by Lana Sky
“So,” he begins in a low, gruff tone, “Little Rose has finally decided to grace us with her miraculous return.”
Finally. The emphasis he placed on that word draws my attention. “How…” I wheeze as my chest constricts and take my time forming my next words. “How long was I out?”
“A month,” he says, shrugging. “Maybe more than that. Your injuries were stabilized within a few days, but you…” He grunts a sound that could be mistaken for a laugh had it come from any other man. “The stubborn, spiteful Little Rose wouldn’t let a mere doctor dictate her recovery.”
He enters the room and his scent descends at full force. Sweat and animalistic musk. How long has he been there, watching me? Long enough, a part of me suspects. Long enough to immediately go to the food and wrestle the tray closer.
My stomach grumbles, embarrassingly loud, but when he shoves a spoonful of broth beneath my nose, I shake my head, choosing to speak instead.
“You…lied.”
He drops the spoon into the bowl, spraying broth across the tray’s surface. “Did I now?”
But it’s a reality that haunted me, even as my soul drifted for days at a time.
“Robert,” I rasp. “He’s alive. You lied to me. He’s alive.”
Fire ignites in my jaw and I gingerly reach up, brushing my fingers along the sore tissue. Even that slight motion takes more energy than I have in me. Groaning, I slump back against a wall of pillows, forced to view Mischa from a newer angle.
He’s chuckling, his gaze averted away from me. Down at his hands. The nails are ragged, with a dark substance caught beneath them. Dirt? Or Blood?
“Does his life matter to you that much?”
I frown, caught off guard by the venom in his tone. “You told me he was dead.”
“And as concerned as you are for your husband’s welfare, you should be more concerned for yours.”
Concerned? I open my mouth to reply, but he moves, wrenching the blankets back.
“Look,” he commands.
Startled, I stare down at my pale limbs stretched out beneath a white nightgown. My legs aren’t the only parts of me bandaged: my nightgown has been folded down to my waist, but my chest isn’t bare. Tan bandages constrict it—part of the unbearable pressure I feel.
“You were intubated for three days,” Mischa announces. “Your lung was punctured. It’s barely healed. So I suggest you save the sobbing for your husband’s soul for another week at least—”
“What happened to Nikolaus?”
“What he deserved,” he says. “And you have another surgical scar to join the one from your C-section, Little Rose.”
I cringe at the reference, but the painful memories are easier to ignore in favor of deciphering him. His voice is colder than it was only a few minutes ago. Irritated.
Scowling, he tugs my blankets back into place, covering me again. “If you won’t eat, I can assure you that you’ll be here for another fucking month. Though, hell, that might make it easier for your precious Robert to come for you?”
I’m too tired to feel the full brunt of the terror that threat should inspire. I just let my eyes drift shut and focus on breathing. In. Out. Slower. When I feel confident enough to speak, I don’t even waste any real effort on sounding insulted. “Where is Vanya?”
It’s like my words are his cue. Another figure approaches from the hall, his steps uneven.
“You’re awake,” he calls as I open my eyes again. His wary smile is a godsend. Even Mischa’s brooding presence can’t erase my relief.
“Thank you,” I tell him as he draws up to the other side of my bed. “For caring for me.”
Even now, the gentleness with which he must have done so takes my breath away. A month in bed could have gone so much worse. That I know from experience.
Vanya blinks. “I…” His gaze cuts to Mischa, who abruptly storms from the room. “I’m glad you’re all right,” Vanya says, turning his attention back to me. “You had us worried.”
Us? I don’t question the word choice out loud. Instead, I watch him circle around to the tray of soup. He carefully ladles a bit of broth to my lips and I swallow. When I’ve consumed half the bowl, I gather up the nerve to finally ask, “Did Mischa kill him?”
Nikolaus.
“Yes,” Vanya says as he maneuvers another spoonful to my mouth. His gaze turns inward, alarmingly stern. “The bastard had it coming. I still don’t know how he infiltrated the manor. He wasn’t that smart—”
“Someone else was there,” I rasp. “Another man. He talked about…” I rack my brain for the specifics. “He talked like he knew some details firsthand.”
