Chapter 16
ANDREI
Ifind her on the couch when I return from more pointless meetings that have provided no answers or results.
She’s curled on her side, legs tucked beneath her, a blanket half-draped over her knees.
One arm is thrown back over the cushion, the other bent awkwardly as she works on a sketchpad balanced against her thigh.
A mess of colored pencils are scattered across the coffee table in no particular order.
She’s using a deep green now, shading something carefully, her brow furrowed in concentration.
For a moment, I simply stand there and watch her, taking in her calm.
She doesn’t seem remotely frightened or restless. In fact, she seems completely at ease, a woman absorbed in her own thoughts, creating something quiet and private in the middle of a life that has become anything but.
It’s a disarming sight, charming almost. I wish I could be just as relaxed.
I clear my throat softly, enough to announce my presence without startling her. Her head lifts, eyes flicking toward me, then softening when she registers that it’s me standing there.
“Hey,” she says casually.
I nod in response and move closer, shrugging out of my jacket and setting it over the back of a chair. I don’t sit next to her, instead opting for the chair next to her.
“What are you working on?” I ask.
She glances down at the sketch, then back up at me. “Just a few ideas,” she says.
“Ideas for what?” I prompt.
She shrugs lightly. “My future business.” She smiles down at the page. “I’m just imagining the space, deciding if it should be a house or a mansion or something in between.”
I lean over and catch a glimpse of the page. Her lines are confident and purposeful. She’s sketched out arches, bay windows, and a wraparound porch. She’s annotated the margins with notes in tidy handwriting. It looks like she’s written out color scheme ideas and potential landscaping.
She’s clearly been working hard on this. It’s a productive use of her brain power while she’s locked up like some fairytale princess. I’m actually impressed with how calm and collected she’s managing to be despite her circumstances. I decide then that I have to give her Kostya’s letter.
“I have something for you,” I tell her cautiously.
Her pencil pauses mid-stroke. “That sounds ominous,” she replies seriously.
I reach into the inside pocket of my jacket and pull out the folded letter. I don’t offer any explanation yet. I just extend my hand and let her take it.
Her eyes flick from my face to the piece of paper and back again, suspicion blooming immediately.
“What is it?” she asks.
“A letter. From your former fiancé,” I answer.
Her mouth tightens, but she reaches for it anyway, taking the letter with a shaky hand. She notices immediately that it’s creased and wrinkled, the edges softened by force.
She squints at it suspiciously.
“Why is it all wadded up?” she asks.
I shrug. “I shoved it in my pocket.”
She huffs softly through her nose, something like a laugh. She doesn’t comment further. She just unfolds the letter and skims the first few lines, eyes moving quickly and efficiently over his words.
I watch her face carefully. I expect anger or sadness. At least a flicker of something. Instead, her expression remains flat and unimpressed. She snorts quietly, folds the letter back up without finishing it, and sets it on the table beside her like it’s a receipt she doesn’t need.
“You could’ve saved yourself the trouble,” she says lightly.
I blink.
“That’s it?” I ask before I can stop myself.
She looks up at me then, eyebrow raised. “What were you expecting?”
I gesture vaguely toward the letter. “Some kind of reaction,” I chuckle.
“Oh,” she says, eyeing it thoughtfully. “I reacted. Internally. Very briefly.”
“I thought you might be upset,” I say carefully.
She glances up, confused. “About what?”
“About what he said in the letter,” I clarify. “What he promised.”
She doesn’t look at me right away.
“I already know what kind of man he is,” she says finally. “I don’t need a letter to remind me.”
There is no bitterness in her voice. No lingering attachment. Just certainty. All my life, I’ve understood leverage. Objects. Money. Promises. Fear. Love. They’re all tools, if you know how to use them.
Kostya thought he had leverage over her. He thought he could use her. He was wrong.
“Do you don’t want to keep it?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Why would I?”
“I truly don’t know,” I answer, laughing. “I just thought I’d ask.”
“I don’t need reminders,” she replies. “I lived through it.”
She says it simply, like she’s already moved on. Maybe she has. It’s been a month since the engagement imploded, and she had to face the reality of what her life actually is. She’s handled it all pretty well, come to think of it.
She finally looks up at me fully, meeting my gaze without hesitation.
“You want to know what really stood out?” she asks.
I nod.
“That he said he’d rescue me,” she says. “As if I need saving.”
Her mouth twists, more annoyed than hurt.
“That part pissed me off,” she adds. “Everything else was just sentimental garbage and lies.”
I watch her pick up her pencil again and return to her sketch as if this conversation never happened.
“You’re not afraid of him,” I say.
It’s not a question.
She shakes her head without looking at me. “No,” she says firmly. “I’m not.”
“Why not?”
She considers this for a moment, shading in a corner of the drawing before answering.
“Because fear is what he wants,” she says. “And I refuse to give it to him.”
Her strength clearly comes from defiance, then. I like that about her. I lean back in my chair, studying her openly now.
“You know he is going to keep trying to get to you,” I say.
“I’m not worried about it.” She shrugs again.
I respect her for that, even if I think she’s being a little na?ve. Of course she should be worried. Kostya is potentially a very dangerous man. At the very least, he’s connected to very dangerous men. I wish she wasn’t so callous about it all.
I reach for the letter, balling it up in my hand.
“What are you going to do with that?” she asks.
I glance at it briefly.
“Throw it away,” I say. “Or burn it. It’s not doing either of us any good.”
She nods once and returns to her drawing, apparently satisfied. As I stand and move toward the kitchen, I glance back at her one last time. She’s already lost herself in her work again, humming quietly under her breath, a woman planning a future.
I understand then, with uncomfortable clarity, that Kostya never stood a chance with her. If he hadn’t cheated on her, she probably still would have come to her senses eventually. She knows who she is and what she wants.
