Chapter Twelve
Mirabel
The thing about being trapped is that you don’t realize you’re trapped until you try to leave.
I spend the entire afternoon scrubbing the kitchen counters—the same counters I cleaned this morning—because the alternative is sitting still with my thoughts.
The guard who shadowed me to the hospital yesterday lingers near the doorway, pretending to check his phone.
But I see the way his attention never fully leaves me.
I see how he tracks every movement, every reach for a cabinet, every shift of my weight.
The sponge tears under my grip. I toss it into the sink and turn to the guard.
“I need to go shopping.”
He doesn’t even glance up from his phone. “No.”
The refusal is so casual that it takes me a second to process. “Excuse me?”
“You’re not leaving the property.”
My fingers curl against the counter’s edge. “I need clothes. Personal items. Things I can’t order online.”
“Make a list. We’ll have everything delivered.”
Heat floods my face. “I’m not asking for permission. I’m telling you I’m going.”
Now he looks at me. His expression is blank, professional, completely unmoved. “Mr. Laurov’s orders are clear. You stay on the grounds.”
The kitchen walls press in, the air turning thick and suffocating. I’m not a prisoner. I can’t be a prisoner. This is just a job, just temporary, just—
You’re lying to yourself, Debra’s voice whispers. You’ve been lying for months.
I shove the thought away. “Fine. I’ll talk to Arkady myself.”
The walk to his office feels longer than usual.
My footsteps echo too loudly in the empty corridor, and I’m acutely aware of the guard following three paces behind.
When I reach Arkady’s door, it’s closed.
Voices murmur inside—his and someone else’s.
Terse. Clipped. The kind of conversation that means trouble.
I knock anyway.
The voices stop, then: “Come in.”
Arkady sits behind his desk, phone pressed to his ear, eyes fixed on his laptop screen.
He doesn’t look up when I enter. Just lifts one finger—wait—and continues his conversation in rapid Russian.
The language flows harsh and guttural, laced with words I recognize only because I’ve heard them before. Blyad. Chert. Mudak.
He’s angry. Or stressed. Or both.
I don’t give a fuck. I’m angry too. And that single lifted finger just bought him some extra rage.
I stand there, arms crossed, waiting. The office smells like coffee and leather as it always does. The gun resting on his desk catches the afternoon light—casual, like it’s as mundane as a stapler.
Finally, he ends the call. Sets the phone down. Looks at me.
“What is it, Mirabel?”
His voice is flat. Exhausted. There are shadows under his eyes I didn’t notice before, and his jaw is tight with tension. Whatever is weighing on him, it’s getting worse.
But I’m tired too. Tired of being watched. Tired of being told no. Tired of wearing jeans that won’t button and bras that cut into my skin because I can’t even buy clothes that fit.
“You can’t do this to me,” I say.
His eyebrows lift slightly. “Do what?”
“The guard yesterday wouldn’t let me stop at the shops. Not even for twenty minutes. He said you only authorized the hospital visit and nothing else.”
Arkady leans back in his chair. His fingers drum once against the armrest, then still. “Good. He was doing his job.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
The answer is so dismissive, so infuriatingly simple, that I actually laugh. A short, brittle sound. “That’s not good enough.”
“It’s the only answer you’re getting.”
I take a step closer to his desk. “I need things, Arkady. Personal things. Women’s things. I can’t keep—” I cut myself off before I say too much. Before I mention the uniform that’s getting too tight around my middle, the way my body is changing in ways I can’t hide much longer.
He studies me, dissecting every inch of my face, looking for something I’m trying hard not to show.
“What things?”
“Clothes,” I say carefully. “Toiletries. And a one-size-bigger uniform. The one I have is… uncomfortable to work in.”
“Why do you need a bigger size?”
Because I’m pregnant with your baby.
The truth sits on my tongue, heavy and impossible. But I swallow it down. Not yet. Not like this.
“It would be more comfortable,” I say instead. “That’s all.”
He doesn’t believe me. I can see it in the way his expression shifts—suspicion flickering across his features before he schools them blank again.
“Order everything online,” he says. “I’ll cover the cost.”
“Arkady—”
“That’s final.”
His phone buzzes. He glances at the screen, and something in his face changes. Hardens. He stands abruptly, grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair.
“I have to take this.”
He’s already moving toward the door, already leaving before I can protest. Before I can demand a real explanation. Before I can tell him that this isn’t sustainable, that I can’t keep living like this, trapped in his house with guards and rules and secrets piling up between us.
The door closes behind him, and I’m left standing alone in his office, staring at the space where he was.
There are too many calls he doesn’t want me to hear. Too many conversations behind closed doors. Whatever is weighing on him, he won’t share it. Won’t let me in.
And at night, it’s so much worse.
The hours between sunset and dawn have become my enemy. I lie awake counting shadows on the ceiling, my mind circling the same questions over and over until they blur into white noise. Tonight is no different. Sleep doesn’t come easily anymore.
I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, counting the seconds between breaths. My hand rests on my stomach—a habit I’ve developed without meaning to. Four months now. Four months of hiding this secret, of wearing loose clothes and praying no one notices the way my body is betraying me.
The dream comes the way it always does—sudden and visceral, pulling me under before I can resist.
Debra.
