Chapter 31 Olivia
OLIVIA
I wait until I’m sure Stefan is nowhere nearby before I slip out of my room.
The hallway is empty. I move quickly, keeping my footsteps light on the marble floors. Down the stairs. Through the foyer. Past the sitting room where Babushka sometimes takes her tea.
I need air. Space. Something other than these walls closing in on me, because if I stay in this nightmare jail cell for a millisecond longer, I’m going to start screaming, and I’m going to run out of oxygen long before I run out of grief or willpower.
The front door is unlocked. I push through it and breathe in the night. The garden stretches out before me, dark and still.
Beyond it, the gate.
Beyond that, freedom.
I walk faster. My bare feet slap against the stone path.
The guards at the gate spot me before I’m halfway there.
“Dr. Aster.” The one on the left steps forward. I recognize him. He was the one who interrupted Stefan and I the night of the dinner. A thin red line still marks his cheek.
“I need to leave,” I tell him immediately.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. We have orders—”
“I don’t care about your orders. I need to go.”
The other guard shifts his weight. “We can’t let you through without clearance from Mr. Safonov.”
“Then get clearance.”
“It’s not a good time right now, ma’am.”
“I don’t care what time it is.” My voice is rising now. I can hear it, the edge of desperation creeping in. Screaming at the top of my lungs continues to feel like a very viable option. “Open the gate.”
“We can’t do that.”
“Please.” I step closer and switch tactics. If bossing them around won’t work, maybe begging them will. “Just for a few hours. I’ll come back. I promise.”
The first guard shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t understand. I can’t stay here. Not tonight. Not after—” I break off. They don’t need to know what happened. They don’t need to know anything.
“Look, ma’am, I think it’d be best for everyone if you went back inside.” He reaches for my elbow to turn me around, but I smack his hand away and hiss at him like a banshee.”
The second guard chuckles. “Careful, before this little she-wolf attacks you, too.”
My breath catches.
She-wolf.
Too.
As in there’s more than one she-wolf. As in I’m not the only one. As in another female is the one who did that to the man’s face.
I look at the scratch. Fresh enough to still be healing. Old enough to have scabbed over. It looks like the razor-thin line of someone’s nails raking down his cheek.
“Who’s in the basement?” I ask.
Both guards go still.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the first one says.
“Yes, you do.” I point at his face. “That scratch. Someone attacked you. A woman. You just said ‘she-wolf.’”
“Dr. Aster—”
“Who is it? Who’s down there?”
They exchange a look. The second guard clears his throat. “We’re not authorized to discuss, ma’am.”
“Just tell me if it’s Natalia,” I say quietly. “Is Stefan’s mother in the basement?”
The first guard’s jaw tightens. “I can’t—”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Both.”
I stare at him, searching his face for any crack in the armor. But he’s practiced at this. They both are. Loyal to Stefan above everything else, even basic human decency.
I don’t know why I’m surprised.
I step back, wrapping my arms around myself. The night air bites through my thin sweater.
“He told me she wasn’t here,” I say, more to myself than to them. “He looked me in the eye and said he didn’t have her.”
Neither guard responds. But they don’t have to. Their silence speaks volumes.
My mind is racing too fast to keep up with.
Stefan lied to me. Again.
Or maybe he’s been lying this entire time. Maybe I’m just that easy to fool. God knows I’ve proven myself spectacularly gullible where he’s concerned. I believed him when he said his feelings changed. I believed him when he said he wanted us to be real.
I believed him when he told me he loved me.
Naive.
Stupid.
Weak.
Maybe that’s the real truth. Everything else—the tenderness, the vulnerability, the promises—was the lie.
I look back over my shoulder at the manor behind me. Light spills from a few windows. Stefan’s office is dark.
He’s probably down in the basement right now, doing God knows what while I pace around his house like some kind of captive princess in a tower.
Except I’m not a princess. I’m just the idiot who fell for the villain’s act.
The baby shifts inside me. A tiny wiggle, barely noticeable, but enough to remind me why I can’t just walk away. Why I’m trapped here in more ways than one.
I press my hand to my stomach. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry I brought you into this mess.”
Because that’s what this is. A mess. Stefan’s mess. My mess. Our mess.
And I don’t know how to fix it.
I don’t even know if I want to anymore.
Marriage was never the goal. I’m not some starry-eyed romantic who needs a ring and a white dress to feel complete. But I did need honesty. Respect. Someone who saw me as more than a means to an end.
Stefan made it clear tonight exactly what he thinks of me and my family. We’re beneath him. Disappointing. A joke.
And maybe he’s right.
I sink down onto the garden bench, the cold stone seeping through my clothes. Above me, the stars are hidden behind clouds. Even they’ve abandoned me tonight.
“Dr. Aster, please return to the house,” the first guard requests again, his voice straining with the effort of remaining professional.
“I told you, I’m not going any—”
“Olivia.”
I freeze. That voice comes from directly behind me. My whole body goes rigid, every muscle locking up like I’ve been caught doing something I shouldn’t. Which, I suppose, I have.
I twist around slowly. Stefan stands a few feet away, hands in his pockets, watching me with an expression I can’t read. The darkness makes shadows of his cheekbones, turns his eyes into black pools.
My cheeks burn hot despite the cool night air. “I was just... I needed some air.”
“At the gate?” His gaze flicks to the guards, then back to me. “Barefoot?”
