Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Leah
When I woke up, I was locked in.
I twisted the handle until my hands ached, then threw myself against the door with everything I had. Pounding. Screaming.
"Open up! Let me out!" But no one came. The massive estate had become a tomb, and I was the one buried alive.
Damn him.
I grabbed a chair and slammed it against the door over and over until my hands swelled, but I didn't care. Fire raged in my chest, burning through what was left of my sanity.
What kind of person does this? After all the surveillance, all the suspicion—now he'd taken even my freedom. Just locked me away.
What the hell kind of love was this? Why did I always end up in these toxic relationships?
I cursed that tyrant at the ceiling, but then a small black dot caught my eye.
A camera. Of course. Another fucking camera.
I stared straight at it.
"You're a bastard, Roman!"
I screamed at the lens and hurled my shoe at it.
"A control freak! A psychotic lunatic! You have no right to lock me up! No fucking right!"
I unleashed every vicious word I'd ever learned, every curse I thought I'd never use. Everything I should say, everything I shouldn't—I let it all out.
When I'd exhausted my entire vocabulary, I ended with my middle finger aimed right at the camera.
Then I waited. Waited for the tyrant's punishment. With Roman's pride, I knew he'd never tolerate this.
But I waited a long time. Nothing came back but suffocating silence.
Being ignored was worse than being punished.
The fury that had been building erupted like a volcano. I paced the room frantically, looking for something—anything.
Finally, I hoisted the heavy lamp and smashed it against the marble floor.
It shattered. Then the glasses on the coffee table, the decorations. At last, I grabbed a chair and launched it at the full-length mirror on the closet door.
The mirror exploded in a deafening crash, huge shards sliding to the floor until half the room was covered in jagged glass.
I walked barefoot across the fragments. Adrenaline blocked the pain. Blood ran from my soles, leaving a trail of crimson footprints across the marble.
I destroyed everything I could reach, screaming at that damned camera with each crash.
When the room was finally a complete wreck, I stopped.
I stood there gasping, surveying my work with savage satisfaction.
At least in this moment, in this room, I'd taken back a tiny piece of control. Even if it was in the weakest way possible.
But even this violence got no response.
The camera blinked its red light in silence, like Roman's cold, arrogant indifference.
It seemed to say: Accept your helplessness. What else can you do?
Yeah. What else could I do? I was so powerless against him. He didn't have to care about my feelings or my situation.
He'd never understand what it was like for someone at the bottom, facing this kind of tyranny.
Never understand how his disappointment had shattered my heart into pieces.
All my strength drained away with the destruction. The adrenaline faded. Pain bloomed in my feet.
I looked at the chaos and the bright blood below me, then slid down the door.
"Let me out... What did I do wrong?"
I buried my face in my knees and sobbed.
What did I do wrong?
I kept asking myself.
Why did my parents leave me one by one? Why did Trent suddenly become someone else?
What did I do to keep losing the family and love I dreamed of?
I'd always thought if I stayed strong, stayed optimistic, the light would come eventually. Someone would truly love and respect me.
I thought Roman was that person. But looking back at every moment we'd shared, I had to ask myself:
Leah, admit it. Roman doesn't love you, does he?
He just enjoys keeping you in a cage, watching you struggle with no way out. That sick thrill.
Because I don't deserve anyone's love. Even my parents didn't love me. What else could I expect?
The darkness rolled in like a tide, eating away at my sanity, making me feel like garbage God forgot in some corner.
Just as that crushing despair was about to swallow me whole, a small voice slipped through the crack under the door.
Mira.
I pushed myself up from the floor, ignoring the searing pain in my feet as I threw myself against the door.
"Mira? Baby, is that you?"
Her hoarse, crying voice came through the crack.
"Leah... I won't run away again, I promise. Please come out. Don't leave me..."
Tears poured down my face.
This child who'd finally opened her heart to me, this wounded little creature, was begging for help through this damned door, and I couldn't do anything.
"I'm not leaving you. I'm not going anywhere, Mira. Listen, I'm just sick."
I pressed my forehead hard against the wood, trying to give her some warmth this way.
"You have to be good and wait for me to get better, okay?"
Silence for a few seconds. Then Mira's voice dropped to a whisper.
"Leah. You have to get better soon... Here, this is for you."
A thin piece of paper slid under the door.