She’s standing in a room I don’t recognize, wearing the same clothes she wore the day she disappeared. Her face is exactly like mine, but something is wrong. She’s hurting. Haunted.
“Mira,” she says, and her voice cracks. “Why didn’t you find me?”
“I tried,” I tell her. “I’ve been trying for six years.”
“Not hard enough.”
The accusation cuts deep. I reach for her, but she steps back, fading into shadows I can’t penetrate. And then she’s gone, and I’m alone again, drowning in guilt and grief and the terrible certainty that I failed her.
I wake gasping, sweat cooling on my skin. The clock on my nightstand reads 2:47 AM. Too early to get up, too late to fall back asleep.
My concern about Arkady—his health, his distance, the burden he’s carrying—gnaws at me in the dark. During the day, I can rationalize it. Tell myself he’s just busy, just stressed, just dealing with things I don’t understand.
But at night, the worry becomes something sharper. More insistent. The certainty that he’s hiding something critical won’t leave me alone.
I push the covers back and stand. Fresh air. That’s what I need. Just a few minutes in the garden to clear my head, to shake off the remnants of the dream still clinging to my skin.
The house is silent as I make my way downstairs. No guards patrol the interior halls at this hour—they’re all stationed outside, watching the perimeter. I slip through the back door and into the cool night air.
The garden stretches before me, silvered by moonlight. I breathe in the scent of jasmine and earth, letting the cold ground my spiraling thoughts.
And then I see it.
A light in the east wing. High up, in one of the windows. Not Arkady’s bedroom—I know where that is. This is different. Smaller. The window I’ve noticed before but never really paid attention to.
A woman’s silhouette moves across the glass.
I freeze.
The silhouette is slight, feminine, unmistakable. She passes the window once, then again, pacing. Or maybe just moving around the room. It’s too far to see details, but the shape is clear enough.
A woman. In Arkady’s house. At three in the morning.
The realization is a cold slap in the face.
He has a girlfriend.
Of course he does. Of course. Why wouldn’t he?
A man like Arkady Laurov—powerful, dangerous, beautiful in that harsh, unforgiving way—of course he has women.
Probably dozens of them. And I’ve been stupid enough to think that what happened between us meant something.
That the nights we spent tangled together in his bed were anything more than convenience.
But how could it have been more? He’s remained a closed book to me. Taken me when he’s wanted me, and treated me like an employee all the times between. That’s all I am to him. Staff. An object to use and then lock away when it suits him. And now there’s this. Her. The woman in the window.
Jealousy rises hot and sharp in my chest, mixing with something that feels dangerously close to betrayal. I have no right to feel this way. No claim on him. We never promised each other anything.
But it doesn’t stop the hurt.
Is he with her right now?
The thought makes my stomach twist. Is that why he’s been so distant? Why he keeps taking calls in private, disappearing at odd hours, avoiding me whenever possible?
Stupid, I tell myself. You were worrying about his health when all along he just has someone else.
I should go back inside. Should pretend I never saw anything. Should remember that I’m just the housekeeper, just an employee, just—
I can’t.
My feet carry me back into the house before I fully register the decision. Through the corridors, up the stairs, toward his private suite.
His door is closed but not locked. I push it open slowly, quietly, holding my breath.
And there he is, lying on his bed, still fully dressed in the clothes he wore earlier. His chest rises and falls with the deep, steady rhythm of sleep. One arm is flung across his face, the other rests on his stomach. He looks younger like this. Vulnerable in a way he never is when he’s awake.
Relief floods through me so suddenly that it makes me dizzy.
He’s here. Not with her. Alone.
He’s not in the shadow woman’s room, after all.
But the relief is short-lived, replaced immediately by confusion. If he’s not with her, then who is she? Why is she here? And why doesn’t Arkady want me to know about her?
I should leave. Should slip back out before he wakes and finds me standing here like some lovesick fool.
But I don’t.
Instead, I cross the room and lower myself carefully to the edge of his bed. The mattress dips under my weight, and he stirs. His arm drops from his face, eyes blinking open, unfocused and heavy with sleep.
“Mirabel?” His voice is rasping. “What are you doing here?”
The question is simple. Direct. But the answer is tangled up in too many things I can’t say.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I whisper. The truth, at least. “I had a dream about Debra.”
Something crosses his face—a shadow, quick and dark. His expression tightens for just a second before smoothing out again, but I catch it. The flicker of… what? Guilt? Knowledge?
I wait for him to snap at me. To tell me to get out. But he doesn’t. Instead, he sits up.
“You miss her, don’t you?” he asks.
“Yes. Yes, I do.” The words lodge somewhere painful in my chest. “There will never be a second when I don’t miss her.”
The confession comes out raw. Unguarded. More honest than I’ve been in months.
Arkady’s hand moves before I can react, closing around my wrist. His thumb presses against my pulse—finding it, measuring it. Then he tugs, gentle but insistent, pulling me down beside him.
I should resist. Should maintain some distance, some boundary. But I’m so tired. Tired of pretending. Tired of being strong. Tired of carrying all these secrets alone.
I let him pull me down onto the bed, into the warmth of his body, into the space against his chest that always feels like home.
His arm wraps around me, holding me close. I can feel the tension in his muscles, the way he’s wound tight even in this moment of quiet. But he doesn’t let go. Doesn’t push me away.
And for now, in this stolen moment before dawn, it’s enough.