Chapter 4: The First Sip of Trust
The heavy ministry doors swung shut behind Alexsi, cutting off the world of ice sculptures and political poison. The cold night air was a shock, clean and sharp in his lungs. He saw the Chaika waiting at the curb, its armored flanks gleaming under a security lamp. Andrey was already in the driver’s seat, a mountain of quiet vigilance.
Alexsi slid into the back. The interior light was off, leaving Mila a silhouette curled against the far door. She wasn’t crying. She was utterly still, a mouse convinced movement meant death. The reek of spilled vodka and male sweat still clung to her torn dress, but beneath it was the copper-tang of blood—Lermontov’s blood, he realized, from when he’d hauled her away from the body.
Wordlessly, Alexsi reached for the soft wool blanket folded on the seat. He didn’t toss it. He unfolded it slowly, the movement broad and visible, and draped it over her shoulders. She flinched at the contact, a full-body spasm, but then the weight seemed to settle her. She pulled the edges tight around herself, vanishing into its folds until only the dark crown of her head and her watchful eyes were visible.
“Here,” he said, his voice gravel-rough from shouting. He uncapped his canteen. “Water. You need to drink.”
Her eyes darted to the metal container, then back to his face. There was no trust there, only a primal fear of further poisoning. He remembered the vodka they’d forced on her.
“It’s not vodka,” he said, softer. “Look.” He brought the canteen to his own lips and took a long, audible swallow. The water was cold and tasted of steel. He held it out to her again, his arm extended, waiting.
For a long moment, she didn’t move. Then, with a trembling hand that emerged from the blanket, she took it. Her fingers brushed his, ice against ice. She drank in small, desperate gulps, her throat working, water slipping from the corner of her mouth. She drank until she choked, handing it back as if it were a live grenade.
“Good,” Alexsi murmured. He recapped it.
Andrey started the engine. The low growl vibrated through the chassis. “East quarter? The Aurora?” His voice was a low rumble from the front.
“Yes. Fast, but not fast enough to draw attention,” Alexsi said, his eyes never leaving Mila. He saw her listening, her brow furrowed in concentration beneath the smeared makeup.
“Your father’s men will be licking their wounds. Might try to follow.”
“Let them try. You see a tail, you lose it.”
Andrey gave a grunt of affirmation and pulled away from the curb. The city slid by, a blur of neon and shadow. The tense quiet stretched, punctuated only by the hum of the engine and the soft, shaky rhythm of Mila’s breathing. Alexsi watched the lights play across her face, the bruises now vivid in the passing glare. The careful, shame-concealing powder had been utterly erased by sweat and tears and violence.
He leaned his head back against the seat, exhaustion a lead weight in his bones. “We’ll get you cleaned up. You’re safe now. No one is coming into that room but us.”
Andrey met his eyes in the rearview. “Need to get a medic to look at her, Lex. Shock. Maybe internal injuries from those animals.”
“No doctors,” Alexsi said, the memory of his father’s offer—a new girl, a clean one—making his jaw tight. “Not yet. Not unless she asks.”
It was then that a small, broken voice emerged from the blanket. “I understand you.”
The words were in Russian. Perfect, unaccented, classroom Russian.
Alexsi went very still. The horror unfurled in his gut, cold and slick. He turned his head slowly to look at her. She had shrunk back further, pressing herself into the leather as if hoping it would absorb her.
“You… understand Russian,” he repeated, his own voice hollow.
A tiny, jerky nod. Her eyes were huge pools of black terror in the dim light. “I… I studied. At the trade school. Before… before everything.” She swallowed. “I am sorry I did not say. I was afraid. They told me to be silent, to only speak my language when spoken to. To be… an ornament.”
The horror crystallized, sharp and cutting. She had understood. All of it. The crude jokes in the antechamber before the ceremony. The minister’s dry, legalistic description of the marriage as a “transfer of chattel.” The leering comments from Sokolov about breaking in the new mare. His own father’s cold calculus in the study moments ago. If she is damaged, we can annul. Every vile, dehumanizing word spoken over her head as if she were furniture.
“Oh, God,” Alexsi breathed, the profanity slipping out. He saw her flinch at it. She thought it was directed at her.
“I lied,” she whispered, the words tumbling out in a frantic, tear-choked rush. “I am sorry. Please. Do not be angry. I will not do it again. I will be good, I will be quiet, I will—”
“Mila.” He said her name to stop the torrent. He said it gently, but it was a command. She fell silent, her breath hitching. “Look at me.”
It took her a long moment to obey. When she did, her expression was one of expecting a blow.
“I am not angry,” he said, forcing each word to be calm, clear, and unmistakably sincere. “Not at you. Never at you for that. I am… I am so sorry. That you had to hear any of that. That you had to live through it with understanding.” He ran a hand over his face, the weariness now mixed with a disgust so profound it felt like sickness. “You have nothing to apologize for. Nothing.”
From the front seat, Andrey let out a long, low sigh that was itself a curse. “Clever girl,” he said, his voice surprisingly gentle coming from such a massive frame. “That must have been its own special hell. I’m sorry too.”
Her eyes darted between the two men, confusion and a sliver of something else—bewilderment at the absence of expected punishment—warring with the fear. The Chaika slowed for a turn, the city giving way to the wider, darker avenues leading to the exclusive east quarter.
The relative kindness seemed to break something loose in her. The terror mutated, twisting into a desperate, pragmatic survival instinct. Her gaze fixed on Alexsi, on his hands, then dropped to his belt. Her thought process was almost visible: He is a man. He has protected me so far. He has claimed me. Now he will expect payment. All men expect payment. If I do not pay, he will discard me. He shot a man for touching me. What will he do to me if I refuse him?
Her hand, small and pale, shot out from the blanket with startling speed. Her fingers fumbled against the front of his trousers, a clumsy, frantic stroke. Then they went for his belt buckle, nails scraping against the brass.
“No!” The word tore out of Alexsi, more shock than anger. He caught her wrist before she could undo the clasp. Her bones felt like a bird’s, so fragile he feared he’d snap them. She fought his grip, not to attack, but to continue her terrible mission, her breaths coming in short, sharp whimpers.
“Mila, stop. Look at me. Stop.” He used his commander’s voice, the one that could halt a charging platoon. It froze her. She went limp in his grasp, her head bowed, awaiting the backhand that usually followed disobedience.
“I am not going to hurt you,” he said, his voice dropping back to that soft, firm register. He did not let go of her wrist, but his hold was no longer restraining, just containing. “And you do not have to do that.Ever. Do you understand? Not with me. Not to stay safe. Not for any reason.”
She was crying now, silent tears cutting through the grime on her cheeks. “But… you shot him. For touching me. You must… you must want…” She couldn’t finish. The logic of her world was inescapable.
“I shot him because he was raping you,” Alexsi said, the words blunt and clean. “Because it was wrong. Not because he was touching what belongs to me. You do not belong to me. You are not goods, damaged or otherwise.” He released her wrist slowly. She pulled her hand back to her chest as if burned. “Is that what you think? That I see you as… damaged goods?”
A tiny, miserable nod. “Everyone does,” she whispered. “My uncle. The minister. Those men. I am used. Spoiled. Now my family cannot get a good price. They will be angry. They will take me back and… and punish me. Or you will send me back because I am ruined.” A fresh wave of terror seized her. “Please. Do not send me back. My uncle… he is the one who made the deal. He took the money. He is a bad man. He has done worse to others. Please.”
The confession hung in the air. Her family trafficked her. The political marriage was just a glossy label on a crude, age-old evil. Alexsi exchanged a look with Andrey in the mirror. His friend’s face was stony, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.
“You are not going back,” Alexsi stated, leaving no room for argument. “Not to them. Not ever. That is a promise.” He paused, choosing his next question carefully. “Mila, how did you get the bruises? Before tonight.”
She looked at her own hands, clenched in the blanket. “My uncle. When I protested. When I said I would not go. And… and my cousin held me down.” She took a shuddering breath. “They also… they said I could not run. So they made it so I could not.”
A new, specific chill went through Alexsi. “How?”
Wordlessly, she shifted under the blanket. With a grimace of pain, she pushed one foot out from beneath the hem of her ruined dress. In the passing glow of a streetlight, