Chapter 14
Milk and Blood
—Kira—
Icame home humming, moving through the house like I was floating, like I had slipped into a version of reality where everything gleamed just a little brighter. I wasn’t the same girl who had left that morning.
I slipped past the guards without looking at them, let the butler drone something about dinner, nodded at a maid who scurried to take my coat. None of it touched me. My mind was still at Maksym’s apartment. On his mouth. His voice. His hands on my skin.
I only snapped out of it when I opened my bedroom door and was met with a sight that froze me in place. Felix was lying across my bed like it was his.
Not sitting. Lying. Shoes off, jacket tossed over my chair like he belonged there, one arm stretched behind his head as if my room were an extension of his own.
For a split second my brain refused to accept the image, and then it did, all at once, with a cold drop in my stomach that erased the last of my good mood.
Fuck. In all the madness of today I had completely forgotten about my problem, which was now busy staining my sheets. The same problem that had sent me running to Maksym in the first place.
He stretched like a cat in heat, eyes never leaving mine. “There she is. My little runaway fiancée. I was starting to miss you.”
That word didn’t belong to me, and the moment he said it, my face shut down. He’d have to be out of his mind to think I’d ever be his fiancée. The delusion was almost impressive.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, my voice steady only because I forced it to be.
He chuckled, rolling onto his side, propping himself up on one elbow. “Is that how you greet your future husband?” His gaze flicked to my face, then lower, lingering. “You always come back from school in such a good mood? Must be a very… stimulating place. I’m impressed. Such a good student.”
My fingers curled around the strap of my bag. “What are you doing in my room, Felix?” I repeated, slower this time, clearer.
He glanced around as if only now noticing the space, taking his time with it.
“Just wanted to see where my fiancée lays that sweet little head at night,” he said.
“This mattress isn’t bad. Not what I’d pick, but I guess we can break it in properly.
Unless you’ve already been doing that?” He shot me a look, then smiled.
“This room suits you. Innocent on the surface, but I bet it hides secrets.”
He got up and wandered toward my vanity, fingering my perfume bottles. “Of course,” he said casually, picking one up and sniffing it, “after we get married, we’ll move to Moscow.”
He turned slightly, just enough for me to see his smirk. “I’ll be honest—this place depresses me. You deserve something nicer. I’m sure you’ll learn to like the new place… or at least pretend you do.”
“You won’t be here long anyway,” he added lazily. “With everything going on… this city isn’t built to last.”
There was something in his voice—something smooth and final, like a velvet rope tightening. A warning disguised as a promise. Or maybe it wasn’t disguised at all.
Every instinct in me screamed to step back, to put more space between us, though there was already plenty. I stayed where I was, rooted to the threshold, my heart beginning to beat too fast, too loud. He didn’t seem to notice—or worse, he did, and enjoyed it.
“Please leave,” I said. “I need to get ready for dinner.”
He glanced back at me, smirked. “You’re shy. That’s cute. But you don’t have to be. Soon I’ll see everything anyway.”
My chest tightened. “Felix,” I said, sharper now. “I insist. Leave.”
For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t. He stayed where he was, considering me, the silence stretching in a way that made my skin prickle. Then he stood, unhurried, adjusting his shirt as he walked past me, close enough that I could smell his cologne, sweet and overpowering.
“Of course,” he said, lips curling like he was in on a joke I wasn’t part of. He reached for the doorknob, grabbing his jacket from the chair on his way, then glanced back over his shoulder. “Wouldn’t want to get you too worked up before dinner.”
I waited until he was gone, until his footsteps faded down the hall, before I closed the door and turned the lock. The click echoed in the quiet room. I leaned back against the wood, my breath finally breaking free in short, uneven pulls, my heart pounding so hard it made me dizzy.
“Crazy fucking motherfucker,” I whispered, barely recognizing my own voice.
I needed to wash him off me. Off the sheets. Off the air.
I peeled off my clothes, not bothering to toss them anywhere useful, and headed for the shower. Let the water scald. Let it burn the stench of him off my skin. I stood under the stream until my fingers wrinkled and my jaw unclenched.
When I came out, I wrapped myself in the thickest robe I had, still shivering.
There was no way in hell I was putting on a dress tonight.
If he wanted to look at me, then let him look at grief incarnate. Let him feast his eyes on a funeral procession in motion.
I chose black pants and a black turtleneck. I gave him no skin, no softness, no invitation.
On my way down, I caught one of the maids in the hall and said, “Change all the bedding in my room. Everything. Sheets, duvet, pillows. Burn them if you want. Just make it clean.”
She blinked at me, but nodded.
Dinner was already being served when I walked in.
Just the usual suspects tonight. My father, seated at the head like a king. Two of his closest men on either side. My mother, already deep into some arcade game on her phone. And Felix.
He stood up the moment he saw me. Like some fucking gentleman from another century, he pulled out my chair—smiling, eyes gleaming with mock chivalry—and gestured for me to sit.
I stopped for a breath. Then moved forward, letting him hold the chair while I lowered myself into it without a word. His hand brushed my shoulder as I sat, lingering just long enough to make my skin crawl.
“Interesting tactic,” he murmured with a smirk, eyes dragging over the turtleneck like it was lingerie.
“Dress like a saint, make me work for it. But don’t think for a second it puts me off—it just makes the game better.
