Chapter 17 Inessa
INESSA
Walking through sterile hospital corridors with Rosa at my side, I carry a vase of flowers that feels meaningless in light of what happened to my employees.
Three of my seamstresses lie in beds here because of my association with the violent world in which my father raised me.
The hostility of which has only increased since his death, and according to Yuri, may continue for some time.
I carry blame like a banner as I enter the first patient’s room.
Katya's hands disappear beneath white gauze with bits of her fingers protruding from the wrappings.
She tried to save fabric samples when flames consumed my showroom.
Now she stares at ceiling tiles with hollow eyes, her face drained of color.
"Inessa," she whispers when she notices me, and her voice fractures.
"I tried to save the spring collection."
"Don't worry about work now."
I pull a chair close to her bed, set the flowers on her bedside table.
"Focus on getting well."
Rosa hovers at the door, waiting for me, and I feel comforted by the motherly presence.
"Will there be jobs when I heal?"
Her question is valid. Often, when businesses like mine suffer as horribly as mine has, they end up going under.
Which is exactly what I'm sure the Kozlovs hope will happen, just to punish Yuri or stain my father’s legacy.
But I plan to fight back.
I take her uninjured wrist gently.
"There will always be work. We can rebuild."
But her eyes hold no faith, and I understand why.
This attack wasn't random.
It was designed to destroy more than fabric and fixtures.
It was meant to destroy hope, and from the dead quality of her gaze, I can see it worked, at least on her.
It's soul-crushing in its heaviness, but the business will only survive if I do, because someone has to keep pressing forward.
After a short visit with her, I move on.
In the next room, Pyotr sits upright despite broken ribs and burns along his left arm.
He managed my showroom floor, greeting clients and arranging displays with an artist's eye.
Now purple bruises bloom across his chest where debris struck him during the fire.
"Pyotr."
I knock softly on his open door before entering.
"How are you holding up?"
"Inessa…"
His face brightens despite the obvious pain.
"I wasn't expecting you to come."
"Of course I came."
I drag the visitor's chair closer to his bed and sit down, leaning forward so he doesn't have to strain to speak.
"Tell me what happened. Start from the beginning."
He shifts carefully, wincing as his ribs protest the movement and his hand presses against them.
"I was in the back office, updating the inventory sheets. Around three in the afternoon, I heard the front door chime. Normal sound, you know? Customers come and go all day."
"But these weren't customers."
I sigh, wishing there were something I could do.
But I sit quietly to listen as he continues.
"No."
His breathing grows shallow as he goes on.
"I walked out to greet them, and three men stood in the main display area. They wore black masks, the full-face type that covers everything."
"Balaclavas…" I say, and he nods.
"The first one carried a metal container of gasoline, I realized later. The second had some sort of device, maybe a timer. The third one just watched the door."
Pyotr's eyes grow distant.
"They acted like they'd done this before. And they knew exactly where to pour the accelerant for maximum destruction."
He winces again and lays his head on the pillow.
"Did they say anything to you?"
"The one watching the door told me to get out or burn with the building, but I didn't realize what was happening until one of them set a charge."
Pyotr's eyes hold terror in them, staring blankly at my face.
My stomach turns.
"But you didn't leave immediately."
"I couldn't."
His voice cracks slightly.
"I thought about all the hours we spent arranging those displays, all the pieces from the new collection.
I tried to grab what I could from the nearest rack."
His head shakes and then drops.
"That's when you got hurt."
My heart aches for him, but there's nothing I can do to take back what happened.
Rage forms in my chest in a tight ball that feels like I've swallowed a rock.
"The fire spread so fast… A rack fell over and pinned my arm briefly. I managed to get free, but not before…"
He gestures to his bandaged limb.
I reach out and squeeze his uninjured hand.
"I'm so sorry, Pyotr. This should never have happened to you, to any of you."
"This wasn't random vandalism," he says quietly, but he won't make eye contact.
"I think they were hoping to hurt a lot of people or send a message of some sort."
I received it clearly.
My employees suffered because of choices I made, alliances I accepted, a marriage I agreed to enter.
Their pain settles in my chest and fuels the idea of revenge.
My father would’ve exacted it already.
There would be bodies lain in the streets by now.
But I'm powerless to fight these sick bastards on my own, and without the resources my business provides me, I can't even hire someone to do it. I have to rely on Yuri.
When Pyotr has spent his energy and needs rest, I visit each bed, each bandaged face, each person who trusted me enough to work in my building.
By the time I leave, the sun is setting and my guilt has hardened into steel resolve.
This cannot continue.
Rosa watches me with worry creasing her features as Yuri's driver takes us back home.
She doesn't speak, but her hands twist in her lap.
She knows what I'm thinking—that this is my fault, that I brought violence into innocent lives.
I know because on the way to the hospital, she tried to convince me it wasn't true, but I know it's true.
My association with the leader of the largest criminal enterprise in St. Petersburg is the reason my business is being attacked, and he is going to help me stop this.
Gates swing open at the compound, and as soon as the car stops, I get out and walk directly to Yuri's office.
Finding the door unlocked surprises me until I step inside and see him slumped in his chair, head tilted back, eyes closed.
Dark stains mark his shirt cuffs, and when I move closer, I see how dried blood is caked beneath his fingernails.
He opens his eyes when my footsteps reach him.
For a moment, he doesn't move, just watches me in exhaustion.
His hair lies disheveled, his tie hangs loose, and a cut above his left eyebrow remains uncleaned.
I came in here expecting to have to fight him to make things happen, but strangely, I get the impression that he's already been out on the war path.
