26. Ilya
ILYA
Something is very wrong.
Last night, she was shivering in my arms, clutching my shirt like she was trying to merge her skin with mine.
She whispered that he was coming, her voice carrying a raw, physical terror I've never heard from her. She tried to brush it off as a nightmare, but she’s a terrible liar.
She left the bed early this morning to go to the garden with Ekaterina, but she was still pale, her shoulders carrying that stiff, defensive tension.
My gut is screaming. Something happened, and she is keeping a secret from me.
I start searching our bedroom, tossing her side of the closet and her drawers, hunting for whatever triggered her panic.
I finally stop by her vanity, my fingers brushing against a silver hairpin she left on the polished wood.
The room still smells like her—lavender, sweet vanilla, and the warm scent of her skin from the night we spent locked in each other’s arms. My shoulder is stiff, the bandage tight under my shirt, but I barely feel the ache as I pull open the vanity's velvet-lined drawer.
My hand pauses on a small, silk-lined jewelry tray tucked near her perfume bottles.
Resting right in the center of the delicate glass dish is a thick band of bright, polished platinum.
The pear-cut diamond catches the morning sun, throwing a cold, blinding spark against my palm as I pick it up. My blood instantly turns to solid ice, a heavy, suffocating weight dropping into my chest so fast, I can't draw air.
I know this ring.
It’s the proposal ring. The one Mikhail gave her before I turned his wedding into a slaughterhouse.
Next to the ring, resting on a small, clean handkerchief, are a few dry, crushed white petals. A dried lily.
He was here. That fucker was here!
My fingers clench around the platinum band, the diamond biting deep into my palm until it draws blood.
He bypassed my guards, my cameras, and my thermal sensors, and he left his mark right on my doorstep.
And she hid it.
She found it, she brought it into our bedroom, and she tucked it away in her jewelry tray like a quiet, dirty secret she didn't want the warden to see.
I spin on my heel, my boots heavy and loud on the hardwood floor as I storm out of the bedroom and slam the doors behind me.
Dmitri is standing at the bottom of the grand staircase, his tablet in hand, talking to Lev. They both stop when they see my face, the smiles instantly vanishing from their jaws as they step back into the shadow of the archway.
"Blackout," I growl, the word dropping into the quiet foyer like a heavy iron weight. "Now."
Dmitri’s brow furrows, his hand dropping to his side. "Ilya? The Vostok transfer is clearing—"
"I don't care about the transfer!" I close the distance between us, grabbing him by the collar of his jacket and dragging him into my space.
My voice is a flat, freezing whisper that makes Lev step back toward the door.
"Lock the gates. No one leaves. No one enters. Put five men on Ekaterina’s door, and if I see a single enforcer looking at their phone instead of the tree line, I will put a bullet in their head myself.
We are under a total security blackout. Do it now. "
Dmitri looks at the silver ring clenched in my fist, his eyes widening as he realizes the reality of the threat. He doesn't ask questions. He nods once, his face turning into a hard, static mask. "Lev, get the sweepers. I want the entire southern wall cleared by noon."
They disperse immediately.
I turn back toward the stairs, my boots taking the steps two at a time. The protective, quiet warmth I’ve been carrying in my chest since the garden is completely gone, burned to ash by a raw, primitive rage.
I kick the double doors of our bedroom open, the heavy oak slamming against the wall with a deafening crack that echoes through the high ceiling.
Via is standing near the French doors, her hair falling over her shoulders in a golden tangle. She flinches at the sound, her hands flying to her hips, her hazel eyes instantly narrowing as she sees my face. She looks small in her grey sweater, but her chin lifts with that familiar, stubborn pride.
"Do you usually destroy the woodwork when you're in a bad mood, or is this a special performance for my benefit?" She walks toward me, her bare feet silent on the rug. "You’re acting like a child, Ilya."
I walk straight into her space, my height completely blocking out the morning light from the window. I raise my right hand, opening my fist to let the platinum ring clatter loudly onto the vanity behind her. The diamond rolls against her perfume bottles, stopping next to the silver hairpin.
The color instantly drains from her face. She looks at the ring, then back up at my face, her lips parting as her breath hitches in her throat.
"Where did you find it?"
She takes a step back, her back hitting the edge of the vanity, her hands gripping the wood behind her. "It... it was on the side porch. Inside a dead bird’s mouth. Yesterday morning."
"And you brought it inside." I step closer, my chest pressing against hers, my shadow completely swallowing her.
