Chapter 15 Inessa
INESSA
The wooden crate sits in the corner of the guest room where Rosa left it this morning, untouched since I discovered it hours ago.
It's full of professional art supplies—oils, brushes, canvases, an easel.
Everything I haven't touched since Batya died, everything I thought I'd never want again.
But I do want them.
And the desire to pour myself back into my sketches and designs feels like the only way I'll get relief from the grief I'm carrying.
I haven't even been able to lay Batya to rest and life has become a war zone.
I pry open the lid and lift out a tube of ultramarine blue, rolling it between my palms.
The weight is familiar and comforting in a way, almost nostalgic.
When was the last time I mixed colors on a palette?
When did I last lose myself in the flow of paint across canvas?
I've been so busy building my fashion lines, I've all but forgotten about the magic of creating real art.
"You found them."
I don't startle at Yuri's voice anymore.
His footsteps have become as familiar as my own heartbeat in this place.
I turn to find him filling the doorway, still dressed in the dark suit he wore to his morning meetings.
The silver threads in his black hair catch the afternoon light filtering through the windows, and I remember the large age gap between us, which seems odd at times and at others doesn't matter at all.
He's old enough to be my father, but he's not my father.
And he's a temptation and a pleasure disguised as a dangerous animal I'm supposed to fear.
But I'm seeing more and more why I don't have to fear him.
Why I don't want to fear him anymore.
"You didn't ask what I needed," I say.
"I didn't need to ask."
His response is just another example of his assumption that he knows me better than I know myself.
But something warm unfurls in my chest.
He notices things. Small things, like the fact that I enjoy painting and I need space to create art because it helps me process my emotions.
"Thank you," I say, and I mean it.
He nods and steps back.
"Rosa has prepared tea in the kitchen. The garden has good light this time of day if you want to paint outdoors."
"Here is fine," I tell him, too eager to dive into the creation to worry about the hour it would take to set up an easel and prep everything outdoors.
So I dive into the crate, and soon, I have an easel spread with a canvas and pallets with paints.
Yuri hovers by me but says nothing as he watches me prepare. I don't mind.
I lose myself in the work, mixing colors, feeling the brush respond to pressure and movement, watching shapes emerge from blank canvas.
The guards pass by on their rounds around the house, and Kirill even slows his patrol to glance at my progress, offering a gruff nod of approval.
"You have steady hands," Yuri rumbles from his perch behind me.
I don't turn toward his voice, though my brush pauses for the barest moment.
"You're watching me again."
"I am."
This time, I set down my brush and face him.
He sits near the desk, hands clasped in his lap, his dark eyes fixed on the canvas.
There's something intent in his expression, almost hungry, as though he's memorizing every stroke.
"Why?" I ask.
"Why what?"
"All of it. The paints. The guards you stationed at my remaining employees' homes. The emergency funding you sent to the hospital to care for the employees who were injured."
I step closer, studying his face.
"Don't tell me it's about protecting your investments."
His jaw tightens almost imperceptibly.
"Your employees are valuable assets. Your businesses generate revenue streams that benefit our alliance."
"And the paints?"
"Restless people make poor decisions."
The deflection comes smoothly, but I catch something else in his expression.
The way his gaze returns to the canvas.
How he brought me tea yesterday morning without being asked, left it on the small table beside my bed while I pretended to sleep.
The way he positioned himself next to me in bed Tuesday night when nightmares ripped screams from my throat.
I woke to his arms around me and his soft kisses on my forehead, but he doesn't know I was ever awake.
"That's not the whole truth," I say.
"Truth is a dangerous commodity."
I move closer, close enough to see the faint lines around his eyes, the small scar along his jawline that disappears into the shadow of his beard.
"You held me when I was having nightmares. You think I don't notice, but I do."
"You were screaming. It was disruptive."
"Disruptive to whom? The guards aren't going to be triggered by a shrieking woman. Rosa sleeps on the opposite side of the house."
I'm not letting up.
He's excellent at breaking men, and maybe I want to take a stab at it.
His eyes narrow slightly.
"Finish your painting."
But he doesn't leave me.
He stays sitting there after loosening his tie and watches as I return to my work, hyperaware of his presence and the way he watches my hands move across the canvas.
"You can leave if you're bored," I say after several minutes of loaded silence.
"I'm not bored."
"Then what are you?"
He doesn't answer, but when I glance over my shoulder, his expression is one of fascination.
He's studying my art like it's priceless when in fact, it's not even that good.
The light begins to fade by the time I clean my brushes.
My back aches from standing, but the painting captures what I wanted—the play of light on water in the fountain out the window, the way the breeze kicks up the leaves, and the passion of a soul that longs to be free.
And my art is the only way I can express it.
"It's good," Yuri says as I cover the wet canvas.
"It's rusty. I haven't painted in years."
"Since your mother left…"
It's not a question, and I don't treat it as one. "Yes."
We walk toward the kitchen together without speaking, an occurrence so rare between us that I find myself savoring it.
There are no arguments, no power struggles.
Just two people sharing space without the constant undercurrent of conflict.
Dinner continues the unexpected peace.
Rosa has prepared roasted lamb with vegetables from the garden, and the dining room feels less cavernous with warm light from the chandelier.
Yuri sits across from me at the long oak table rather than at the head of the table.
I know he's just trying to position himself to look straight at me.
It's a bit unnerving, especially considering my recent observations.
I can't understand him.
