10. Sandrine
Sandrine
Something vibrates the steel bars. The elevated trains must run near here. I don’t remember riding the L, but years at Norridge and then Lakeshore, I learned about them.
I sit on the floor, working through the anxiety that’s making it hard to breathe. I worked my brain to the point of exhaustion, trying to figure out why I’m here. Hopefully no one will hurt me before this gets cleared up. Ares wouldn’t like it very much if someone laid a hand on me.
And what happened to Elodie? Is she all right?
Heavy footsteps closing in on the cell drown out all other sounds outside, as well as these thoughts squeezing my brain. I look up. Something about the gait is already familiar. I’m just not sure why. I don’t know anyone here.
The silhouette of the man from earlier stands in front of the cell. Without a face, I recognize the outline of square shoulders, a broad chest, and a jaw that can cut glass.
My pulse betrays me instantly. A slow, dangerous heat unfurls low in my stomach. This arousal has no place in this situation while I’m locked in his cell.
Kirill. His name is Kirill. Damn, that’s sexy.
“Go have a smoke.” He dismisses the guard with a flick of his wrist.
The guard obeys instantly. How easily men with guns listen to him tightens every nerve in my body. This man’s power is attractive to me. No, I’m not supposed to think that.
When we’re alone, everything suddenly feels electric.
Kirill moves, and a corridor light shines down on his face. Our gazes lock and my heart pounds. A minute stretches by and he doesn’t say anything. He breaks the stare by shaking his head. He hits a panel next to the cell and the click of the lock slices through the silence.
My breath catches in my lungs as the cell door swings open.
Kirill steps inside, surprising me. I flinch, thinking I was wrong about being hurt. By the other ways a man can hurt a woman.
“Come,” he says, his voice softer than the edge it had earlier.
“Where?” I don’t trust anything that sounds like kindness coming from a man who put a gun to my head not long ago.
“You’re not staying down here.” I fold my arms, goosebumps forming on my skin.
“Is it warm where you’re putting me?”
He stares down at me. “You were cold?”
I nod.
“You should have said—” He stops and curses under his breath in another language that sounds like Russian. “Yes, I’m bringing you somewhere warm.”
He holds out his hand to help me stand. Our bodies collide when I get unsteady. He looks at me, those eyes searching. Doing something to me. He steps back and gives me room to leave the cell. I nervously stride forward. With my sanity a little more intact, I look around. At everything.
The hallway stretches out on one side in a curve of stone, but ends in a shadow. The other way is lit by low-powered sconces that cast yellow gold against the haze of smoky gray.
“Go ahead.” Kirill gestures for me to walk toward the light.
Smart, not keeping his back to me. I can run, or hit him. With what, I don’t know. My wrists are free now. I rub at my bruised skin without thinking as I climb back up the winding staircase. I have no idea where this goes, but each step pulls me further from the person I was this morning.
Light shines from an open door at the top, and when I reach the upper level, the warmth he promised envelops me. A few more turns on this level and the world changes.
This is a home. Beautiful and vintage, with tall windows and cathedral ceilings.
Looking down, I see the wooden floors are smoothly polished, reflecting the glow of chandeliers overhead.
“Make a right and then a left,” Kirill says behind me.
I catch a whiff of his cologne, and images flash behind my eyes when I close them to take in the nice smell. My brain tickles with a recognition.
After making the turns, I reach a staircase. My legs go so weak that they collapse under my weight.
“No. No!” I yell, terrified of stairs.
Kirill’s large hands catch me. “I got you.” He lifts me up and carries me up the stairs like I weigh nothing.
“Stop it. Let me go!”
At the top, he puts me down, but keeps a hand on my arm. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“I don’t believe you.” I can still feel the heat of him without him touching me.
“Then believe me.” The woman from earlier is there. Ksenia. “You’re safe here. I promise you.”
I don’t believe her either. I can’t. Not when every instinct in my body is screaming that I’ve been taken somewhere I don’t belong.
Not that I can run. I’m cornered, and my best option is to get behind a closed door. Away from these people.
“This way.” Kirill guides me down another hallway. Against all reason, following this man feels safer than standing there alone. “This is our wing,” he announces over his shoulder.
“Our wing?” I repeat above a whisper.
“The residence,” he says, clearing his throat.
Residence.
“Is this a home?”
Kirill makes eye contact with Ksenia, who was following us.
