatened me with guns and possession, caged me in marble and money.
Now he holds a broken kitten like she’s the most important thing in the world.
“You’re staring,” he observes without looking up.
“You’re confusing.”
“How so?”
I cross to sit beside him, careful not to jostle Misha. “Last night, you were ready to interrogate me for going through your desk. This morning, you’re rescuing kittens. I don’t understand which version is real.”
“Both.” His hand moves over Misha’s back, rhythmic strokes that keep her calm. “I’m capable of violence and mercy. Cruelty and kindness. You’ve always known that.”
“Knowing it and seeing it are different things.”
“Does it change anything?”
The question hangs heavy. Does it? Does watching him cradle something helpless soften the edges of what he is? Does one act of gentleness erase the cage he’s built around me?
“I don’t know,” I admit.
Misha makes a small sound in her sleep, paw twitching. Dimitri’s hand stills until she settles again.
“I meant what I said last night,” he murmurs. “About wanting to believe you.”
Guilt rises sharp and immediate. “Dimitri—”
“Let me finish.” He finally looks at me, and the exhaustion in his face is startling. “I know you’re not telling me everything. I know there’s something you’re hiding, something that made you go through my desk.”
My pulse hammers. “Then why—”
“I’d rather have you lying than gone.” The admission comes quiet, defeated. “I’d rather believe your weak excuses and pretend ignorance than confront whatever truth would force me to choose between you and everything else.”
The words land like blows. He knows. He’s known, maybe since the moment he found me in his study, maybe longer. He’s choosing willful blindness because the alternative is unbearable.
I’m unbearable to lose.
“I’m not worth that,” I whisper.
“That’s not your decision to make.”
Misha shifts in his arms, and he adjusts his hold automatically. The gesture is so natural it steals my breath—this dangerous man, this killer, this monster who’s somehow become mine.
I reach for him without thinking. My hand covers his where it rests on Misha’s back, fingers threading through his. He goes very still.
“I’m trying,” I say. The words feel inadequate. “To be what you need. To understand this world. To not hate you for putting me in it.”
“Are you succeeding?”
“Sometimes.” I squeeze his hand. “This morning. When you’re holding a kitten like she’s made of light.”
His mouth curves slightly. Not quite a smile, but close. “You’re easy to please.”
“You’re easy to want.” The admission escapes before I can stop it. “That’s the problem.”
“Why is it a problem?”
Wanting him complicates everything. I can’t betray someone I’m falling for. The phone in my closet feels like a countdown to the moment I have to choose between freedom and whatever this is becoming.
“I don’t trust it,” I say instead. “This feeling. It came too fast, too forced. How do I know it’s real and not just—”
“Stockholm syndrome?” He supplies the words I can’t. “You don’t. Neither do I.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“It’s honest.” Misha stirs again, and he shifts her to his other arm with practiced ease. “We have time to figure it out. Unless you’re planning to run.”
The question is casual. The weight behind it isn’t.
“I’m not running.” Truth. For now.
“Good.” He stands carefully, Misha cradled close. “I need to make some calls. Will you watch her? She shouldn’t be alone when she wakes.”
I nod, and he transfers her to my arms with the same gentleness he showed in the courtyard. She’s heavier than before, limp with medication and exhaustion. Her heartbeat flutters against my palm.
“Dimitri?”
He pauses in the doorway.
“Thank you for saving her.”
“She deserved saving.” His eyes hold mine. “So do you.”
He leaves before I can respond.
I sink into the couch with Misha warm against my chest. She sleeps on, oblivious to the complications her presence has created. The softness she’s introduced into a space built on control and violence.
My phone—the real one, not the secret one burning in the closet—buzzes. Diana.
Coffee this week? I miss your face.
Simple. Normal. It’s the kind of message that belongs to a life I used to have.
I type back: Thursday at our usual place?
Her response is immediate: Perfect. Catch me up on married life.
Married life. The phrase sits wrong. This isn’t marriage; it’s something else. Something I don’t have words for.
Misha’s breathing evens out, deeper now. Healing. She’ll survive this—the abandonment, the injury, the fear. She’ll adapt to this place, to Dimitri’s hands and my care, and eventually she’ll forget what it was like before.
Maybe I will too.
The thought should comfort me. Instead, it feels like losing.
I carry Misha to the bedroom, settling her in a nest of blankets Dimitri left on the bed. She doesn’t wake when I ease away, just curls tighter into warmth.
The closet looms across the room.
I cross to it before I can stop myself, push past expensive clothes I didn’t choose, find the phone where I buried it. The screen lights up when I touch it.
Three messages. All from last night, all variations on the same question.
Did you get it?
We’re waiting.
Time is running out.
I stare at the words until they blur. They don’t know I was caught. Don’t know Dimitri interrupted before I could take the drive. Don’t know I’m standing here now with his cat sleeping in his bed, wearing his ring, feeling his gentleness like a brand.
I type: Couldn’t access it. Security was tighter than expected.
The lie comes easy. Too easy.
The response arrives within seconds.
Try again. Friday night. He’s meeting with the Volkov family—we have intel he’ll be gone for hours. This is your window.
My hands shake. Friday night. Another chance, another choice.
I delete the message and power off the phone.
Misha makes a small sound from the bed, paw twitching in dreams that might be kinder than her waking reality. I watch her sleep, this tiny thing Dimitri saved, and wonder if I’m already too far gone to save myself.
The phone goes back in the closet.
Until Friday night, when I’ll have to decide who I am.