Chapter 17 – Sofia
I wake up from a restless nap, the shadows of the bedroom long and heavy across the floor. It’s been a few days since the kidnapping, and I’m still desperately trying to recover from the physical and emotional aftermath of what happened.
While I’m physically safe, the fragile sense of security I had slowly begun to build within these walls has been completely shattered all over again.
The estate feels entirely different now; it feels less like a controlled, luxurious environment and more like a brittle shield against an invisible threat that is constantly closing in on us.
But despite the dark clouds hanging over my head, I feel strangely light whenever I look at my husband.
Lukyan has been with me the entire time.
He has barely left my side since he carried me out of that horrific warehouse.
He sleeps beside me every single night, holding me securely through the dark hours, feeding me food, bringing me drinks, and ensuring he is always the very first thing I see when I open my eyes.
I’m entirely dependent on him now, my life tethered completely to his strength, and the terrifying part is… I don’t hate it at all.
So, when I blink the sleep from my eyes and realize his side of the bed is completely empty, my stomach instantly hollows out with a sharp twist of panic.
No. I need him. I don’t care if he’s buried in mafia business or completely swamped with work—I’ll go sit quietly on the floor of his office if I have to, just to be near him.
I slowly slide my legs out from under the heavy duvet. The earth tilts violently for a few seconds, dizziness washing over me, and I have to grip the nightstand, waiting until the room rights itself before I attempt to walk.
I wasn’t physically injured during the ambush, but Lukyan absolutely insisted that the family doctor come over to examine me and prescribe some heavy pills.
I’ve been taking them diligently, and while they definitely help to keep me calm and numb the phantom pains of the crash, they leave me feeling incredibly weak and drowsy.
Stepping out into the grand hallway, I make my way toward his private study, keeping my steps light and slow so I don’t lose my balance. He didn’t mention that he was going out today, so I am certain I’ll find him inside.
I’m almost at the heavy mahogany study doors when the sound of muffled voices drifts through the slight crack in the wood. I recognize Lukyan’s deep, low baritone immediately, and an instinctive smile touches my lips.
But his voice is followed by another—his brother, Samuel. I’ve only met Samuel a handful of times, just enough to know he’s entirely different from my husband.
Where Lukyan is a wall of cold, unyielding granite, Samuel possesses a much more relaxed, approachable appearance. He’s far more outwardly expressive and animated than his older brother, carrying himself with a lightness that Lukyan completely lacks.
Comforted by the fact that it’s just family, I raise my hand to push the polished brass doorknob, ready to slide inside and find my place at Lukyan’s side.
What I hear next stops me completely dead in my tracks, my fingers freezing millimeters away from the handle.
“The books are the key.” Lukyan’s voice cuts through the door, his tone entirely devoid of the warmth he’s been giving me for the last few days. “The entire code is hidden right inside them. I’ve already found the patterns. Now, I just need to finish decoding it.”
There’s a brief silence, followed by the sound of Samuel shifting in his chair. “Are you absolutely sure about this, Lukyan? That she has it?”
“Yes,” Lukyan answers. His voice is flat, hard, and terrifyingly absolute. “She’s Andrei Morozov’s daughter. I’m certain she knows the code.”
The tone is completely certain. There’s no mention of uncertainty, no indication that this is a mere possibility rather than a fact. He speaks with the cold, calculating precision of a man who has already solved the puzzle. A man who has studied me.
The words settle heavily into the silence of the hallway, striking me like physical blows. Everything I thought I understood about my life, my marriage, and the man inside that room begins to violently shift.
The pieces that once felt completely disconnected—his sudden interest in me, the way he brought me to this estate, the library he curated for me—suddenly align in a way I can no longer ignore.
Oh. This makes so much sense.
This is the real reason Lukyan married me. It was never about protecting an innocent woman. It was because of who my father was.
My heart breaks, shattering into a million jagged pieces inside my chest. The warmth I felt just seconds ago turns into an icy, suffocating dread.
As a little girl, I had genuinely believed my father was simply an ordinary man, a quiet scholar who loved literature.
It was only years after his brutal murder that I realized he must have been involved in something incredibly shady, something dark enough to get him killed.
But I had promised my father’s brother that I would never look into it.
I had promised to leave the past alone. And I had kept that promise. I chose ignorance to keep myself safe.
But apparently, my father’s hidden past is the only reason I am even standing in this house.
The soft touches, the protective vows, the way he held me in the dark and fed me when I was weak—every single thing was a lie.
A calculated play to get close to Andrei Morozov’s daughter and extract his secrets.
The weakness and drowsiness from the pills vanish in an instant, replaced by a cold, burning rush of adrenaline. I don’t knock. I don’t hesitate.
I grip the handle, turn it, and push the heavy mahogany door wide open, stepping straight into the room.
Both men turn toward me in an instant, their bodies locking up as the heavy door bangs against the wall.
The relaxed posture Samuel had been holding vanishes, and Lukyan’s eyes widen slightly, a rare, momentary flash of shock crossing his features before his mask slams back into place.
The tension in the room is immediate, thick enough to choke on.
“Sofia…”
But I don’t give them a chance to recover. I don’t hesitate.
“I heard everything you said. What does it mean?” I ask.
My voice is terrifyingly steady, carrying a dark, freezing undercurrent of something much deeper than grief.
The weakness that gripped me minutes ago is entirely gone.
I’m no longer the confused, fragile girl looking for comfort after a trauma.
I’m a woman confronting the monsters who engineered her reality.
I look directly at Lukyan, staring into the dark eyes of the man I was foolish enough to think was my protector, letting him see that the illusion is completely gone.
The truth hangs between us in the suffocating silence—heavy, unavoidable, and entirely irreversible.
Lukyan slowly rises from his heavy leather chair. The sheer size of him usually makes me feel protected, but now it just feels looming, like a shadow stretching across the room. He takes a single step toward me, his hands slightly raised.
“Sofia…”
I shake my head, the movement sharp and cutting. “I don’t want to hear anything else. Just the truth.”
He snaps his mouth shut, his jaw clenching so hard that a small muscle tenses in his cheek. He looks at me, really looks at me, evaluating the sudden, fierce clarity in my eyes.
Beside the desk, Samuel purses his lips, looking between the two of us.
Realizing he has no business being in the line of fire, he nods quietly at Lukyan and turns toward the exit.
As he reaches the threshold, he gives me a small, solemn nod, steps past me, and walks out the door, closing it softly behind him.
The click of the latch echoes like a gunshot.
I keep my gaze locked entirely on Lukyan, refusing to look away, refusing to let him see me blink.
He sighs, a heavy sound that seems to come from the very bottom of his chest, and gestures to the armchair opposite his desk. “Come sit down.”
“I’m not sitting,” I say, my voice trembling slightly before I force it to steady. I look him dead in the eye, the heartbreak inside me sharpening into steel. “Lukyan, please start talking.”