“It’s our home.” Kirill opens a set of double doors and ushers me inside. “This is your bedroom.”
It’s not what I expected. It isn’t another cell, and it’s not a cold, sterile room I had at Lakeshore either.
It’s two rooms, really. A small sitting room with a plush blue sofa and a gold wing-backed chair angled toward a flat-screen television over a fireplace.
A desk sits adjacent to a bookcase. There’s a tall window behind it with heavily embroidered drapes and dangling tassels. They are drawn back just enough to reveal the faint glow of a street light.
Is it night?
I lost track of time. I had an appointment this afternoon. We left Marlowe at… I forget. We stopped for ice cream because we had time. Then this man jumped out of a car and stole me from my life.
And brought me to a mansion.
“Sit,” Kirill says, gesturing to the sofa.
“Do you want me to stay?” Ksenia asks me as an offer of comfort.
“Are you going to hurt me?” I ask Kirill.
“No,” he says right away.
“You can leave,” I tell the woman. “But keep the door open, please.”
“Be patient, Kirill,” his sister says, her voice a warning.
I lower myself onto the sofa, my body feeling so heavy as the weight of everything crashes in all at once.
Kirill folds himself into the chair across from me, his movements controlled as if he’s forcing himself into a state of restraint.
Be patient.
It’s what the medical doctors would tell the therapists when they pushed us too far. Demanding more than our minds could offer.
Kirill exhales, dragging a hand through his hair in a way that makes him look almost human.
And familiar.
“There are things I learned tonight,” he begins, his voice softer, the edges worn down. “Things I didn’t know this morning.”
I watch him carefully, every nerve in my body alert, waiting for the trap. “Like what?”
“Your disability,” he answers, his gaze locking on mine with an intensity that makes it hard to breathe. “Your head trauma. The amnesia.”
The words said out loud by a stranger feel humiliating.
“I fell,” I tell him. “They told me I fell. I have no memory of anything before that.”
“I believe you,” Kirill says, and his expression shifts. “And I believe you when you say you don’t remember me. I’m sorry for the things I said.”
My heart stutters because I didn’t expect him to apologize at all.
“But I need you to believe me,” he adds, leaning forward, his steely voice tightening again. “We are married.”
None of this aligns with the life I’ve been told is mine. By my father, by Lourdes.
“When…” I shake my head. “When did we get married?”
His cheek twitches like it’s a test. “Five years ago. Months before your accident. I saw your hospital records.”
My fingers curl into fists.
“And we’re still married?” I ask before I can stop myself, because that’s the part that doesn’t make sense.
“Yes,” he says without hesitation. “Still.”
“My sister would have told me.”
His jaw tightens. “No one knew we got married. My father— It’s complicated. But Lourdes and Ares knew you accepted my ring, Sandrine.” He says that name again like he’s said it hundreds of times. “I showed Ares and Lourdes evidence.”
“What evidence?” I press, my voice rising slightly, because if this is real, I’ve been lied to.
By a lot of people.
“It’s late,” he replies, cutting off my line of questioning cleanly, his tone going dark again. “We can talk about that tomorrow.”
Frustration flares hot and immediate again. “I want my sister.”
“Ares and Lourdes are at sea.” He shoves his hands into his pockets. “Your sister knows you’re here. Ares contacted me from their yacht. I expect they’ll be on a plane to Chicago as soon as they reach Santorini.”
Hope sparks so quickly it almost hurts.
“You’ll let me see her?” I ask, leaning forward, clinging to that hope.
“Of course,” he answers, and for a moment, his voice is almost gentle. “Family is important.”
I think of Lourdes. Of Elodie. They’ve been the only constants in my life, which started over in a hospital bed.
Kirill’s gaze sharpens, a deep unknown threading through the stare. He stands up and closes the distance between us in a way that makes my pulse jump.
“We were happy, Sandrine,” he murmurs, his voice dropping and roughening at the same time. “You loved me.”
His hand lifts, reaching for me, but I flinch. Anger flickers across his face. He’s wounded. That hurts, and I hate that I notice. That I feel the pull of him even as fear curls tighter in my chest.
“Did you love me?” I force my voice to be steady. “You put a gun to my head. Put me in handcuffs. Locked me in a cell.”
“I thought you betrayed me,” he snaps, the restraint cracking just enough to let that anger I saw earlier through. “I had no idea about the amnesia.”
