Chapter 5 Rowan #2
“Think,” I cut in. “If this was only about giving information to pay your brother’s debt, why is Arkady here? Why did Arkady pull a gun on Ivan? Why did a man die outside this wall?”
Her face goes pale. She shakes her head once, small, like she’s trying to dislodge the reality.
“I didn’t know,” she whispers. “I didn’t know any of this.”
I believe her. And that belief makes me angry in a different way. Because Ivan used her desperation like a key. And now we’re locked in a room while men with power play games around us.
Lila’s hands slide into her hair and tug once, hard, like she wants to pull herself out of her own skin.
The office feels too bright. The hum overhead feels louder, and my skin feels stretched too tight. I lift my hand and press two fingers against the inside of my wrist, feeling my pulse. Fast and strong. Not out of control. Not yet.
I force myself to breathe more slowly.
“What about your brother?” I murmur. “The debt. Is it still there?”
Lila’s eyes open. She stares at me like she’s about to confess something that makes her hate herself.
“I don’t know,” she admits. “Ivan promised me the money. He promised it would be handled once he got what he needed.” Her voice drops. “But I haven’t seen anything. I haven’t heard from my brother or from the loan sharks.”
My stomach clenches. “That’s bad.”
“Yes,” she whispers, worrying her bottom lip. “It is.”
The temptation is to yell. To let rage blow through the room and scorch everything. To make her feel the same pain that’s twisting through my chest.
But yelling doesn’t change facts. And it doesn’t protect the baby or keep us alive. So, I keep my voice low and let my anger show in the form of clarity.
“He played you,” I tell her.
Lila’s shoulders shake once. She nods.
“And you played me,” I add.
Her face collapses again. “Yes. I’m so sorry.”
I swallow hard, the motion tight. My eyes sting, and I refuse to let tears fall.
“What did he want from Kiren?” I murmur, more to myself than to her.
Lila shakes her head. “He kept calling it a business opportunity. He kept talking about leverage. Saying Kiren needed to be… managed.” Her mouth twists. “He talked like Kiren’s position was temporary.”
The words don’t sit right. They feel too big for what she thought she was helping with.
I replay the hallway in my mind. The gunshot. Arkady pulling rank. Ivan not backing down or retreating. Just absorbing it.
She looks at me like she wants to argue, but she can’t. Because the reality outside that wall is still echoing in my ears. A man died so Arkady could prove his authority. And Ivan answered by grabbing Lila like she was a loose end.
Men don’t act like that when they’re just running errands. They act like that when they believe they’re owed something.
Lila’s voice comes out small. “What do we do?”
The question is raw. For the first time, she isn’t trying to manage the story. She isn’t trying to keep control. She’s terrified.
I lift my hand and press it lightly to my abdomen, not rubbing or soothing, just reminding myself what’s important.
“We stay alive,” I tell her.
I stare at the door again. The frosted glass shows blurred shadows moving past now and then. No details or faces. Only movement and the reminder that we’re being contained.
“We watch,” I tell her. “We listen and wait for a mistake.”
Lila shakes her head. “They won’t make one.”
“They already did,” I reply as my voice gets colder. “They kept us together.”
Her eyes quickly drop to my abdomen, and she drags them back up like she didn’t mean to look at all.
I see it clearly now. It isn’t cruelty or betrayal in her eyes, but fear for the life I’m carrying in a situation that doesn’t care what it breaks.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” she whispers, and this time it isn’t defensive. It’s wrecked.
I hold her gaze.
The anger is still there. It hasn’t faded, and it won’t disappear overnight. But beneath it is something deeper, a quieter ache that lingers where the heat of it can’t reach.
I see her desperation. The brother she’s trying to save. The debt she couldn’t fix. The way Ivan found the weakest place in her life and pressed until it gave.
“I know,” I say quietly.
And I do. That doesn’t mean I forgive her. It means I understand how she got here.
Down the corridor, a door opens and closes again, the sound followed by the muted thud of boots moving past and the faint jingle of keys before everything recedes into the distance.
Lila wipes at her face and drops her hands to her sides, straightening her shoulders like she can pull herself back together through sheer will. I keep my palm against my abdomen for another breath, feeling the warmth beneath it, then let my hand lower to the chair.
Ivan thinks he has leverage. Arkady thinks he has control. They believe keeping us in the same room makes us smaller, easier to contain. They let us hear them. Let us see how they move and how quickly they turn on their own.
That was their mistake. They don’t know Kiren the way I do.
I close my eyes and picture him the way he goes quiet before he acts, and the way the air moves around him when he decides something is finished. He won’t rush. He won’t guess. He’ll come. And when he does, this stops being their story.