"How are they?"
His voice sounds rough.
I can only imagine what evil atrocities he's guilty of committing in the past few hours.
"Alive."
I stop before I reach his desk.
"Burned and broken, but breathing."
He nods slowly, as if his neck hurts to move it.
"Good."
"Where were you today?"
I probably have no right to ask, but my curiosity gets the better of me.
"Handling our problem."
He straightens in his chair, rolling broad shoulders.
"Those men who torched your showroom won't be setting any more fires."
Maybe I should be appalled, but relief floods through me so suddenly my knees feel weak.
Someone finally fought for me.
Someone finally made them pay.
"All of them?" I ask him, not fully believing that he would do that.
My own fucking mother never did that.
"All of them."
His eyes don't leave mine.
"Along with the man who hired them."
"Who was it?"
"Kozlov's contact in the city. A broker who thought intimidation would bring me to negotiations faster."
Yuri's mouth hardens into granite.
"He was wrong."
I sink into the chair across from him.
Today's emotions—guilt, anger, relief—swirl together until I can't separate them.
Tears well up in my eyes, but I see them as weakness and I refuse to allow Kozlov's men to make me feel weak.
So I clench my jaw and dig deep to hold back the tidal wave that wants to drown me.
"My employees didn't deserve this."
"No, they didn't."
He leans forward, forearms resting on his desk.
"But it's finished now."
"Is it? Or will there be another attack tomorrow, another fire, another message?"
I raise my head to meet his gaze.
"How many people have to get hurt before this ends?"
"I don't know, Inessa," he says bitterly.
"But it will end. I give you my word."
The determination in his expression makes me believe him.
Despite everything—forced marriage, manipulation, the way he destroyed my planned life—I believe he will protect what belongs to me.
"I need to clean up," he says, standing slowly.
"And you need food. Rosa will have dinner in the kitchen by now."
But I don't want food.
I don't want to sit alone in that dining room, picking at plates while my mind replays images of bandaged hands and broken ribs.
I want to feel protected, to feel safe, to forget for a few hours that my choices have consequences that hurt innocent people.
So, I follow him upstairs.
He doesn't question it or send me away, so I sit on the bed's edge while he disappears into the bathroom.
Running water sounds from behind the door, and I stare at my hands, trying to reconcile the woman who built a fashion empire with the woman who feels relief at her husband's brutality.
When he emerges, his hair hangs damply and he wears only sleep pants.
Cuts and bruises mark his knuckles, now clean but still visible evidence of what he did for me today.
My chest tightens with conflicting emotions.
This man killed for me.
Multiple people died because they threatened what I built. I should be horrified.
I should feel sick.
So why do I feel comforted and drawn to him?
He forced me to marry him, which is what started this whole thing, right?
Or was he telling the truth that this would all have happened regardless of whether I married him?
And without him, I'd just be on my own fighting against these men who want to burn my world to the ground.
"Come here," I say.
He stops, studying my face. "Inessa—"
"Please."
He crosses to the bed and sits beside me.
I shift closer, then closer still, until I can curl against his side.
His arm comes around me automatically, his hand settling at my waist.
"I know Batya isn't here to stop what's happening,"
I whisper against his chest.
"I know you're the only one who can end this."
His grip tightens.
"You're protected now."
"I need to feel protected, Yuri."
It is painfully vulnerable for me to say it, but it has to be said.
"I need to know that someone will fight for what I've built, for the people who depend on me."
"I will."
His voice rumbles beneath my cheek.
"I am."
I lift my head to look at him.
His eyes are dark, tired, but heat burns there too.
Heat that's been building between us since our wedding night, the pull I've been fighting since he first touched me.
This man is a killer.
He tortured people today, probably with his own hands.
He's ruthless, cold, capable of unspeakable violence.
And I'm grateful for it.
I'm drawn to it.
"You belong with me now," he says quietly.
"Not because of contracts or alliances. Because I want you."
I press closer, my hand flat against his chest, feeling his heartbeat beneath my palm.
He belongs to me too, I realize.
My mind wars with itself.
The rational part screams at me to distance myself, perhaps find my mother and get her help, but his closeness pulls me in.
I curl into him completely, my face buried in the curve of his neck.
His warmth surrounds me as he holds me.
This is the paradox of Yuri Gravitch—capable of extreme violence and unexpected tenderness, often within the same hour.
"Stay," I whisper.
"I'm not going anywhere."
His hand moves to my hair, fingers threading through dark strands, his touch so gentle, so careful, completely at odds with the blood I saw under his nails earlier.
Two sides of the same man—destroyer and protector, killer and husband.
I close my eyes and let myself sink into his strength, allowing myself to acknowledge what I haven't been ready to admit.
Somewhere between hatred and fear, between forced vows and chosen touches, my feelings for him have shifted into dangerous territory.
Alina would be horrified if she knew where my thoughts have gone.
My best friend, with her fierce loyalty and protective instincts, would tell me I'm losing myself to Stockholm syndrome.
She'd remind me that healthy relationships aren't built on forced marriage and murder.
But Alina hasn't lived in my world.
She hasn't watched everything she built nearly crumble because she was too weak to protect it herself.
She hasn't felt the relief of knowing someone will spill blood to keep her safe.
He holds me as sleep takes the edges off my guilt and fear.
At some point, he lies down, taking me with him, and his breathing evens out beneath my cheek.
I realize he's fallen asleep too, still holding me.
Still protecting me, even in unconsciousness.
Tomorrow, I'll wrestle with the morality of my feelings.
Tonight, I just need to feel safe.