“I’m not agreeing to anything,” I say, standing my ground in a way I haven’t in five years. “Until I see my sister.”
“You will,” he replies, his tone controlled again. “Soon.”
“I was in a rehab facility,” I add, the words tumbling out.
I need him to hear this, to understand my needs.
“I’m still recovering from head trauma. I’m following a program with meds and therapy. When can I go home?”
His gaze sweeps the room, then it returns to me, steady and unyielding. “You are home.”
The certainty in his voice sends a chill down my spine. As if it isn’t turning my world inside out.
“And I will see to your care. I promise,” he adds.
I look around the room again, taking in the details. It looks comfortable. But not lived in. Not his, since most of this space is bare.
“If I’m your wife, why are you putting me in this room?”
“Do you want to share my bed already?” His voice drops to a tone I’ve heard Ares use on Lourdes.
The kind that made her blush and her nipples rage through her blouse.
My throat goes tight. “No. I never want to share your bed. I don’t know you.”
Yet, as I say those words, they feel weak in my throat.
His eyes narrow, and even like that, he’s so ridiculously handsome. “You say you don’t know me because of a head injury. I don’t know you because you left me the night of your accident, and I have no idea if you intended to ever come home. So right now, I don’t know what I want for us.”
“Then why stay married?”
Kirill straightens slowly. “Because my father is dying, and I’m next in line to lead the Bratva.”
My stomach tightens. Bratva. I know what that means. He’s not a businessman. Not a politician. Kirill is mafia. Like Ares.
I’d heard whispered rumors over the years at Lakeshore of the Russian Mafia here in Chicago and how dangerous and lethal they are.
“Within thirty days of my father’s death,” he continues evenly, “I’ll be crowned pakhan, and I need my wife at my side.”
According to him, that’s me.
“Is he in the hospital?” I ask. “Your father?”
“No.” Kirill shakes his head. “He’s here. In the north wing. He has a nurse.”
“Have I… Have I met him?”
Kirill goes still. “Yes. You have.”
He doesn’t elaborate, and I can’t process much else right now. I’m too tired to argue anymore. I glance down at my shorts and flip-flops.
“I need clothes,” I say softly. “Warm clothes.”
He crosses the room and opens a closet door I hadn’t noticed before. “These are yours, Sandrine.”
The name now physically hurts me. I press my fingers to my temple as the same dull ache blooms behind my eyes.
“Please don’t call me that,” I whisper, even though I believe him.
“I will call you that,” he says, anger sparking again. “That’s your name. You need to accept this.”
“You’re a monster,” I tell him, the words slipping out before I can soften them.
A part of me needs him to be one. He’s too handsome. Too rough in a way that doesn’t scare me, but intrigues me.
He pauses at the front room’s doorway, then turns back, a slow, dangerous smile curving his mouth. “You do remember me, after all.”
And then he’s gone.
I push myself up off the chair to look inside the closet.
The clothes inside are beautiful. Fingers trembling, I reach for the hangers.
Soft fabrics, loose silhouettes, and colors that feel like me, rather than patient-assigned.
Nothing has tags. These aren’t new. They aren’t things someone recently bought for me. These are mine. Or they were.
I pull one free from the rack, a soft knit dress in a deep plum shade. I hold it up to my body and see myself wearing it.
I check the size and scoff, “Extra Large? What?”
Further back, the sizes get a little smaller. But they’re all the same style. This was me. Is it still me? I hadn’t gotten around to establishing a style again.
My current wardrobe is geared toward Arizona weather. For the desert heat, it’s all loose and comfortable. Everything is muted, though. These clothes definitely have a Chicago, cosmopolitan vibe with their bold colors.
Was I stylish? I was married to a rich man. The heir to the Bratva. I can’t process all of this right now. But way back in the closet hangs a blue smock.
It’s splattered with paint stains in colors that make me see white behind my eyes. Like sparks. My brain recognizes the familiar colors. Purple, deep and rich, and many different tones.
Violet.
My chest tightens.
My fingers brush the fabric, tracing the dried paint, and for a fleeting second, I feel a warm, familiar sensation beneath my skin. I swallow, stepping back, my mind spinning.
Was Kirill telling the truth?
Am I Sandrine?
Am I Jessica?
Was my sister lying to me all these years?