Chapter 7 – Ellie
I’ve decided that today, there’s nothing Mike can do to stop me from leaving the house.
Three weeks. Three weeks of being trapped between the suite, the dining room, and the library. Occasionally, a walk in the garden, but even that feels monitored.
I’m exhausted. I feel like I’m unraveling.
Every step I take toward Mike’s office is fueled by defiance and desperation. I don’t care what he says. If it comes down to it, I’ll run. I have to.
The mansion is suffocating. Everything is perfect—immaculate marble floors, gilded furniture, priceless artwork—but it feels more like a gilded cage than a home.
I’ve forced myself into routines, the only thing keeping me sane: reading case studies, reviewing old research files, annotating notes I know I don’t need. Just to keep my head sane.
But the worst part isn’t the guards, the cameras, the restrictions. It’s the creeping understanding of Mike’s world. It’s like I’m starting to comprehend the logic, the control, the way he moves through it all with precision. The realization terrifies me.
I slam into the office, the door rattling against the wall.
Mike looks up from his desk, eyes sharp, controlled. Sergei is there too, standing silent and rigid.
We stare at each other for a long moment, a tense silence hanging heavy in the air. Finally, Mike gestures toward Sergei. “Excuse us.”
Sergei is polite, but I have a feeling he doesn’t like me, so I don’t go out of my way to speak to or interact with him. He brushes past me, shutting the door behind him with a quiet click.
I’m alone with Mike now.
I storm toward his desk. My chest burns with frustration, my hands clenching into fists at my sides.
“I want to go see Raelyn,” I snap, my voice sharper than I intend. Mike tilts his head, lips parting as if to answer, but I cut him off. “Don’t say no. If you do, I’ll find a way out of this house, and you’ll never see me again.”
His eyes narrow, sharp and unreadable, but the tension between us is electric.
“Ellie—”
I take a deep breath, pushing my anger into words. “Honestly, it’s better to be kidnapped and tortured than be a prisoner decorated as a wife. I refuse this. I refuse to let you control everything about my life.”
The words hang in the air like a challenge. His gaze drills into mine, calm but lethal, measuring every inch of me. I’m shaking, both from fear and defiance, but I don’t move. I won’t back down.
Finally, he sits forward, voice low. “Solntse,” he says, the single word loaded with calm and promise, “you’ll see Raelyn. But understand this: Every step you take outside the house carries risk. I’m not willing to take it.”
“You will let me go, Mike.”
He rises to his feet, walking across the desk to stand in front of me. “Yes. But on my terms. You will go with a heavy escort.”
I start to argue, but think better of it. As long as I get to leave the house. “But I want my own separate car. They can follow me. I need autonomy.”
“Very well.”
His easy acceptance melts something tight inside me.
I turn and march outside before I do something stupid.
Almost an hour later, I’m ready to leave.
Mike follows me downstairs, running through security instructions I’m barely listening to.
I think he’s overestimating my value. No one wants to kidnap me that badly.
I’m not that special. Besides, no one even knows I’m leaving the house—how could they plan a kidnapping so quickly?
“Do you hear everything I’ve said to you?” Mike asks.
I nod. “Yes.”
He doesn’t believe me, but opens my car door and helps me inside, shutting it behind me.
I can see he doesn’t want me to leave, but he says nothing else, just steps back.
Two security cars are in front, two behind.
I’m relieved I requested my own private car.
I couldn’t imagine being sandwiched between so many armed men.
Once on the highway, the tension drains from my shoulders. The city stretches endlessly around me, and for the first time in weeks, I can finally breathe. Excitement and freedom course through me in waves I didn’t expect.
I flick on the radio, letting the music fill the car, and I bob my head, feeling lighter with each beat. The rearview mirror shows the escort cars, silent and precise, but I don’t care. I’m moving. I’m choosing. I’m alive.
The highway unfurls ahead, and I press my hand against the window, letting the wind hit my face. For the first time in weeks, the world feels like mine again, even if just for a moment.
All that matters now is Raelyn. Finally, I’m heading toward someone who feels like home.
Halfway through the journey, I notice another car trailing at a measured distance. My pulse quickens, but I tell myself I’m imagining patterns where none exist. But the vehicle doesn’t waver—it’s following me.
Then everything explodes into chaos. My car is forced toward the side of the road. Gunfire shatters the rear windshield, showering me in splinters of glass. I react on instinct, swerving sharply and narrowly avoiding collision. My heart pounds like a drum in my ears.