” Then, like nothing had happened, he returned to his seat with the same smug composure.
I glared at him, my eyes sharp enough to cut, but he only looked more entertained, like my fury was just another move in his game.
A plate of lamb was set in front of me. I wasn’t hungry. I took a few mechanical bites and reached for the wine.
If there was one indulgence I had left in this house, it was the wine. Red, dry, sharp. I sipped it while my father talked politics with his friends, my mother tapped at her screen, and Felix watched me.
He watched me—every move, every breath, every shift of my fingers around the glass.
At some point, he stood and walked out of the dining room without a word. I didn’t ask where he was going. I didn’t care.
But then he came back.
In his hand was a tall glass of milk.
The room seemed to tilt, as he set it down in front of me. No announcement. No explanation. The glass landed with a soft, deliberate tap, white against the dark wood like a warning.
Then, without a word, he reached across the table and wrapped his fingers around my wineglass, lifting it from my hand with quiet deliberation. He didn’t ask permission. He didn’t even look at me.
“No more wine,” he said, calm and pleasant, as if he were doing me a favor. “Milk is better for you.”
For a second I just stared at the empty space where my glass had been. “Excuse me?”
His tone was sickeningly sweet. “You look so innocent with a glass of milk. Like a girl who knows how to behave. Let’s stick to that, shall we?”
Something tightened in my chest. I looked down the table, instinctively searching for help I already knew wasn’t there.
My father was mid-sentence, gesturing with his fork.
My mother’s head was bent over her phone, fingers moving fast, absorbed.
The men beside my father laughed at something I didn’t hear.
No one was watching.
Felix leaned closer, close enough that his shadow fell over my plate. “Go on,” he murmured. “Drink.”
I didn’t move. My fingers stayed flat against my thigh, nails digging into fabric. I met his gaze and held it, daring him to blink first.
He didn’t.
“Don’t make me wait,” he said.
The words weren’t loud. They didn’t need to be. There was something underneath them—cold, patient—that made my stomach drop. In that moment, it hit me with terrifying clarity that I didn’t understand his rules, and that meant I couldn’t predict his punishments.
I was alone at the table. Surrounded by people, and completely alone.
My hand lifted slowly, not because I agreed, but because I didn’t see another way out. The glass was colder than I expected, condensation slick against my palm. I brought it to my lips and took a small sip, barely enough to swallow.
The milk was ice cold. It coated my tongue, my throat, wrong and intimate.
Felix smiled like he’d won something.
He bent down, his mouth near my ear, and brushed a strand of hair back with two fingers, the touch light and possessive.
“You’ll like how I train you,” he whispered.
I kept my face perfectly still.
Inside, something fractured cleanly and quietly, like glass breaking underwater.
And then, unexpectedly, my mother spoke.
“Felix, darling,” she cooed, her voice floating on the edge of delusion and elegance. The kind of voice that sounded just as fitting offering tea as it did orchestrating a murder. “Would you be a dear and pass me that glass of milk?”
The table paused. Not all at once—but like a wave, rolling slow. My father looked up, one brow raised. The men beside him went silent. Felix froze, still half-leaning toward me.
“Kira seems not to enjoy it quite as much as you hoped,” my mother continued, her tone light, even amused. Her eyes remained on her phone screen, but her voice was sharp beneath the softness. “Perhaps she’d prefer her wine back. She’s not five, you know.”
Felix straightened. There was a twitch at the corner of his mouth, something tight and annoyed, quickly masked.
“Of course,” he said smoothly, with a shallow nod.
He picked up the glass of milk with barely concealed irritation and handed it to my mother, who took it without looking. Then, with calculated slowness, he retrieved the wineglass and placed it gently back in front of me.
“There we go,” she murmured, still not looking at anyone. “Much better.”
I stared at her, stunned.
She didn’t glance up. Just tapped the screen of her phone twice more, then set it face-down on the table and turned her hand over—palm open.
I placed mine in hers without thinking.
She curled her fingers around mine, warm and trembling.
“Thank you,” I whispered, barely audible.
She didn’t reply. She just gave my hand a gentle squeeze, her lips parting in the softest smile I’d seen on her in years.
For the first time in longer than I could remember, I felt a flicker of recognition pass between us—real, human, and terrifyingly profound.
It wasn’t about her stepping in to protect me.
I wasn’t some child in need of saving, or maybe I was.
But that wasn’t what cracked me open. What did was the realization that she was still there.
My mother—so often lost in her own world, unreachable behind the fog of detachment—had not vanished completely.
Beneath all the silence and strangeness, some part of her had endured.
And it shattered me. All those years I’d thought she was gone, some hollowed-out version of herself, and yet in this strange, delicate moment, I saw her. And she saw me, too.
I sat there for the rest of the meal with my spine rigid and my expression carefully composed, but everything underneath was burning.
Even though my mother had stepped in—I didn’t feel safe.
If anything, it made me more afraid. I saw the way my father glanced in our direction, his expression unreadable but dangerous.
And I knew Felix wouldn’t forget. His gaze kept drifting back to me, calm and unwavering, like he hadn’t just been challenged in front of the entire table.
Like he’d let it slide—for now. But I could feel it in the set of his jaw, in the faint curl of his lip.
He wasn’t finished with me. He was only just beginning.