Chapter 17 – Ashley
Waking up is a slow, agonizingly gentle process.
For a few fleeting seconds, I am disoriented by a profound, unfamiliar sense of calm. The sheets against my bare skin are warm, the morning light filtering soft and golden through the sheer curtains of my bedroom. My body feels heavy, deeply relaxed in a way it hasn’t in years.
Then, the memories of the night before return in a sudden, breathless rush.
The fierce argument in the dining room. The desperate, bruising collision of our mouths. The heat of Samuel’s hands, the raw intensity of his confessions, and the absolute surrender of my body beneath his in the dark.
My heart takes a sudden leap into my throat. I roll over, my hand reaching out instinctively to the other side of the bed.
The space beside me is cold. The sheets are empty, the pillows smoothed over.
A hollow, sickening weight drops straight into my stomach.
My breath hitches as a wave of bitter familiarity washes over me.
He’s gone. Just like before. Just like that night in New York, he took what he wanted, unraveling my entire world, and slipped away into the shadows before the sun could even expose him.
The fool I was to let him back in, to think that this time would be any different—
A sharp, metallic clink echoes from downstairs.
I freeze.
It’s the distinct sound of a metal spatula tapping against the edge of a skillet.
I scramble out of bed, my heart hammering against my ribs.
I grab my silk robe from the chair, wrapping it tightly around myself and tying the belt with trembling hands.
I don’t even stop to find my slippers. Barefoot, I hurry out of the bedroom, my feet padding quickly down the carpeted hallway and down the stairs, guided by the warm, rich scent of melting butter and sizzling bacon.
I round the corner into the kitchen, my breath catching in my throat.
Samuel is standing at the stove.
He’s wearing the same dark trousers from last night, but he’s rolled the sleeves of his charcoal knit sweater up to his forearms, revealing the strong, corded muscles and faint scars of his wrists.
He moves with a quiet, domestic efficiency, flipping pancakes with a steady hand—a stark, surreal contrast to the high-stakes corporate power play and underlying danger he usually projects.
But it’s not just Samuel in the kitchen.
Ethan is already awake. He is sitting in his usual booster seat at the kitchen island, his little legs swinging back and forth under the counter. He’s eating happily, a half-eaten pancake covered in a messy swirl of syrup on his plate.
The sight stops me dead in my tracks. I lean against the doorframe, my hand clutching the lapel of my robe, completely unable to move or speak.
I just watch them.
The interaction between Samuel and Ethan is entirely natural, almost completely effortless.
“And then,” Ethan chirps, his mouth slightly full as he waves a plastic fork in the air, “the blue power ranger did a giant flip over the mountain!”
“A giant flip?” Samuel asks, his deep, gravelly voice incredibly soft and attentive.
He doesn’t look away from Ethan, focusing on him with a genuine warmth that has absolutely nothing to do with performance or obligation.
He reaches over, using a napkin to gently wipe a drop of syrup from Ethan’s chin.
“Did he land on his feet, or did he crash?”
“He landed on one foot!” Ethan giggles, highly animated and clearly thrilled to have an audience that is hanging onto his every word. “Just like a ninja!”
“Impressive,” Samuel murmurs, a slow, real smile tugging at his lips. “I’ll have to try that move sometime.”
My throat tightens as I watch my son look up at Samuel with an innocent, glowing admiration.
For nearly four years, I have been Ethan’s entire world.
I have filled every role, carried every burden, and tried to be everything he could ever need.
But watching them together, seeing the instinctual, unshakeable bond that has formed in less than twenty-four hours, something shifts inside me.
For a brief, terrifying moment, I let my guard drop.
I stand in the quiet shadow of the doorway and allow myself to imagine what this could actually be. A real family. No hiding, no corporate contracts as shields, no constant fear of the dangerous world Samuel belongs to. Just mornings like this—warm, safe, and complete.
It is a beautiful, intoxicating dream. But as I take a step forward into the light of the kitchen, the cold reality of who Samuel is rushes back to meet me, and the dream begins to fade.
Samuel looks up from the stove, his brilliant blue eyes locking onto mine. There is a quiet, knowing warmth in his gaze that makes my skin tingle, but his expression remains perfectly composed.
“Good morning,” he says, his deep voice carrying a soft, morning rasp. “I made breakfast. Sit down and eat before it gets cold.”
