Elena's POV
Days began to blur into a strange, quiet rhythm. The penthouse was a world unto itself, a silent, luxurious satellite detached from the planet below. Elena slept fitfully, woke to grey winter light over the city, and wandered the rooms like a ghost.
She avoided Nikolai. He seemed to do the same, a shadow moving on the other side of the vast space. She'd hear the soft click of his study door, see the light under it late at night. They were two planets orbiting the same sun in cold, distant silence.
The only other people she saw were the silent servants and the ever-present, rotating guards. They were like furniture, polite, unobtrusive, and utterly vigilant. She tried talking to a young guard stationed near the library one afternoon.
"What's your name?" she asked.
He looked straight ahead, his face impassive. "Miss."
"It's a simple question."
"My name is not relevant, Miss. Do you require something from the library?" His tone was not unkind, but it was a wall. She was the principal's daughter, to be protected and monitored, not befriended.
She gave up and pulled a random book from the shelf, a thick history of Byzantine art. She didn't read it. She sat by the window, turning pages, watching the microscopic cars move on streets that felt a lifetime away.
Her first real human contact came on the third day. She was in the kitchen, a clinical, stainless steel wonder, trying to figure out the complicated espresso machine, when an older man walked in. He had a kind, weathered face, warm brown eyes, and moved with a slight limp. He wore a simple driver's uniform.
"Ah, you must be the little angel," he said, his voice a rumble with a thick Russian accent, but his smile was genuine.
Elena stared. "What?"
"Misha," he said, offering a calloused hand. "I drive for Mr. Volkov. And others. He told me about you. Said you had an angel's hands." He nodded toward her, his eyes twinkling.
Elena didn't know what to say. Nikolai had talked about her?
Misha seemed to sense her discomfort. He shuffled over to the espresso machine. "This thing is a monster, no? For show. Here." He reached into a cabinet and pulled out a simple French press and a can of good coffee. "This is how real people make coffee. Sit."
Hesitantly, she sat at the breakfast bar. He moved with a familiar, grandfatherly grace, boiling water, measuring grounds.
"He means well, you know," Misha said, not looking at her. "The boss. His ways are… direct. From a hard world. But keeping you here, it is not from a bad heart. It is from a heart that knows too well what bad hearts can do."
"He kidnapped me," Elena said flatly.
"He brought you to the only safe place," Misha corrected gently. "There is a difference. A big one. Try this." He pushed a mug of rich, dark coffee toward her.
It was the best coffee she'd ever tasted. They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes. It was the first moment that didn't feel like a performance or a prison shift.
"Thank you, Misha," she said quietly.
He patted her hand. "You will be okay, little angel. This storm will pass."
The moment of peace was shattered that evening. She was in her room, trying to read, when she heard raised voices. Not yelling, but the sharp, heated hiss of an argument from somewhere down the hall. She crept to her door and opened it a crack.
Nikolai's study door was slightly ajar. She recognized his low, controlled baritone, simmering with anger. And another voice, colder, sharper, laced with contempt. Alexei.
"…a liability, Nikolai! She's a loose end. A civilian witness with a bleeding heart. Every day she's here, the Orlovs' taunts get louder. They're saying the great Volkov is hiding behind a woman's skirts. It makes us look weak."
"What they think is irrelevant," Nikolai's voice cut through, cold as a blade.
"Is it? Weakness is an invitation! Sentiment will get you killed. Or worse, it will get us killed. She's a problem. Problems need to be solved. Permanently."
Elena's blood froze. She stopped breathing. Permanently.
There was a sound like a hand slamming on a desk. "You will not touch her, Alexei." Nikolai's voice was dangerously quiet, each word a shard of ice. "She is under my protection. Is that clear?"
A long, tense pause. She could almost feel Alexei's fury radiating through the walls.
"Crystal," Alexei finally spat, the word dripping with venom. "But when her kindness gets you a bullet in the brain, don't say I didn't warn you. She's a chink in your armor. And I won't die for your conscience."
Elena heard heavy footsteps. She quickly, silently, shut her door and pressed her back against it, her heart hammering against her ribs.
Nikolai was protecting her. But from who? Just the Orlovs? Or from the wolf in his own den?
Late at night, Elena hears Alexei arguing on the phone, saying, "She's a problem."