I look down. My feet are dirty from the garden path, and blood trickles from a few small cuts where I stepped on something sharp. I hadn’t even noticed.
“I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“No,” he agrees. “You weren’t.”
The guards have melted back to their posts, giving us the illusion of privacy while staying close enough to intervene if needed. As if I could hurt Stefan more than he’s already hurt me.
“I can’t stay locked up in that house,” I say. “I need—”
“To wander Boston alone at two in the morning? While my mother is out there somewhere, knowing you’re pregnant with my child?”
“Don’t pretend this is about protecting me. Not after what you said.”
He sighs and rubs his face. “We need to go inside,” he says.
“No.”
“Olivia—”
“I said no.” I cross my arms over my chest, trying to look more defiant than I feel. “I’m not going anywhere with you until you tell me the truth.”
“The truth about what?”
“Who’s in the basement?”
Stefan’s jaw tightens almost imperceptibly. Behind him, I see one of the guards shift his weight from foot to foot.
“There’s no one in the basement,” Stefan says evenly.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
“Then why did that guard—” I gesture toward the one with the scratch. “—refer to another ‘she-wolf’? Why did he say ‘too’ like there’s someone else who attacked him?”
Stefan’s eyes narrow. He turns to look at the guard, who suddenly finds the ground very interesting.
“Oleg,” Stefan growls, “what did you tell her?”
“Nothing, sir. I just... I made a comment. I didn’t mean—”
“Go,” Stefan cuts him off. “Both of you. Now.”
The guards don’t need to be told twice. They disappear into the darkness, leaving us alone in the garden with only the distant sound of crickets for company.
“I want to leave,” I say when we’re all by ourselves.
“You know why you can’t,” Stefan answers coolly. “I’ve already explained it to you.”
“I can’t breathe here! I need some time to myself.”
“To do what?”
I blurt out the first thing that pops into my head. “To visit my parents. I haven’t seen my father in a while.”
It’s not a lie. Not exactly. I haven’t seen Dad in months. But that’s not why I want to leave.
I want to leave because I can’t stand being here. In this house. With Stefan. Naive. Stupid. Weak. How can anyone live with those words buzzing in their ear again and again like mosquitoes that just won’t die?
Stefan studies me. Finally, he nods. “Okay. I’ll drive you there myself.”
No. That’s not what I want. I don’t want him anywhere near me right now.
But I’ve backed myself into a corner. If I refuse, he’ll know I was lying. That I don’t actually want to visit my parents and I just want to get away from him.
“Fine,” I say. “See if I care.”
He gestures toward the driveway. “I’ll get the car.”
I follow him in silence. The guards step aside. One of them opens the gate.
Stefan’s Maserati is parked near the garage. He opens the passenger door for me. I slide in without looking at him.
The leather seat is cold. I cross my arms over my chest and stare straight ahead.
Stefan gets in on the driver’s side and starts the engine. The car purrs to life.
We pull out of the driveway and onto the street. Boston slides by in a blur of streetlights and shadows. We pass through Beacon Hill, down toward Back Bay, the familiar streets making my teeth ache and my skin prickle.
After a while, Stefan clears his throat. “Olivia, I’m sorry about—”
“No.” I cut him off without looking at him. “If you start talking, I’m out. I will open the door and throw myself out of this car. I don’t want to talk. I don’t even want to listen. I just want silence. If you can’t do that for me, then take me back.”
His hands tighten on the steering wheel. I see it from the corner of my eye. But he doesn’t say anything else.
Good.
Silence is better than bullshit.
The city shifts around us. The buildings grow taller, more imposing. Old money architecture with its perfect symmetry and neatly trimmed hedges. This is the Boston my parents inhabit. Everything looks pristine on the outside even as it is rotting from within.
I haven’t been back here in over a year. Or more? Has it really been that long?
I’m about to mention it to Stefan when I remember I’m not talking to him. At least not about stuff like that. He probably doesn’t care anyway.
But it’s annoying how comfortable I am around him even when we’re fighting. How natural it feels to share thoughts with him. I want to point out the window and say, That’s where I fell off my bike when I was seven or That’s the corner where I had my first kiss.
I press my lips together and keep my mouth shut.
The brownstone comes into view. Three stories of brick and ivy. Window boxes full of flowers my mother pays someone else to maintain. Everything classy and elegant and exactly as I remember it. I feel like I’m going to be sick.
Stefan pulls up to the curb and puts the car in park.
I reach for the door handle. “I’m going in now,” I tell him without looking over. “There’s no need for you to wait around.”
I expect him to argue. Knowing Stefan, the least he’ll do is insist on walking me to the door. Worst case scenario, he tries coming inside with me.
But he surprises me with a nod. “Okay. I have some work in the area. I’ll swing by in a couple of hours to pick you up.”
I nod back and get out of the car.
He waits. I can feel him watching as I walk up the steps. Making sure I get inside safely before he drives away.
I ring the bell. The sound echoes through the house. I wait, counting the seconds. Fifteen. Twenty. Thirty.
Then the door swings open.
My father stands there in a cardigan and slippers. Reading glasses perched on his nose. He looks older than I remember. More gray in his hair. More lines around his eyes.
“Olivia?” He blinks at me like I’m a ghost. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to visit.” I force a smile. “Can I come in?”
“Of course. Of course.” He steps back, holding the door wide. “I’m sorry. You just surprised me. It’s late.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” I tell him as I step inside. “I’ve been having nightmares for a long, long time now.”