“Mommy!” Ethan shrieks with delight, nearly dropping his fork. “Samuel made the best pancakes ever! They look like little clouds!”
A genuine laugh escapes my lips, the tight knot in my chest loosening just a fraction at the sight of my son’s sticky, beaming face.
I walk over to the island, leaning down to wrap my arms around Ethan’s small shoulders.
I press a lingering, fierce kiss to his temple, breathing in his familiar, comforting scent of baby shampoo.
“I see that, sweetie,” I smile, smoothing down his messy bedhead. “Did you say thank you to Samuel?”
“Yes! Twice!” Ethan says proudly.
I take a deep breath and sit down on the stool next to Ethan.
Samuel slides a plate in front of me—perfectly golden pancakes, crisp bacon, and a mug of black coffee, exactly how I like it.
He joins us at the counter, sitting on the stool on Ethan’s other side, and the three of us share breakfast together.
The atmosphere in the sunlit kitchen is unexpectedly, heartbreakingly normal.
There’s no heavy silence, no sharp glares, and no lingering static from the explosive argument we had on the other side of the wall last night.
Instead, there is just the clinking of forks, the hum of the refrigerator, and the sweet, steady sound of Ethan telling us a wildly fabricated story about a squirrel he saw in the yard.
For the first time in my life, I’m sitting in my own home, sharing a meal with my son and his father, and it feels complete in a way I have never experienced before.
It fits like a puzzle piece I didn’t even know was missing.
But that very sense of perfection is exactly what terrifies me.
The sudden, easy normalcy of it all rattles me to my core.
I look at Samuel—sitting here in his dark sweater, patiently listening to a three-year-old’s ramblings—and my mind violently flashes to the word Bratva.
I think of Sofia’s life, of the heavy security, of the blood and the shadows that follow the Rusnak name everywhere it goes.
I think of how easily I let him back into my bed last night, abandoning my defenses the second his mouth touched mine.
I’m letting myself be lulled into a false sense of security. I’m playing house with a beautiful monster.
As quickly as the warmth had bloomed in my chest, I shut it down.
The cold, analytical wall of my armor snaps back into place, brick by brick.
I look down at my plate, the pancakes suddenly tasting like ash in my mouth.
I cannot afford to be soft. I cannot let a night of passion and a plate of pancakes make me forget that Samuel is a threat to the quiet, safe fortress I spent four years building.
The emotional walls I had completely leveled hours ago begin to rise again, higher and thicker than before.
The heavy silence of my thoughts is suddenly shattered by the sharp, demanding ring of my phone.
I blink, pulled abruptly out of my head. I clear my throat and step away from the counter, leaving my half-eaten breakfast behind. “Excuse me,” I murmur, keeping my voice light for Ethan’s sake.
I walk out of the kitchen and into the living room, following the sound to the sofa where I had tossed my purse and phone the night before during our explosive argument. I pick up the device. The screen glows with an unrecognized, ten-digit number.
Normally, I would let an unknown call go to voicemail, but with the active shipping logistics campaigns running this week, my guard is down. I swipe the screen and press the phone to my ear.
“Hello? Ashley speaking.”
There’s a beat of dead air, filled only by a strange, hollow static. Then, a voice cuts through the line. It is heavily modulated—metallic, distorted, and deeply unsettling.
“You look so beautiful when you play house, Ashley.”
My blood runs instantly cold. The breath catches in my throat, my fingers freezing around the cool glass of the phone.
“Who is this?” I whisper, my voice barely carrying across the room as I instinctively glance back toward the kitchen doorway.
“He doesn’t belong in your kitchen,” the distorted voice continues, shifting rapidly from a cold, controlled drawl to a fast, erratic pitch that makes my skin crawl.
“He doesn’t deserve the warmth. No other man does.
You built that fortress for us, Ashley. Not for him.
Not for the bastard child. I’m watching you.
I’ve always been watching. He needs to leave. Make him leave.”
The possessive, invasive words hit me like a physical blow. The absolute obsession dripping from the caller’s voice is no longer a subtle, distant threat—it is right here, suffocatingly close, reaching inside the walls of my home.
“Don’t call me ever again,” I choke out, my voice trembling with a mixture of terror and white-hot fury.
Without waiting for a response, I slam my thumb against the red end-call icon. My heart hammers violently against my ribs as I quickly tap into the settings, blocking the number entirely.