"You found a direct threat from a dead man on my doorstep, and instead of telling the security detail, instead of telling the man who took a bullet for you just days hours ago, you hid it in your jewelry box. "
"I was trying to be strong!" She looks me straight in the eye, her voice rising, her chest heaving under her sweater. "I didn't want you to go into some crazy, paranoid red alert! I knew you’d lock me in this room and never let me see the sun again! I don't need you to fight my battles for me."
"You’re an idiot," I say, the word dropping between us like a slap. "You’re an arrogant, foolish girl who thinks she’s playing a game of chess.
Mikhail walked up to my door. He bypassed twenty armed guards, he stood on my stone step, and he left a dead bird with your proposal ring inside.
He could have walked into this bedroom and cut your throat while you were sleeping, and you kept it a secret because you didn't want to be 'locked in a room'? "
"He wouldn't have cut my throat!" She pushes against my chest, her small hands clawing at my shirt, her face flushed with a desperate, angry red. "He wants me, Ilya! He’s trying to lure my father out, and he’s using me to do it! If I told you, you’d burn my father's safe houses to find him!
You don't care about my safety—you just care about your precious docks and your pride! "
"My pride?" I grab her wrists, my fingers locking around her bones like two steel handcuffs, forcing her hands down to her sides.
"I just spent five million of my own cash to keep your father’s security detail from walking.
I stood in front of a bullet to keep you breathing. And you think this is about my pride?"
"It is!" She twists in my grip, her eyes burning with a wild, furious fire. "You’re exactly like my father! You’re just another brutal, grumpy man who thinks he can keep pretty things in cages! You don't want a wife, Ilya. You want a trophy you can lock in a vault so no one else can touch it!"
"Don't compare me to Petr," I growl, my jaw clenching so hard my teeth ache. "Your father gave you away to keep his cargo lanes open. He sold you to a monster because he was too weak to protect you himself."
"And what are you doing?" she screams, her face inches from mine, her breath hot against my mouth. "You’re locking the doors! You’re doubling the guards! You’re turning this entire house into a prison! You’re exactly the same!"
The verbal explosion snaps the last thread of my control.
I hear a strong siren ring in my head and all I see is red.
I shove her backward, her body slamming flat against the wood of the bedroom door.
Before she can draw a breath to scream, my right hand goes straight to her neck, my fingers wrapping around the column of her throat in a steel collar.
I don't squeeze, I don't stop her air, but the pressure is absolute, keeping her pinned flat against the oak, her feet barely touching the floor.
The bedroom goes dead silent, the only sound the rapid, terrified hiss of her breathing.
She stares up at me, her hazel eyes wide, glassy, and completely dark with a sudden, raw shock. She isn't fighting now. Her hands are gripping my forearm, her fingers digging into my muscle, but her body is entirely still under my weight.
"I am not your father, Viallentinka," I rasp.
"Your father kept you in a cage because he was afraid of the dark. I am the man who will burn this entire city to ash to keep your heart beating. You will not leave this house. You will not see the garden. And you will not look at another door until I have put Mikhail’s head in the ground. "
Her lower lip trembles, her chest heaving against mine, but her eyes don't drop. She stares back at me with a desperate, furious hatred that makes my stomach turn.
"You're a monster, Ilya," she whispers, her voice a thin, ragged thread against my hand.
"I am," I say, my face cold and blank. "And it's time you remembered it."
I release her neck, my hand dropping to my side.
She slides down the wood of the door, her knees slightly bucking before she catches her balance, her hand rising to cover the red skin of her throat.
She’s shaking, her shoulders tensing, her gold hair falling over her face as she stares at the floor.
I turn and walk out of the bedroom, my boots heavy on the threshold. I step into the hallway, grab the heavy iron key from the casing, and slide the double doors shut.
The lock engages with a loud, heavy clunk that echoes through the quiet corridor.
I turn the key, locking her inside from the outside, the cold metal heavy in my hand.
Dmitri is waiting at the end of the hall, his arms crossed, his face shadowed by the dim light of the corridor. He looks at the key in my hand, then at the closed door. "Is she locked in?"
"Yes," I say, my voice flat, cold, and final as I slide the key into my pocket. "Tell the gate guards to prepare the car. We’re going to the southern channel."
"Ilya, she’s going to hate you for this," Dmitri says, his voice quiet.
"She can hate me all she wants," I growl, walking past him toward the stairs. "But she’s going to do it while she’s still breathing."