Chapter 4 #2
What had that conversation been about? I couldn’t understand the words but I understood the tension all the same. The clipped tone, the bite behind each phrase like he had been fighting the urge to enact violence. It hadn’t sounded like business at all. Not normal business, anyway.
What kind of business is Sergei Sorokin actually in?
I think about asking Miss Dori, but what would I even say? “Hi, I think my new employer might be involved in something shady and terrifying. Any chance you forgot to vet him?”
That would go over well. I’d signed a contract. Voluntarily. And unless I wanted to be on the first flight home, and maybe saddled with a broken agreement and none of the money I had been promised, I have to tread carefully.
Surely, he can’t be that bad. Yulia is his daughter. A man who raises a child like that can’t be a monster… right?
But what if someone else raised her? What if there’s a reason her mother isn’t around anymore?
The thought hits harder than I expect, and I sit upright in bed, the sheets pooling around my waist. My chest tightens with a mixture of dread.
No. Don’t go there, Ivy. Don’t start imagining the worst just because someone scared you for being a total snoop.
He didn’t hurt me. He didn’t even yell.
I eventually doze off again just before sunrise, only to wake with a dry mouth and a headache I can’t shake. I move slowly, dressing carefully while my head is still filled with images of my strange dreams.
A part of me debates whether to wear something casual or a little more put-together, which is stupid—I’m here to teach English, not impress anyone.
By the time I make it downstairs, the mansion is once again cloaked in that strange silence. Thankfully, one of the staff intercepts me before I can wander too far and gestures for me to follow. She doesn’t say much, just a polite smile, and leads me to a sunlit dining room off the east wing.
It’s stunning. It’s the kind of room I’ve only ever seen in magazine spreads or period dramas.
Gold-rimmed China, crystal vases blooming with real white roses, embroidered linens more expensive than any fabric I’ve ever touched in my entire life.
An entire buffet spread is laid out on the table as if a dozen people might walk in at any moment and sit down for breakfast.
Relief floods through me when I realize Sergei isn’t there.
Instead, Yulia sits at the massive table by herself, already halfway through a pancake the size of her face.
There is syrup smeared on her cheek, and her little legs are swinging beneath the chair.
Her hair is pulled into a lopsided braid and her face brightens instantly when she sees me.
“Good morning!” she chirps.
I smile and settle into the seat across from her. “Morning, Yulia. Did you sleep well?”
She leans closer like she’s about to tell me a secret. “There’s blini today. You must try. My favorite.”
“Blini, huh?” I say, amused. “What’s in it?”
She shrugs. “It is pancake. Russian pancake. Sometimes with sweet, sometimes with meat.”
“Pancakes with meat?” My brows pull together.
“Yes.” She nods, grinning. “You eat both. That is rule.”
I laugh softly, and the tension I’ve been carrying for the past twelve hours eases just a little more.
Yulia’s brightness is infectious, her enthusiasm unguarded and pure. She doesn’t feel like a child raised by a tyrant. She doesn’t seem scared or guarded in the way children sometimes are when something’s off at home.
The staff move silently around us, refilling Yulia’s juice, placing a porcelain teacup in front of me. Everyone operates with a kind of practiced precision that makes me wary.
Yulia doesn’t know a lot of English phrases but she does know quite a bit of vocabulary and is whip-smart about context clues.
We play a little language game between bites of buttery pastries and fresh fruit.
She points to things in the room, saying their names in Russian while I repeat them back in English.
By the end of breakfast, we’ve each learned half a dozen new words and are laughing like old friends. Honestly, I’m having more fun than I ever thought I would teaching someone my native tongue.
After we finish, Yulia leads me by the hand to a large library on the west end of the mansion.
There is a small room toward the back that she brings me to.
To my surprise, it’s been set up like a miniature classroom, complete with a desk, bookshelves filled with learning worksheets and texts, and even a whiteboard mounted to the wall.
“Papa made for us,” she says proudly, settling into the seat behind the desk.
I blink, my eyes wandering around the room.
“Today, you teach me songs?” Yulia asks hopefully. “From America?”
“Sure.” I nod. “We can make that part of our lesson.”