“So a spy,” Vanya deduces, his gaze cold. “I’ll alert Mischa. But you shouldn’t have to worry about this.” A sigh rips from his mouth as he sets the bowl aside. “You get your rest. I’ll come check on you in the morning.”
He gathers up the empty bowl and leaves, avoiding any further questions. Alone, I can only anticipate Mischa’s next actions.
I’ve angered him, and a sick part of me wonders if I should be relieved.
At least I’ll no longer be his focus.
Chapter 13
“Get up.”
I know instantly that Vanya isn’t the figure I awaken to find standing above me.
Mischa’s clean shaven, his face pale in the dim glow of dawn. Somehow, he looks more unstable this way. Dark circles paint the flesh beneath his eyes, and a muscle in his jaw twitches once he catches me staring.
“The man you say you saw. Did you get a name?”
“What?” My eyebrows furrow. “I…”
“I guess not.” He scoffs, radiating suspicion. “Maybe you’ll remember when that cunning brain of yours decides it’s in your best interest? No matter. It’s time for Vanya to give you your bath. You stink.”
I do. Like sweat, from tossing uncomfortably all night. I smell like fear of what might lurk beneath my scars. I smell like Robert’s wife again.
“Where is he?” I anxiously scan the room for Vanya, but Mischa yanks the blankets from me instead.
He nudges the pillow from under my casted leg and slides a hand beneath both.
I suck in a startled breath. “What are you doing?”
Without warning, he pulls me into his arms.
“S-stop!” I cling to his shoulders—but he isn’t being rough. Not even as he swiftly carries me into a hallway.
We don’t go far. A few doors down from the bedroom, he turns into one bathed in shades of black. His.
He takes me into the bathroom, where running water is filling a sunken tub. A plastic bench is positioned beside it, and an array of tools are within reach. But the man who sets me down and tears at my thin nightgown isn’t the patient, calm Vanya.
Tension stiffens his posture as he snatches up a rag and wets it.
“Lift your arms,” he grates.
I want to refuse, but curiosity is a strange thing.
He starts to wash me without waiting for me to comply, dragging the rag over my exposed thigh. His teeth are gritted, his eyes downcast. But even so…he’s careful. Clinical.
And now I know just who cared for me all these weeks.
The thought of it weighs me down with an unexplainable emotion. Shock? Perhaps. Or maybe resignation to one simple fact I’m too tired to resist: I’ll never fully understand him.
And I’m not sure if it’s a good thing.
Or horrifying.
“Lift your arms,” he commands through gritted teeth.
I obey, alarmed to find that I can only raise the limbs to the height of my shoulder without triggering pain. As Mischa peels down my nightgown and starts to unravel the bandages, I see why. Beneath carefully placed gauze is a half-moon-shaped incision held together by a row of black stitches.
Punctured lung, he said. The kind of injury that I doubt could be safely treated in a mobster’s safehouse.
“Was I in a hospital?”
Mischa continues to tug my nightgown
off, lifting me with one hand to pull the fabric free.
“I have power everywhere, Little Rose,” he says. Power, meaning control. Spies. A presence, should I ever think of running away again.
Warm water spilling across my lap alerts me to the fact that he’s still washing me, guiding the cloth against the bruised flesh of my hip. I suck in a breath and he pauses, letting liquid drip from the rag onto the floor.
“I killed him,” he says, so low that I barely hear him. “With my bare fucking hands.”
I close my eyes against the imagery, but it’s no use. I see Mischa, his hands drenched in blood, his teeth bared, his eyes flashing with crazed menace. And his voice… Something in the cold, satisfied tone he used makes my lips spring apart, rebelling against my common sense warning me to stay silent.
“Is that supposed to impress me?”
“It doesn’t,” he says, sounding unsurprised.
The rag returns to my hip and I jump, anticipating roughness. His pressure, however, never changes, even as his eyes darken.