I stay where I am for a moment longer than necessary, watching her draw. The lines on the page grow more confident as she works, shading deepening, form emerging.
“What?” she asks without looking, as if she senses me standing there, watching her.
“I want you to tell me about Kostya,” I say neutrally, sitting back down after I throw away his letter.
Her mouth tightens. “What do you want to know?” she asks, still not looking up.
“All of it,” I add before she can deflect. “From the beginning. Don’t leave anything out.”
She leans back slightly, studying my face. “Is this an interrogation?” she asks.
“No,” I reply. “But you know more about him than my men can find out. Your information could be useful to me.”
She considers that, then glances down at the sketchpad, tapping the pencil against the paper once.
She sets the pencil aside and turns fully toward me now, drawing her knees up beneath her.
“Okay,” she says. “That makes sense.”
I again take a seat across from her, close enough that I can see the faint tension in her shoulders, the way she braces herself.
“You can leave out the intimate details,” I add lamely, suddenly feeling jealous in a way I can’t explain.
She looks up at me sharply, raising one eyebrow.
“You mean you don’t want to know about our raucous sex life?” she jokes, a smile tugging at her lips.
I hold her gaze steadily. “I very much do not,” I confirm.
She pauses for a moment before unexpectedly bursting out laughing.
“There really aren’t any intimate details to share,” she finally says after she’s caught her breath.
I stare at her in surprise. I don’t react immediately. I don’t let anything show on my face. Years of discipline keep my expression neutral, my posture relaxed. Inside, though, my curiosity is piqued. Her words light something up in me that I can’t possibly name.
“Explain,” I say evenly.
She shrugs, a small, almost embarrassed movement. “We didn’t sleep together,” she says. “I was waiting.”
“For marriage?” I guess.
She nods. “Yes.”
I sit back slightly, drawing a slow breath through my nose. I’m relieved at the thought. No, more than that. I feel possessive. Then I realize what she means.
If she was waiting for marriage, that means that when we had sex, it was her first time.
I took her virginity. It’s mine. I don’t like the way my body reacts to that information.
The sudden heat low in my gut. The proprietary edge that slips into my thoughts without invitation. She was untouched by him.
“Why?” I ask, keeping my voice controlled, not giving away just how much her confession is affecting me.
She blinks back at me in confusion. “Why what?”
“Why wait?” I clarify.
She tilts her head, considering me carefully. “Because I wanted to,” she says simply. “Because it mattered to me. And because he said he respected that.”
I almost laugh.
“Did he?” I ask.
Her lips twist. “He said all the right things,” she exhales slowly. “And he never pressured me. Not too much, anyway.”
“What else?” I ask, sitting on the edge of my seat.
“He was charming,” she continues. “Attentive. Overwhelming, sometimes, but in a way that felt flattering at first. He showed up with flowers. Planned dates. Talked about the future like he pictured me in it.”
She pauses, eyes unfocused now, looking inward.
“He proposed pretty quickly,” she says. “It was a whirlwind. I knew it was too quick, but everyone kept telling me how lucky I was. How serious he seemed. How rare it was to find someone so certain.”
I nod once. “And how did your father feel about it?”
Her jaw tightens. “He liked Kostya,” she says hollowly. “He encouraged the relationship. He said he wouldn’t be around forever, and he was happy to know I would be taken care of.”
Of course, he felt that way.
“He was the one who introduced us,” she continues. “He told me that Kostya was a good man. Stable. That he’d take care of me.”
I feel a flicker of anger at that. Not directed at her father exactly, but at the circumstances that made such assurances necessary.
“Did you ever feel pressured by the speed of it all?” I ask.
She looks at me sharply.
“A little,” she admits. “I just assumed he wanted to get married quickly so we could finally have sex.”
Mine. The word rises unbidden from some primal part of me. I bury it immediately.
“Did you have any clue of who he really was?” I ask.
She frowns slightly. “I don’t know. There might have been signs. Maybe I just didn’t see them. Maybe I was afraid to.”
She rubs at her temple with two fingers.
“He started disappearing more toward the end. He always had excuses, like business dinners, meetings, family obligations, that kind of thing. I never asked because he acted like I shouldn’t.”
I know that tactic well.
“What about the night of the party?” I ask. “Did he seem nervous or off in any way?”
Her eyes harden, remembering, that night, but she shakes her head.
“He wasn’t nervous,” she confirms. “He was just distracted. Like his attention was split. And then he disappeared, and we both know what happened after that.”
I remember that night clearly. The chaos. The frantic searching. The way his men moved through the hotel with purpose.
“And when you found him,” I say.
She swallows. “That was the first time I saw the mask slip,” she says. “He wasn’t even ashamed. Just annoyed that he got caught.”
I feel my hands curl slowly into fists at my sides.
“He tried to talk his way out of it,” she continues. “Like I was unreasonable for being upset. Like it was a misunderstanding I should forgive.”
Her voice stays steady, but there’s an undercurrent there now. Steel beneath softness.
“I realized then that he didn’t love me,” she says. “He never did. I couldn’t make sense of it at the time because I didn’t have all the information. Now I do. I just feel like he used me.”
I study her carefully.
“Are you still angry with him?” I can’t help but ask.
She meets my gaze without hesitation. “No. I don’t feel anything for him at all,” she answers honestly.
I lean forward slightly, elbows resting on my knees.
“You understand why I needed to know this,” I say.
She nods. “Because he could still be a threat.”
“Yes,” I say. “He’s clearly still chasing you, which means you won’t be safe until he’s eliminated.”
Her body recoils at that. I know she doesn’t like hearing about the details, but I need her to understand where this stands.
This won’t end in any other way but his death.