Victoria
Every muscle in my body shattered and released as pleasure bolted through me from what he was doing.
When my hip bumps against him and I feel how hard he is, I only briefly wonder why he isn’t pleasuring himself too.
Then he calls me printsessa and tells me I’m perfect and it’s all too much. I come apart entirely.
It feels like it lasts forever in the best way. Not like earlier, one short zap and it was all done. He drags every ounce of pleasure out of me until I jump from his fingers when the sensitivity shocks me.
I don’t recognize myself.
That’s the first thought that comes when I finally pull back enough to breathe, one hand still fisted in his shirt, my mouth tingling like it’s been woken from a long sleep.
I’ve never felt anything like this before.
Not the kiss, not the way my body leans into him without fear, not the certainty burning through me that whatever just cracked open inside me is never going back the way it was.
I kiss him hungrily, recklessly, like if I don’t keep my mouth on his I’ll lose the feeling altogether.
The world before him blurs and softens and disappears, and for the first time in my life, I let myself stop thinking about consequences, about escape routes, about what comes next.
I just cling to the way he makes me feel and I don’t care what it costs.
Later, when the storm inside me finally quiets and the edges of what happened soften, I don’t want him to leave. The thought of being alone again makes something tight and panicked bloom in my chest, so I ask him to stay, the words barely louder than a breath.
He does. He lies beside me, solid and warm, one arm heavy and steady around my waist like an anchor. I fall asleep like that, faster than I ever have in my life, held in place by the weight of him and the impossible safety of believing, just for a few hours, that I don’t have to run.
And then morning light wakes me.
For one fragile second, I expect to find him still there. His heat. His breath. The proof that last night was real. But the bed is empty.
The sheets are cool where he should be, the room quiet and untouched, like he was never here at all.
Panic flares first, sharp and disorienting, followed by something worse, a hollow ache that settles deep in my chest. I sit up slowly, fingers pressing into the mattress, replaying every second, every look, every touch, trying to convince myself it wasn’t a dream.
I sit there for a long time, wrapped in the quiet, staring at the place where he should be.
The sheets are rumpled. One pillow still smells faintly of him, clean and dark and dangerous, and that makes something in my chest ache so sharply I have to press my hand there like I can hold myself together through force.
My body remembers him even as my mind scrambles for armor, replaying last night over and over until it feels unreal.
I swing my legs out of bed and stand, grounding myself in movement because if I don’t, I’ll start thinking about what it would feel like if he never came back.
About how easily that one night could become the thing I measure everything else against. That way lies weakness and hope.
And hope has a way of driving people crazy.
Last night was a blip.
A fracture in the plan.
It didn’t mean anything.
I repeat that to myself as I shower, and dress in my clothes from yesterday.
Men don’t stay. They take what they want, then decide what to do with you afterward.
Leonid is no different, no matter how gentle his voice was in the dark or how careful his hands were when they did things to me I can’t make sense of.
Men don’t save women like me. They trade us. Return us. Use us to settle scores.
If he hands me back to my uncle…
The thought stops me cold.
I brace my hands on the sink, staring at my reflection until my vision swims.
Boris wouldn’t yell. He wouldn’t beat me outright.
He’d smile, soft and indulgent, and tell me how disappointed he was.
How much trouble I’d caused. How much I’d embarrassed him.
Then he’d remind me, slowly and patiently, of everything he took away from me piece by piece over the years until I believed I deserved the punishment he’d planned.
He’d tell me I was useless. Ungrateful. Broken.
He’d tell me no man would ever want a woman as pathetic as me.
He’d tell me even my friends could barely tolerate me, and then they all left, one by one, until it was just me on my own.
And the worst part is that for years, I believed him.
I wasn’t born small. I wasn’t born quiet or obedient or pliable. That was something my uncle molded into me with precision, the way a sculptor chips away at stone until what’s left is easier to display.
He taught me to lower my eyes. To smile when spoken to. To listen instead of speak. To measure my worth by how useful I was to the men around him. Every time I pushed back, he reminded me who fed me, who clothed me, who kept me safe from a world I was too weak for.
Safety was his favorite word.
By the time I was eighteen, my confidence was a ghost of what it had been. By twenty, I barely recognized my own reflection unless I was doing something forbidden. Stealing, planning, dreaming of escape in secret. That was the only place the real me still existed.
If he gets me back, there will be no escape left.
Death would be the only option left.
I move through to the kitchen on instinct, grabbing coffee I don’t taste, letting the routine steady me anyway. The guards don’t look at me. No one mentions Leonid.
I won’t let myself wonder why he left.
Because if I do, I’ll start imagining reasons that make me hesitate.
I think of my father instead. The way his laugh used to fill rooms. The way he smelled like contentment and winter air.
He was Bratva, but from the old world. The stories he told me weren’t about hoarding wealth or breaking people for sport.
They were about loyalty. About protecting families who had nothing.
About stealing from men who already had more than they could ever use and giving it to those who needed it more.
I only remember small parts of him, but every tiny shred of memory means everything to me.
I still find myself wondering how much of it is even real, and how much is my desperation to cling to something better.
He would’ve hated what Boris became. He would’ve hated what Boris did to me. I’m fairly certain of that.
If my father were alive, none of this would have happened. I wouldn’t have been raised like property. I wouldn’t have been taught to disappear. I wouldn’t have needed to steal my way out of my own life.
I swallow hard and straighten my shoulders.
Leonid gave me something last night, even if he didn’t mean to.
Proof.
Proof that I’m still capable of wanting. Of choosing. Of being more than what my uncle decided I should be. And that makes staying here dangerous in a way I can’t afford.
Because if Leonid decides I’m a bargaining chip instead of a woman, I won’t survive the disappointment.
I don’t get sentimental. I don’t wait. I start planning. Because running is still my only option.