“One man’s death would never impress the innocent Little Rose—”
“No one’s death would impress me.”
“Oh?” He laughs. “You’re wrong. For all your games, I won’t let you deny it now: All along, deep in your fragile, little soul, you knew he wasn’t dead. You tried resisting it.” He nods to my severed finger. “But you knew. And though you won’t say it out loud, you’re glad he’s still alive. Why?” he asks when I say nothing. “Because for all your fucking insistence to the contrary, you want to see him choke out his last fucking breath for yourself. You won’t believe it until you do. And you don’t want it any other way. Your precious Robert dies when you say he can. Isn’t that right, Little Rose?”
Rather than humor him with an answer, I close my eyes and cling to my one and only escape. Breathe. My nostrils flood with the steam from the running bath and the musk of his sweat, tainted with something sweeter. He scented the water with something. Oil? Soap? It smells like lavender, whatever it is. I can’t ignore it.
That stench makes all of this feel so fucking real. A nightmare wouldn’t be perfumed with flowers. Mischa’s touch wouldn’t be gentle over my bruised, broken limbs.
My heart wouldn’t be swollen with conflicting emotions, and tears wouldn’t be forming behind my eyes, desperate to fall.
I try to breathe, but in the end, all I can do is voice a plea that comes out as a whisper. “I don’t need your help.”
“Fine.”
My eyelids jolt upright as water splashes nearby. He threw the rag into the tub. Without looking back, he stands and marches to the door. Then he wrenches it open and slams it shut behind him. Beneath the pulse of rushing water, I hear myself wheeze as I try to catch my breath. Air is a fickle, elusive thing, rebelliously escaping my lungs.
Maybe I’m afraid. I want to be. Terror is much more preferable to guilt. Shame. Regret.
I attempt to bend for the rag, but it’s too far. I can’t reach the faucet, either—not that I’m left floundering for long. Mischa is like a dog. He’ll run away when spooked, only to circle back snarling, twice as aggressive as before.
“Sit up,” he commands, storming back into the room. He switches off the running water and snatches a new rag from a stack placed just beyond reach of the bench.
As I struggle to haul myself upright, he sinks to his knees and returns to washing me. He’s never too rough or intentionally causes pain. But his shoulders are rigid, his eyes downcast and stormy.
Consoling him feels more like a necessary survival tactic than any form of pity.
“Thank you,” I rasp as he stands and circles the bench. Warm water grazes my back next, soothing aches I didn’t even know I had. “For washing me—”
“For filling in for Vanya, you mean?” His nasty tone betrays an emotion I don’t even think he’s aware of. Could it be wounded pride? “Let’s agree on something, Little Rose.”
He throws the rag down beside me and crouches low again, this time right near my side so that every word strikes my throat in a burst of heat.
“I know you want to be the helpless victim, and I am more than willing to indulge you.” He drags his thumb across my cheek, but there is no clinical care this time. He makes me flinch and smiles when I do. Despite the quirk of his lips, nothing reaches his eyes. They’re endless, fiery pits. “You willingly played the part of your husband’s dutiful doll…and now, you’re mine. I’ll make you dance and scream how I want to. I’ll keep you close, Ellen. So fucking close…” He’s nearer, murmuring each word in my ear. “I’ll make you choke on me. You’ll fucking hate me—but not because of him. Because you’ll need me more. You can’t fucking breathe without me.”
He rises to his feet and approaches the tub. After testing the water with his fingers, he cuts his gaze in my direction. Then he takes his shirt off before tossing it into a corner of the room.
My heart races with every step he advances toward me in no apparent rush. When he grabs me, I tense in anticipation of a pain that never comes.
He’s done this before. I’m sure of that one fact as he places me on the floor beside the tub and begins to encase my cast in something. Plastic. He secures it tightly over the entire plaster. Then he starts to unravel the bandages on my other leg. It must not be as injured as the other, just badly bruised. Sprained, I suspect when I wiggle the toes and wince as lightning-sharp heat surges through the muscle.
