Victoria
I don’t fall for Leonid all at once.
That would be too easy. Too stupid. I fall in pieces I don’t notice until they’re already lodged inside me.
It starts with the mornings.
He doesn’t crowd me. Doesn’t summon me. Doesn’t appear like a threat disguised as politeness.
I wake when I wake, move through the house without being intercepted, drink coffee that tastes better than anything I’ve ever had.
The guards don’t look at me twice. No one watches me like I might break something just by existing.
It’s unnerving, at first, being treated like a person instead of a liability.
Then it’s the way he listens.
When we talk it isn’t a performance. He doesn’t interrupt to correct me or steer the conversation somewhere useful to him.
He asks questions and waits for the answers, even when they’re messy, even when I circle the truth like I’m afraid it might bite.
When I go quiet, he doesn’t fill the silence.
He lets it breathe, like he knows some things need space before they can exist out loud.
I start to notice the small things next. The way he moves through his own house without asserting dominance, like power is something he carries internally and doesn’t need to prove. The way he gives instructions once and never repeats himself because he expects competence, not obedience.
He looks like he’s memorizing me, not consuming me. Like I’m something rare he’s terrified of mishandling.
That realization unsettles me more than anything else.
At night, when I lie in bed staring at the ceiling, I think about what it would feel like to stop calculating every interaction.
To not be braced for the moment kindness turns into savagery.
I think about how Leonid touches nothing unless invited, how he gives me space even when everything between us hums tight and electric.
I know he watches me too, when he is in his office. I can feel his eyes on me through the camera’s and it sends a thrill through me that’s so sharp it could cut.
The truth creeps up on me one evening while we’re sitting in his office again, the tension between us quieter now, deeper. He’s reading through the Pakhan’s response, jaw tight, focus absolute. I watch him from the chair across the desk and realize I’m not scanning for exits.
I’m watching him breathe.
That’s when it hits me; I don’t want to leave anymore. Staying feels like a choice that might actually belong to me.
It scares the hell out of me.
“So,” he says eventually, looking at me fully. “We’re almost done.”
My pulse picks up. “Done with what?”
“With Boris,” he says. “With the evidence. With the last pieces.”
I nod slowly. This is it. The point of no return. Once everything is laid out, once exile becomes reality, there’s no version of the world where I go back to being invisible again.
“There’s one more thing,” I say.
He stills. “Go on.”
I stand, suddenly restless, crossing the room like movement might keep my voice steady. My fingers go to the seam of my jacket without thinking, brushing the place I’ve touched a hundred times since the night I ran.
“I didn’t put the diamonds somewhere you could find them,” I say quietly.
He doesn’t interrupt. He never does.
“They’re not hidden in the city. Or in a safe.
Or with a third party.” I swallow, meeting his gaze.
“ I got them through the airport by wearing them as a bracelet, joked with security when they asked if they were real. As soon as I got to Prague, I took the bracelet apart and stitched them into my jacket.”
Something flickers in his eyes.
“I took the seams apart myself,” I continue, heat creeping up my neck. “Stitch by stitch. Replaced it carefully by hand. Spread the weight over two bags so it wouldn’t show. I wore them across borders, through your house. Every second I was here, I was carrying my escape with me.”
Silence stretches between us, heavy and charged.
“I needed to know,” I finish softly, “that if you turned on me, I still had a way out.”
He rises slowly from his chair, crosses the room to me while I pull apart the inside of my second-hand leather jacket.
“Do you still need them?” he asks.
I hesitate.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “And that terrifies me.”
His mouth curves with something dangerously tender.
“Good,” he says quietly. “That means you’re finally choosing instead of surviving, and it isn’t supposed to be easy.” He dots a kiss on my forehead.