I'm not sure what game he's playing.
The very same man who brandished a gun to force me to wed him has become somewhat of a refuge and a comfort, and I'm not sure what to think of that.
"Your businesses are stabilizing," he says as he cuts his lamb into careful bite-sized pieces.
I look up from my plate.
"Because of the funding you arranged."
"Because of competent management and loyal employees. The funding simply prevented immediate collapse."
"Why do you care, really? Not the investment excuse. The real reason."
I stop eating with a bite of meat on my fork and watch his face.
His dark eyes meet mine across the table.
"Your father built something significant from nothing. You followed in his footsteps. Destroying that would serve no purpose."
"But preserving it serves yours."
"Everything serves a purpose, Inessa. The question is whether that purpose aligns with survival."
I find myself leaning forward, drawn by the casual way he dissects complex problems into component parts.
"You see everything as strategy, don't you? Every action is calculated three moves ahead."
"Four, usually."
"How? How do you keep track of all the variables, all the potential outcomes?"
He sets down his utensils and considers the question seriously.
"People are predictable. They want power, money, revenge, safety. Once you understand their primary motivation, their actions become inevitable."
"What about love? Family? Loyalty that isn't purchased or coerced?"
"Those exist. They're simply less reliable than self-interest."
His cynicism appalls me, but I find it fascinating too.
Life's taught him some devastating things and he's found a way to manage it all.
His mind works in dark and sinister ways, and I’m glad it's working for me right now.
"You enjoy it," I realize aloud.
"The complexity. Managing all the moving pieces."
"I'm good at it."
"That's not what I asked."
He reaches for his wine glass, and I can tell he's distracting me, buying time to think of something to say that won't upset me or be a direct lie.
"Enjoyment is a luxury. Survival requires action."
"But you do enjoy it. I can see it in your face when you talk about strategy, about outmaneuvering opponents."
For a moment, something almost resembling a smile touches the corners of his mouth.
"Perhaps."
We continue eating, but the conversation dies down.
The tension that usually crackles between us has been replaced by a warmer atmosphere.
I watch him work through his meal and I find myself wondering about the man beneath the hardened exterior.
I wonder what version of him his first wife saw.
What version of him raised Dominic, and if I'd have found Dominic as curious or interesting.
"Your mother called the other day and I met with her."
The words drop into the peaceful evening atmosphere, shattering it completely.
My fork freezes halfway to my mouth.
"What?"
"She wants to see you."
My pulse quickens, hope and dread warring in my chest.
"What did she say?"
"She claims to care about what happens to your business and she wants to discuss details. Details that could change your understanding of what happened."
I set down my fork, my appetite vanishing.
"What kind of details?"
"She wouldn't specify, but she's demanding a meeting."
I hate the way his shoulders square and stiffen as he says it. I can tell instantly that he's against the idea.
He's already made it clear that he finds her a threat, and it angers me.
My mother left us, but if she wants to come back into my life, he has no right to stop her.
Maybe I need to see her to have it out with her and find out what her reason is for deserting me.
"I want to see her," I tell him.
"No," he grumbles.
The refusal comes immediately, and I stare at him across the table, feeling heat build in my chest.
It was so absolute and immediate, I have no choice but to rebel against him.
It's like he wants to anger me and incite an argument.
"She's my mother."
"She's a threat to everything you've built, Inessa. I'm trying to protect you, whether you see that or not."
I push back from the table, the chair scraping against slate flooring.
"By keeping me locked away from everyone I've ever known? By deciding who I can and cannot see?"
"By ensuring you survive long enough to inherit what your father died protecting."
He sits straighter now, voice tight with anger and eyes wide with fury.
"Maybe I need the truth from her. Did you think of that?"
I'm shaking now, furious that he thinks he can control me.
Yuri stands slowly, his height alone intimidating.
"The truth is that your mother abandoned you when you needed her most. She only returned when she saw opportunity in your pain."
"You don't know that."
"Don't I? She's not here out of maternal concern. She's here because she sees weakness she can exploit."
His chest is heaving now, hands curled into fists mirroring mine.
If I didn't know better, I'd say he might hit me, but he's too gentle to do that.
At least I hope so.
"I still want to see her."
"I know you do."
"Then let me."
"No."
His single word is like a prison sentence.
I feel something crack inside my chest—a deeper hurt that catches me off guard.
For a moment tonight, during our civil conversation, I'd begun to forget the true nature of our relationship.
I'd started to imagine this could become something other than captivity.
But I was wrong.
"I'm going to bed," I say, and he doesn't try to stop me as I walk away, but I feel his eyes tracking my movement until I disappear into the hallway.
Upstairs, I lock the door and lean against it, and my heart pounds with a mixture of rage and disappointment.
My hands tremble as I stare at them blankly, still covered in paint from the wonderful gift he offered me.
How can the same person who notices what I need before I ask for it be the one who holds me here against my will?
How can someone who protects my employees and ensures my businesses survive also be someone who treats me as a possession to be managed?
I slide down the door until I'm sitting on the wooden floor, knees drawn to my chest.
The contradiction threatens to tear me apart from the inside.
I'm falling in love with this sick bastard who I want to hate, and I can't make myself hate him.
I'm not supposed to love him.
I want to not love him with everything in me, because I don't like the decisions he makes for me.
Because prisoners don't choose their captors, no matter how comfortable the cage becomes.
At least, they shouldn't…
And I am, for all intents and purposes, still his prisoner.