I stand in the middle of the living room, my phone gripped so tightly in my hand that my knuckles turn white.
The lingering impact of the call wraps around my throat like a vice.
My chest heaves as I try to pull in air, desperately trying to force the panic down, to swallow the terror before I walk back into the kitchen.
I smooth down my robe, take a deep, shaky breath, and force my legs to move. But the moment I step back into the dining area, Samuel’s eyes lock onto mine.
He notices the shift in my demeanor instantly. The easy, domestic warmth in his expression vanishes, replaced by the sharp, lethal focus of a predator sensing danger. He sets his fork down slowly, his gaze scanning my pale face, my rigid posture, and the slight tremor in my hands.
“Ashley,” Samuel says, his deep voice dropping to a low, commanding register that demands the truth. “What happened? Who called?”
“Nothing,” I lie quickly, offering a tight, fragile smile as I try to sit back down next to Ethan. “Just…a work call. An issue at the docks.”
“Don’t lie to me,” Samuel cuts in, his blue eyes narrowing to razor-sharp slits. He stands up, his massive frame instantly dominating the space, though he keeps his movements controlled so as not to scare Ethan. “Your color is completely gone. Who was on the phone?”
I look at him, then down at Ethan, who has stopped chewing his pancake and is looking between the two of us with wide, confused eyes. The fear clutching my chest is simply too heavy, too evident to ignore. My defenses crumble under the weight of the threat.
“Ethan, sweetie,” I say, my voice shaking slightly despite my best efforts. “Why don’t you take your plate into the living room and watch your cartoons for a few minutes?”
“Okay, Mommy,” Ethan murmurs softly. He slides down from his stool, holding his plate carefully, and walks out of the room.
The moment the television screen hums to life in the other room, I turn to Samuel, the terror finally breaking through my executive mask.
“It was a blocked number,” I whisper, my voice cracking as I press my back against the kitchen counter.
“The voice…it was distorted. Artificial. But they knew, Samuel. They knew you were here. They mentioned you. They mentioned Ethan. They said you don’t belong in my kitchen, and that I need to make you leave.
” My breath hitches as the full reality of it sinks in.
“They’ve been watching us. It’s not just messages anymore, Samuel. They’re watching my house.”
The confession pours out of me like water breaking through a dam. Once I start, I can’t stop.
“It’s not the first time,” I whisper, my hands gripping the edge of the counter so hard the marble bites into my palms. “I’ve been getting messages.
Cryptic, invasive texts. I thought it was just some sick prank, or maybe a bitter competitor trying to rattle me.
I blocked them. I tried to downplay it. I told myself I was handling it.
But this…they knew you were here, Samuel. They knew about everything.”
As the words leave my mouth, Samuel’s entire demeanor undergoes a terrifying, instantaneous transformation.
The domestic father who was just flipping pancakes and laughing at cartoon trivia vanishes.
In his place stands the cold, lethal lieutenant of the Bratva.
His massive shoulders lock, his jaw tightening into a hard, dangerous line.
He moves into my space immediately, his broad frame shifting into an instinctively protective stance that completely blocks me from the line of sight of any windows.
He doesn’t panic. His reaction is terrifyingly controlled, but the sheer, raw intensity radiating from him is palpable.
“You’ve been getting messages,” he repeats, his voice dropping to a low, lethal vibration that makes the hairs on my arms stand up. “And you didn’t think to tell me, Ashley? You have someone stalking you, threatening our son, and you kept it to yourself?”
“I thought I could handle it!” I hiss back, defensive even through my fear. “I didn’t want to scare Ethan!”
“Your safety is more important,” Samuel growls, his blue eyes flashing with a dangerous, protective fury.
He steps even closer, his large hands coming up to grip my shoulders.
The sheer warmth and solidity of his touch is the only thing keeping me grounded.
“No more secrets, Ashley. No more playing executive defense. If someone is watching this house, if someone is looking at you or my son, they are already dead.”
He looks toward the living room where the quiet sounds of Ethan’s cartoons are playing, his protective instincts flaring to a fever pitch. He looks back down at me, his eyes locked onto mine with an unshakeable, lethal promise.
“You should have told me the very first time they reached out,” he says, his voice flat, hard, and entirely devoid of mercy. “But I’m here now. I’m going to find out who the fuck this is. And I’m going to make them pay.”