Shame clung to me like a second skin as I moved through his house. From the dining room to the foyer, then into the living room where my steps faltered. The front door stood just a few feet away, close enough that I could picture it. It would've been so easy, jumping over these ivory sofas, sprinting across the polished floor, throwing myself into the open air. Finally.
But even if I reached it, I knew freedom wasn't waiting on the other side. For one, I didn't know where the hell I was. Didn't know what traps, fences or guards waiting beyond those doors. Running now would only mean I'd die.
"Move."
The nudge came hard between my shoulder blades. The bald one, built like he could lift tractors for fun, grunted in a thick Russian accent.
I shot him a glare but kept walking, the quiet halls swallowing the sound of my footsteps. Every step pulsed with the memory of the garden. His hands on me, the cold ground under my back, the things we'd done and the things I wished I could forget. The hardwood floors felt colder than usual, or maybe I was the one already stripped bare, scraped raw from the inside.
Two of his men followed a few paces behind, giving me the illusion of space. As if I wasn't being herded. As if I wasn't a captive with a leash made of silence and threats.
I kept my eyes straight ahead, silently grateful that no one else was watching. Not that anyone ever was. The house was pristine. Too pristine for the absence of staff. It was as if the servants here existed only in theory, cleaning ghosts in a haunted mansion, disappearing the moment I entered a room.
The layout was already carved into me. I hated that I knew it. Hated even more that my body obeyed it.
When I reached the familiar hallway, my pulse stuttered. Then I stopped.
The door to the bedroom he kept me in stood just ahead of me. Simple, unassuming, mine only in name. A cage disguised as a room.
My breath shook in my chest.
Because without realizing it, without thinking, I had walked the exact path he had expected me to take. I had followed it blindly. Automatically. Like a trained animal.
In just a handful of days, he had broken something in me without my consent.
The shame curled tighter, hot and suffocating, pooling low in my stomach as I stared at the door handle. My fingers trembling at my sides. I had walked into my own cage willingly.
A voice behind me muttered something in Russian, followed by heavy footsteps retreating down the hall. When I turned, the two guards were already gone, replaced by Alexandre himself, standing where they had been only seconds ago.
His arms were crossed loosely over his chest, posture deceptively relaxed. Still dressed in his wine-stained shirt. The dark splash dried against the white fabric, a reminder of everything we've done. Everything we've ruined.
"What are you doing here?" I asked, spinning around, my pulse unsteady. "I thought I made my point clear."
"I'm merely ensuring my asset returned to her room safely."
I rolled my eyes. "Is that how you talk to someone you're so desperate to sleep with? Honestly, it's a miracle you ever convinced a woman to marry you, if that's your idea of charm."
His eyes sharpened immediately, lit with something dangerously alive.
I've struck a nerve. Good.
But instead of snapping, he stalked closer. Step by step, until my spine met the door with a muted thud. His presence crowded the air, thickening it, warming it, making me hard to breathe. Harder to even think.
He leaned down just enough for his voice to skim my skin.
"You may look like my wife," he murmured, low and edged, "but you can never be her. You're not even close. Not on the same level."
His breath ghosted my cheek. The heat of his body pressed against my composure. The insult should've stung. But the way he said it, all dark and possessive, sent something entirely different spiraling through me.
I pushed off the door, just enough to lean into him, meeting his glare with one just as sharp. "Well, I don't care."
His jaw tightened, a muscle ticking hard beneath his skin. "I've shown you nothing but kindness."
"I don't want your kindness," I snapped, the words slipping out before I could stop them. Not that I wanted to. "I want you to let me go."
His mouth curved, not quite a smile. "Even when your mission has failed?" he drawled. "You really want to crawl home empty-handed? Humiliated?" His eyes dragged down to my face, slow and unhurried as if he was reading every flicker of feeling I tried to hide. "Tell me, do I affect you that much that you'd risk throwing away your inheritance?"
A bitter laugh slipped from me. "You don't affect me."
"Liar." The word left him like a verdict.
He stepped closer deliberately, predatory. My back instinctively pressed into the door, even when he hadn't touched me yet. But his presence alone was enough to pin me there.
"You want me to let you go?" he murmured, lowering his head just enough that his breath brushed my jaw. "I could. I could simply step back and let you go."
He lifted his hand. I heard the soft click as he turned the lock behind me.
"But I won't."
My chest tightened.
His gaze dropped to my lips, lingered, then rose again. "I'll have you again, Isla. You can hate me, fight me, deny every truth you body already confessed to me, but it won't matter." His voice darkened, then softened, all at once. "You're mine. And sooner or later, you'll come running back to me on your own."
The words hit like heat at the base of my spine, but I didn't let it get to me. That much.
He stepped back. Not far, just enough to make the distance feel like punishment. His eyes raked over me one last time.
"Goodnight."
He pushed the door open behind me with a cold, effortless gesture. I stumbled inside, but just as I was about to gain my footing, he had already shut the door.
The lock snapped into place with a final, unforgiving click.
"Well, fuck you too!" I slammed my palms against the wood.
My fists pounded harder, fueled by fury and something far more dangerous. The silence on the other side taunted me. Heavy and unmoving, as if he was leaning against the door, listening, savoring every shake in my breath.
"Barinov!"
Nothing.
Only the echo of my own heartbeat, frantic and traitorous, rattling inside the cage he had built around me.