I picked it up with trembling hands. A crayon drawing of two girls, one big and one small, with a little cat—Marshmallow—and a doll named Bonnie.
Mira had drawn us under the same roof.
Looking at that picture, something warm flooded into my broken heart.
I pressed my face against the cold door, voice soft with wonder.
"Is this... us?"
"Yeah." Mira's voice came through the door.
"Leah is my family. We're together forever."
Family. The word hit me like a hammer.
I bit my lip hard, choking back the sob rising in my throat, forcing my voice to sound steady. "It's beautiful, baby. I love it."
"I didn't finish coloring my dress," Mira sniffled. "Can you color it your favorite color?"
A flat box of crayons squeezed through the crack.
I grabbed it, clutching that cheap cardboard box like it was precious, feeling the first bit of comfort I'd had in forever.
"Yes, I promise. I'll give you the prettiest color. Pink? How's that?"
"Pink? Yeah!" Mira's voice lifted with a sweet laugh that melted my heart.
I dropped to the floor, using the faint light from the crack to pull out a pink crayon. But the second I touched it to the paper, footsteps echoed outside.
"Miss Mira, you cannot be here. Come with us."
A cold male voice cut through the door.
Roman's bodyguard.
"No! I'm not leaving!" Mira screamed, but then her voice was muffled, as if someone had covered her mouth.
Something snapped in my head.
I threw myself at the door, pounding frantically, screaming. "Let go of Mira! You bastards! She can't even talk to me?"
The commotion outside paused. Then the guard's voice came back, flat and emotionless.
"Sorry, ma'am. We only follow Mr. Volkov's direct orders. No one is permitted near you."
"Leah! Leah!"
Mira's broken cries tore through me, mixed with shuffling footsteps that grew fainter down the empty corridor until they vanished into silence.
I collapsed on the cold marble, clutching the box of crayons, my heart ripped apart, every breath tasting like blood.
The brief warmth I'd felt disappeared with Mira, replaced by rage and despair rushing back in.
Why did they have to take even this from me?
Why?
Why could he watch me, suspect me, lock me up like an animal, while I didn't even get an explanation—couldn't even see Mira?
Why was it always his decision?
I was done.
I sat alone in the darkness, surrounded by hopelessness and isolation, as if I'd lost all connection to the world.
After what felt like hours, the lock clicked.
Several guards and a doctor walked in, expressionless. They ignored me completely, mechanically cleaning up the glass, bandaging my bloody feet, then removing every sharp object, everything I could use to lash out.
Next, maids carried in elaborate dishes.
I stared at the carefully prepared food with one thought:
Without freedom, what's the point of living?
I had no desire to eat. At dinner, the maid just sighed and took it all away untouched.
This was my only leverage now.
Roman could lock the door, take my phone, station guards outside, watch me through cameras twenty-four seven.
But he couldn't have my soul.
I curled up on the far side of the bed, back to the camera, facing the wall.
Let him watch.
Let him see me reject everything he'd carefully arranged. Let him know there was still one thing in this world his power and guns couldn't control.
Outside, the rain stopped. The sky went completely dark.
When I woke the next morning, my lips were cracked. I'd only had half a glass of water the doctor forced on me while redressing my feet.
My throat burned, my tongue felt wooden, my limbs too heavy to lift.
Maybe this was the end. I buried my face in the pillow so the camera wouldn't catch my tears.
I'm sorry.
I didn't know who I was apologizing to. The baby inside me. Mira. Harper. Myself. Maybe all of them.
After a long time, the hidden speaker in the corner—the one I'd thought was just a decorative panel—crackled with static.
Then Roman's voice.
From the ceiling. Not a phone call. The surveillance system's intercom. He was speaking directly to me.
"Leah. Eat something."
I didn't move.
Ten seconds of silence. Then he spoke again.
"Keep this up and the baby will suffer. You know that."
I knew. Of course I knew.
But I also knew if I gave in now, I'd never stand up again. Roman would learn he could break me with imprisonment. And it would happen again and again until I became an empty shell.
I wouldn't become that.
"Leah. Talk to me." Roman's voice came down again.
I stared at the wall. Said nothing.
"Please."
The unexpected plea made my heart betray me with a flutter.
But I forced myself not to react.
The static lasted a long time. Maybe a minute. Maybe five. Then the voice disappeared. The room fell silent again.
I closed my eyes and waited for whatever came next.