The escort car behind me immediately engages the attackers, exchanging precise bursts of gunfire. Bullets tear through the air around me. I duck instinctively, gripping the wheel with trembling hands. Adrenaline floods my system, every nerve alive with terror and focus.
For a moment, the world contracts to the narrow line of asphalt ahead, the attackers pressing from behind, my own vehicle a fragile cocoon between life and death. I tell myself: Keep moving. Don’t stop. Don’t die.
The attackers aren’t letting up. Their car edges closer, forcing me further toward the shoulder. My chest burns, my vision narrows, and I feel the raw, biting fear of knowing that if I hesitate for even a second, it’s over.
The escort vehicle fires again, bullets ricocheting and sparking as they hit the guardrails. I hear the scream of tires and metal twisting, the chaos a living thing that wants to swallow me whole.
The attackers slam into my car again. This time, I’m forced against the pavement, the airbag deploying with a violent puff that knocks the wind out of me.
My hands grip the wheel, knuckles white.
Gunfire surrounds me. I don’t dare look up, don’t dare see the full scope, because seeing could mean panic.
Then a voice cuts through it all. It’s familiar, commanding, Russian shouted with authority. I glance up just in time to catch a glimpse of him before my survival instincts push me back into the seat.
Mike.
He’s there. Standing like a god of death. Two guns in his hands, eyes cold and precise. Timofey is at his side, moving in deadly sync, each action controlled, practiced, perfect.
My mouth goes slack. My heart hammers. They don’t hesitate.
Men fall, one by one, bullets finding their marks with surgical precision.
Every move is calculated, brutal, and flawless.
The sheer efficiency of it. Mike’s calm lethality, Timofey’s unwavering force, it unsettles me as much as the attack itself.
I watch through fractured glass, feeling fear and awe twist together inside me.
This isn’t just protection. This is a warning. And somehow, I know: if they weren’t here, I wouldn’t have a chance.
Suddenly, Mike turns toward my car, and I catch a flicker in his expression. It’s a mask of anger and…fear. Fear for me.
Without hesitation, he jerks the driver’s door open and lifts me into his arms. I don’t fight. There’s no point. The chaos, the attack, it’s too much. He folds his body over mine, careful but urgent, and carries me to the car parked across the road.
He sets me gently into the passenger seat, snaps my seatbelt, and moves around to the driver’s side. My body feels bruised, tiny cuts from splintered glass pricking my skin, but I barely notice. His temper—contained, lethal—radiates in waves I can feel even without touching.
Once we pull away, I finally speak. “Are you angry?”
“Yes,” he growls. I flinch, but he turns his gaze on me. “Not at you, Solntse. At the people who attacked you.”
I relax. “How did you find me?”
His answer is calm, matter-of-fact. “I have your location pinned at all times. I noticed a deviation in your route and immediately came after you.”
My chest tightens. I don’t know what to say to that. I’ve never had anyone pay that much attention to me or my safety before.
By the time we reach home, a doctor is already waiting, prepped for minor injuries. But Mike doesn’t hand me over. Not fully. His hands move over my cuts and bruises, deliberate, steady, almost intimate in their attention. He treats even small abrasions like they’re catastrophic.
I feel the intensity of him in a way I haven’t before.
There’s no calculation here. No distance.
Only restrained fury, careful precision, and something disturbingly close to fear, fear that I might be hurt again.
And in that fear, I feel a pulse of something I can’t name, something raw and human beneath the control, the power, the obsession.
It scares me, and yet it draws me in. I can’t look away, can’t move. For the first time, I see not just the predator, but the man who reacts before logic, who arrives before the law, who doesn’t hesitate.
After the doctor leaves, Mike brings me lunch. He sets it down gently on the tray and softly says, “Please, stay in bed.”
I obey without argument.
He sits beside me, takes my hand. I don’t pull away. I let him be closer than I intended, letting the adrenaline and relief weaken the walls I’ve built. He doesn’t exploit my vulnerability—not yet—but the proximity is electric. The tension coils tighter with every quiet second.
“I…can I get a phone?” I ask finally, my voice small. “At least then I can keep in touch with my friends.”
He nods, still holding my hand. “I’ve been preparing one for you. Encrypted. You’ll have it tomorrow.”
I let out a shaky sigh, shutting my eyes. The memory of him in the aftermath of the attack replays in my mind. His decisiveness, his brutality, his protective fire. He didn’t hesitate. Not for a second.
The certainty of his response terrifies me and, in some strange way, reassures me. And as I lay there, feeling the weight of it, a thought coils tighter in my chest: Whoever is orchestrating these attacks knows Mike’s attachment to me…maybe even better than I do.