14. Rose #2
"What, me and the baby?" I ask her half-jokingly. "Not sure that's going to work."
And even if it did, I know that I would have to be constantly looking over my shoulder to make sure this asshole doesn’t upend another part of my life without my knowledge.
I just don't get it, how far Ilya is willing to go to force me under his control. Does he trust me that little? Or is this his way of making sure I know that there’s nothing I can do that he will not have a hand in?
Does he know where I am right now? Did he let me come back here to see for myself exactly how far he went?
I walk around the apartment for a moment, taking it in, how empty it looks, stripped of all the little details that Becky and I poured into it over the years.
The paint stripped from the walls, the pictures and magnets removed from the beat-up old fridge, the ancient couch that was drooping in the middle vanished into thin air.
All of my old life, gone, like I never lived it at all.
I suppose there must be a few of my things left in my room, if Becky is back here collecting some of her stuff, but that doesn’t come close to making up for the amount of shit that has slipped through my fingers, thanks to Ilya.
"I didn't think you were coming back," Becky tells me, her voice laced with apology, like she wishes more than anything she could undo the harm. "If I had, I would have told them no. I would have stopped them from taking this place."
"He doesn't want me coming back," I say, my voice oddly hollow, even to my own ears. "He doesn’t even know I’m here."
"He doesn't?"
She sounds a little panicked. Shit, she's got reason to be. She’s seen for herself how powerful Ilya is, and she hasn't even seen the depths of control that I have. I don’t want anything to happen to her, but it looks like Ilya has gone out of his way to make sure that my life as I knew it has been entirely stripped and sold for parts.
"Do you think he'll be pissed when he realizes you came?" she asks, her eyes sliding left and right as though he might be hiding, lurking in the shadows like a predator ready to strike.
"Yeah. Probably."
"You don't sound worried."
"He won't do anything to me," I reply, gesturing to my belly. "Not until the baby is born, at least."
"You don't even sound scared, Rose," Becky says, her brows knitting together with concern. "You must be able to hear how crazy this sounds, right? This guy bought your work and practically stole your apartment out from underneath you."
"Yeah, I know how it sounds," I concede. "I just... I just..."
The words don't come to me as easily as they did before, a strange sense of calm washing through me.
No, not calm, exactly. Acceptance. The clear-headed realization that he has planned for every possibility.
That there are escape routes that haven't even crossed my mind yet that he has already shut the fuck down, and there's nothing I can do about it.
My home is gone; my work, nonexistent. Everything in my world has spiraled down to this man, and I don't see any way to change it.
"You want to come back to my place?" she suggests, giving my arm a squeeze. "We can talk about everything, you can tell me what's going on, maybe we can figure something out—"
I shake my head at once. I don't want to pull her into this; she doesn't deserve to be stuck with the same blade that has gutted so much of my life. She’s not the one who hooked up with her ex’s uncle on a plane and managed to get pregnant, or the one who is carrying a Bratva heir inside her right now.
Better for her to just pretend like she never even laid eyes on me, and we can be done with this.
"No, I'm alright," I reply.
She eyes me for a long moment, still clearly not entirely convinced. "Rose—"
But before she can continue, I hear someone calling my name from the bottom of the stairway. I glance downward to see our old landlord puffing his way up the steps towards us.
"There you are," he mutters, lifting a hand to indicate that I shouldn't go anywhere. "Jesus, I knew it was you the second I saw you on the CCTV cameras."
"What the hell are you doing here?" I ask, crossing my arms over my chest and glaring him down. "I thought you sold this place to someone else."
"That's none of your business," he replies, and a flash of irritation runs through me. All the times he left us without hot water or a working fridge, just because he couldn't be bothered to stay on top of his duties, and now he has the nerve to talk to me like I’m an inconvenience when I’m just trying to figure out what the hell happened here.
"Yes, it is," I reply. "I don't pay you rent anymore, in case you missed it. And I'm not going to let you talk to me like some kind of idiot. So, what the hell are you doing here?"
He jolts slightly, porcine features drawing back in surprise, but I make no attempt to correct my tone. He can be as pissed as he wants; I am not going to let this man talk down to me. But then, he draws himself to his full, inconsiderable height and looks me in the eye.
"You're banned from this building."
I almost laugh, eyebrows shooting upwards. "I'm sorry, what did you just say?"
"You heard me," he snaps. "You're blacklisted. The man who bought this place, he kept me on as security, watching the cameras to make sure no undesirables came through this place. And one of the people he told me to keep a watch for..." He looks me up and down. "Was you."
Fuck. So, not only did Ilya buy the apartment, steal it out from underneath me, but he also kept this jerk on to make sure that I never so much as set foot in here again?
He must have known that this was where I would go, given the chance.
That I would make it my mission to return to this place as soon as I got out.
No doubt our old landlord has already alerted him to the fact that I’m here, and he will turn up at any moment to drag me back to his mansion.
"Don't need to tell me twice," I shoot back furiously, and I stalk towards the stairs once more. Becky calls after me, but I just lift a hand, silently telling her that I’ve got this under control, even if it feels like the opposite right now.
I just need to get the hell out of here before anything else tears a chunk out of my old life and thrusts me into the new one.
I make it outside the apartment before the tears begin to trickle down my cheeks.
Thank God—the last thing I want is to have Becky see me like this.
She has never been good with crying, as much as she tries to be a good friend.
I know that she doesn't mean anything by it, that she really wants to help, but sometimes it feels like she doesn’t have her feet under her at all.
I mean, how could she let our apartment get sold like that?
I just don’t understand. Did she not put the pieces together and figure out that it had something to do with the man who seems so intent on narrowing my world to just him?
A car pulls up while I sit on the edge of the stoop with my head in my hands. A voice calls out to me, and I look up to see Ilya sitting in the driver's seat.
"Didn't want to send one of your guards to do your dirty work?
" I ask him bitterly as I get to my feet, stalking over to the car and sliding into the back seat.
I don't want to be so close to him, and I am sure I will lose all my resolve if I let the alchemy of his presence get under my skin. For the time being, I want to just be pissed at him for everything that he’s done to me.
"I knew you would come here," he remarks, flashing me a grin in the rearview mirror. "Didn't think you would try to escape the first chance you got, but make no mistake, I won't forget this."
His voice is edged with venom, and a shudder works its way through my body.
As if I haven’t made my life hard enough as it was.
As if I haven't put myself in enough danger already. Now, he will keep the locks on my new life even more tightly wound than before. There isn't a hope in fucking hell that I’ll ever get out. The glimpse of freedom I tasted today was nothing more than a taunt, a reminder of what I’ve lost.
And as I watch Ilya in the rearview mirror, his eyes pinned to the road ahead, I wonder just what else this man might have in store for me. What other secrets he might have been keeping under lock and key. Because I get the feeling that my life is about to get a whole lot more complicated.
And despite myself, there is a tingle at the base of my spine as I imagine how exactly he might punish me for this particular misdeed.