She claps her hands, grinning. “I want to sing same as Taylor Swift.”
I blink. “You know Taylor Swift?”
“She is very popular,” Yulia says seriously. “But not as good as Polina Gagarina. She sings for Russia.”
“Then maybe we’ll do both after our vocabulary lesson. One American song and one Russian,” I say, reaching for my cup of tea.
“Okay!”
Over the next few days, Yulia and I settle into a rhythm. One that, surprisingly, feels like it’s always been meant to be.
Our mornings begin with warm sunlight streaming in through the tall windows of our makeshift classroom.
We work surrounded by surfaces lined with English literature and language books.
I read sentences aloud and she repeats them, stumbling sometimes, but always with a glint in her eye like she’s challenging herself to get it right.
She’s sharp, her curiosity outpaces her age, and her sense of humor makes our lessons more like conversations than drills.
Sometimes, I have to rein her in when she gets too excited, going off on a tangent about a new word or phrase, and it’s in those moments that I see just how much she craves connection.
She doesn’t just want to learn English. She wants someone to share it with. To talk to, to laugh with.
It makes me a little sad, honestly. How long has it been since she’s had someone other than her father’s staff around?
Afternoons, if the weather permits, we take our lessons out in the enclosed patio, watching the snow drift down from the sky in between worksheets. On more mellow days, we lay on a blanket next to the fireplace and read to each other.
She takes great pride in reading aloud now, often choosing books that are a little beyond her level just so she can prove to me, and maybe to herself too, that she’s capable.
She’s wonderful. A little lonely, and maybe a little too grown up for her age in some ways, but bright and full of light.
Which is what makes everything else around her feel so strange.
There’s still no sign of her mother. Not even a photo. I’ve checked the halls, the rooms I’ve walked past. There’s nothing. No portraits, no framed memories, no trace she ever existed. When I ask Yulia about her, she just shrugs and says her mama is “not here anymore” and leaves it at that.
Her father is even more of a ghost.
After that first encounter, I haven’t seen him once. Not in the mornings, not at dinner, not even in passing.
It's like he evaporated.
I try not to overthink it, but it’s impossible not to. Especially because it’s clear that, for the most part, I’m the only person Yulia really spends time with. When I asked if she goes to school, she tells me she used to, but not anymore. Now, her teachers come to her.
Two days later, I see it for myself. Two instructors in tidy clothes arrive mid-morning, spending a few hours in the makeshift classroom with Yulia while I wait upstairs and then disappearing as quickly as they came.
I can’t help but feel like something about this isn’t normal.
I’m not a parent, but I know enough to know that isolation, even in gilded cages, is still isolation. And no amount of staff, private chefs, or luxury goods can make up for what Yulia’s missing, which is real, genuine connection.
She doesn’t say it outright, but I see it in the way she clings to me. In how excited she gets just to read aloud. How she invents little stories and asks for my opinion like she’s starved for feedback.
I don’t mind exactly since she’s a good kid, but it does worry me that she’s being intentionally isolated from the rest of the world.
What kind of life is it for a kid to have no friends her own age? Or experience in the outside world in any capacity? What happens when she finally grows up and wants to know what it’s like outside the wrought-iron gates that have kept her sealed inside her whole life?
This all comes to a head one morning when I come down to find her already dressed, practically vibrating with energy.
She tugs on my arm before I’ve even had breakfast. “Come outside with me? We play? Please?”
I laugh even though I’m still trying to shake off sleep. “Yulia, you haven’t even had your lessons yet.”
She pouts, arms crossing over her little chest. “We do them later. I need sun. You need sun. I want to play.”
I open my mouth to protest but stop myself. She’s not wrong. It’s a beautiful day out despite the snow still coating the ground. God knows, she deserves to let loose for a little while and just be a kid. Even if it’s only for an hour.
I send Yulia scampering outside with her arms flung wide like wings, boots crunching across the snow-covered stones of the back patio. She twirls dramatically as the first flurries start to fall, her delighted laughter floating through the air pleasantly.
The sound makes me smile, even as I tuck my coat tighter around me and step back into the mansion’s warm interior.
“I’ll be right back!” I call, and she throws a quick wave over her shoulder in acknowledgment, already halfway to the snow-covered garden.
I head toward the kitchen to grab us something light for lunch—something warm, maybe tea and sandwiches. But as I round the corner, my pace slows automatically. I’m drawing near Sergei’s office again, and just like last time, voices spill into the corridor ahead of me.
This time though, there is no scolding. The conversation still sounds serious, but it’s more firm than anything.
I really shouldn’t be eavesdropping for a second time. But before I can stop myself and I pause just outside of view, the door swings open, and I flinch like a guilty child caught with a hand in the cookie jar.
Sergei steps out into the hallway first.
He looks exactly as he did the first night I stumbled into his path—tall, composed, eyes like winter steel. His suit coat falls open slightly, revealing a crisp shirt and a tailored vest beneath. His gaze lands on me within seconds, pinning me in place just like the last time he caught me snooping.
Flanking him are three men I don’t recognize.
All of them wear tailored coats and polished shoes, their clothes as impeccable as Sergei’s, but their presence is…
strangely different. There’s an energy to them, a coiled tension like leashed wolves, that makes the small hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
One man has a faint scar that curves along his temple, disappearing into his hairline.
He moves with the sort of calculated grace that suggests he’s used to violence, maybe even welcomes it.
Another, older with an expression carved from stone.
He doesn’t glance my way, but I can feel the chill of his disinterest, telling me he wouldn’t hesitate to step over my corpse if it didn’t serve him.
And then there’s the third.
The last man.
Younger than the others, maybe early thirties, with dark hair swept neatly back and a slight curve to his mouth, tugging at the corner of his lips. He’s watching me, has been ever since the door opened and they all stepped out.
His eyes move over me slowly, the way a predator assesses something before deciding whether or not to pounce. His hands are gloved, his posture relaxed, but nothing about him feels safe.
That cold prickle of unease blooms into something deeper, making my gut twist.
“Miss Bennett,” Sergei says, voice sharp enough to make me jump. It cuts cleanly through the charged moment, dragging my gaze back to him. He doesn’t look irritated, but he doesn’t look pleased, either.
I wonder if he’s always like this or if the presence of these men demands that he show no emotion. No cracks in the facade.
“Where is my daughter?”
It takes me a moment to remember how to speak. I clear my throat and offer a quick, polite smile, though it feels tight and thin on my face. “Um, outside. In the garden. We were taking a break from lessons and I thought I’d grab us something to eat.”
His eyes flick past me, toward the kitchen, then they slide back.
“I see.” His voice is cool, but not unkind, strangely. “Put in an order with the kitchen staff. They’ll bring it out to you.”
There’s no threat in his voice—nothing overt, at least. Just a command dressed up politely, but I understand instantly what it is, just like I did when he told me to go back to my room after catching me snooping.
“Yes. Thank you. I will,” I say, dipping my head quickly.
I mean to turn around and walk away, and really, I have every intention to, but I feel that stare again, heavy on my face, and can’t help but look over again.
The younger man is still watching me. Unlike the others, he hasn’t looked away out of disinterest. His head tilts slightly, almost curiously, but there’s something unsettling in the way his mouth tugs into that faint smirk.
Like he knows something I don’t.
It makes my blood run cold.
“Go on,” Sergei says.
I spin on my heels and walk briskly down the hall toward the kitchen, the echo of my footsteps louder than I want them to be. The moment I round the corner and put some distance between us, I exhale a shaky breath and press my palm to my chest as if that will somehow still my racing heart.
Who were those men? Friends? Business associates? Bodyguards?
I’m not naive enough to think they were harmless. Everything about them screams danger. The way Sergei stood at the center of them, commanding the space with little effort, only confirms what I’ve been trying not to admit. This isn’t a normal job.
This isn’t a normal house with normal staff and a man at the head of it running some simple business.
I need to be careful or else I’m going to find myself entangled in something I doubt I’ll survive.
“Miss Ivy?” I hear Yulia’s voice traveling down the hallway I’d just escaped from.
And then, there’s a loud gasp.