7. Cruel men are easier. （Tamara）
CRUEL MEN ARE EASIER. (TAMARA)
When I wake up, I am alone and disoriented.
Then the ceiling registers. The floor-to-ceiling windows. The scent of cedar and expensive soap lingering in the sheets beside me.
The room comes back too fast. Aleksander’s bed. My ring. My father’s silence waiting on the other end of the morning.
I grab my phone and check for messages.
Three from Maya. Two from unknown numbers. Nothing from my father.
When I call him, it goes straight to voicemail.
Again.
Voicemail.
By the fourth attempt, I’m pressing the phone so hard to my ear the edge bites into my skin.
“Answer the fucking phone,” I hiss.
Nothing.
I shove out of bed and pace from window to door, window to door, because there is nowhere else to go.
Mark is alive.
The thought still doesn’t feel real. My brain keeps rejecting it, like it’s too large to process all at once.
Eight years.
Eight years of grief built around a lie.
I dial again.
This time he answers.
“Where is he?”
Silence crackles down the line. Then my father sighs softly, like I’m being difficult on purpose.
“You’ll speak to me respectfully.” The old commanding voice, polished and poisonous.
“You stole my child.”
“Lower your voice.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s safe.”
I hate that the word works on me for even a second. I hate it more that he knows it did.
“Who has him?”
“You’ll know what you need to know when the time comes.”
“I married Aleksander,” I snarl. “You got what you wanted. Tell me where my son is.”
“You’ll see him when I decide it’s appropriate.”
My arm jerks back before I stop myself from throwing the phone.
“You don’t get to decide that.”
“I do,” he says calmly. “Because if you become unstable, emotional, irrational—”
“Irrational?” I laugh, sharp and ugly. “You told me my child was dead for eight years.”
“And now you know otherwise. Which means you should be grateful.”
Grateful. As if he has handed me a gift instead of a grave.
“Go to hell,” I spit out. Then I hang up before he can answer.
I lower the phone slowly and realize I’m still holding it like a weapon.
“Bad conversation?”
I spin.
Aleksander stands in the doorway in a white dress shirt, sleeves rolled to his forearms, coffee in one hand.
The fact that he has seen this—this exact, ugly second—makes me want to put the phone through the wall.
“How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough.”
He doesn’t come closer. That should make me feel less cornered. Annoyingly, it does.
“Your father,” he says.
I turn the dead phone over in my palm. “That obvious?”
“Yes.”
“Do you always listen to private conversations?”
“Only the ones happening in the middle of my bedroom while someone sounds like they’re about to commit homicide.”
I make the mistake of almost laughing.
“You should eat something,” he says.
“I’m not hungry.”
“That wasn’t a suggestion.”
“Careful,” I mutter, brushing past him toward the kitchen. “You’re starting to sound husband-shaped.”
His low amusement follows me down the hallway.
I hate that I made him laugh.
I hate it more that I was trying to.
The kitchen is bright with morning light, brutally clean and organized in a way that suddenly irritates me.
A plate already waits at the island. I look at it properly. Eggs done right, not just scrambled to death. Toast that isn’t burned. Fruit that someone actually cut.
“You have staff sneaking around at dawn making artisanal breakfasts?” I ask.
“I cook.”
I would have preferred incompetence. Incompetence would have been restful.
“That explains why you scare me.”
Aleksander’s mouth almost moves. “That’s the reason?”
He pours coffee into a mug and slides it toward me. I wrap both hands around it because holding something is better than throwing something.
“You read physical newspapers,” I say when I spot the folded Times beside him. “That feels medically concerning.”
“It’s worked for me so far.”
The problem isn’t his danger. It’s how often I forget to be afraid of it.
“You slept?” he asks.
I stare at him. “You are deeply unsettling.”
“I’ve been told.”
For three seconds, the kitchen almost behaves like a kitchen instead of a holding cell.
Mark.
Eight years old, somewhere in this city, eating breakfast at someone else’s table.
Don’t lose focus.
I set the coffee down carefully.
“I need to go to work today.”
Aleksander’s attention leaves the newspaper completely. “That’s not possible.”
“What?”
“The Colombians are pushing into our territory. They know the Kalinins aligned with us yesterday.”
“And?”
“You’re leverage now.”
I push back from the island. “So I got sold to a bratva king and turned into a hostage in the same week. Fantastic. Love the pacing on this.”
“You’re leverage,” he says. “I’m trying to keep that from becoming hostage.”
He says it like weather. Temporary. Unpleasant. Out of his hands.
“You can’t stop me from leaving.”
He doesn’t answer right away. That is answer enough. “Your father gave you a reason to agree to this marriage. What does he have over you?”
I grip the edge of the island before my face can give me away.
“It’s none of your business.”
He absorbs the refusal. I wait for the pressure, the reminder that he holds all the cards in this room.
It doesn’t come.
“We’ll set up a workspace for you here,” he says instead. “Someone can bring your equipment from your office. This is only temporary.”
“I’m in this situation because of you.”
The words come out sharper than I intended.
He sets his coffee down. A man who wants both hands free when he says something he means.
“No,” he says evenly. “You’re in this situation because your father used you as collateral. I’m trying to keep it from getting worse.”
He’s right and we both know it.
“I need to go to work,” I insist.
“No.”
I stare at him. “You could at least pretend to think about it.”
“I did think about it.”
“And?”
“The answer’s still no.”
I almost laugh. “You said I wasn’t a prisoner.”
“You aren’t.”
“It feels academic.”
He doesn’t soften the answer. “You’ll have security. Transportation. Site coverage. Client screening. But until I know where the threat lines are, you don’t move alone.”
“And the armed babysitters?”
“Protection.”
“I didn’t ask for protection.”
“No,” he says calmly. “But you still need it.”
“I have meetings this morning,” he continues. “Mikhail will come by.”
I stare at him. “Why does that sound threatening when you say it?”
“Because you’ve met Mikhail.”
The laugh slips out before I can turn it into a glare. The corner of his mouth moves, but he has the sense not to smile fully. Then he checks his watch and reaches for his jacket.
“We’ll talk tonight.”
Not a suggestion. A decision.
Then he’s gone, leaving me with cold coffee and the deeply unsettling realization that my husband might become a far bigger problem than my father anticipated.
Because cruel men are predictable.
Careful men get under your skin before you realize you should’ve run.