I’m resigned to the crippling senses of immobility when he lunges, plunging into the bath despite still wearing his slacks. The next second, I’m in his arms again.
My stomach lurches up my throat as my lower half descends into the warm liquid. I flail, my arms splashing uselessly as my head goes under. Water floods my nostrils, overwhelming my weak lungs—for a second. The next, I’m held tight against a firm, searing surface. Mischa. I’m clinging to him, my nails scraping against his forearms for leverage. Gasping, I find that he’s holding me at an angle, placing more of my upper body into the water while leaving my leg exposed and supported by the edge of the tub.
And now I understand what he means.
His doll.
At his mercy.
At his whims.
He keeps me in the tub just long enough to douse me thoroughly in the places his rag won’t reach. My hair. Between my legs. My once-bandaged leg. Water stings as it sweeps against my injuries, but when my eyes start to water, he carries me from the tub and returns me to the bench.
He towels me off in silence, and I’m forced to bear his resentment. It’s only when he leaves the room and returns with a garment dangling between his fingers that I lose my resolve. I sigh.
“Lift your arms,” he tells me, bringing the nightgown close.
A creation formed of light-pink silk, it looks like something Briar would wear—as a joke. Something too frilly even for Robert’s taste. A mocking caricature of what a living doll might be adorned with: white lace and pink ribbons.
Once I’m dressed, Mischa returns me to the large, white room. The sheets on the bed have been changed, the air scented. Every seemingly kind gesture only unnerves me more. Especially one small detail that catches my eye as I’m lowered to the mattress: He leaves space beside me. The bed is large enough for him to do so, with room to spare, but an extra set of pillows have been placed beside mine. The tray that I assume is for my meals has been moved from its position near the wall toward the opposite end of the room, closer to me.
Leaving the remaining half as the dominion of one person.
He doesn’t say it out loud, not yet. He yanks the covers over me and exits the room without hinting at his true motives.
But Mischa Stepanov is quickly becoming as familiar to me as a damaged, twisted book I have no choice but to study. He’ll be back.
Sooner or later, he’ll be back.
Chapter 14
He lets me luxuriate in the uncomfortable reality of being his doll. For the most part, it’s rather boring, no d
ifferent from my life with Robert. In short, I’m left alone to rot in a room I can’t explore, utterly at his mercy.
Are physical limitations so different from mental ones?
I’m not brave enough to decide on an answer, and approaching footsteps draw my attention, giving me a small reprieve.
Vanya enters the room, carrying a tray between his hands. Another bowl of soup and a thin slice of bread. After perching himself on the end of my side of the bed, he feeds me slowly. All without a word.
Even though there’s something he wants to say.
I can practically see the words straining in his throat, fighting to lurch off the end of his tongue. In the end, he pats the blankets covering me and leaves.
As he fades into the shadow beyond the doorway, I know exactly what he left unsaid. He wanted to warn me.
Of all of his whispered insights into Mischa, one rings the loudest in my memory. “If he thinks you’re worth having, he will never let you go.”
If only it were me he really wants. I’m an expert at selling myself. Molding myself. Suppressing myself. I’ve done it for years under the watchful possession of Robert. Hell, if my life was reversed, I might do it all over again. It’s easy to sacrifice that which you’ve never really had in the first place.
From the day I was born, I was always a burden, forced to hide. Pretend. Submit.
But Mischa… He wants something else. Something more than anyone has ever demanded of me before. Something raw and unguarded, found in the sleep he wrings from me. Something I can’t change, or morph, or control.
I think he wants my soul.
Not to keep, but to break—right between the rough, callused fingertips that graze my forehead, rousing me from a fitful sleep.
It’s darker in the room now. Not quite night, but close. My stomach rumbles, though not from hunger. Just an uneasy apprehension of the unknown.
He switches a light on. With his back to me, he starts to pace. Then he lifts his shirt over his head and tosses it onto the floor. I hear the zipper of his jeans come undone next.
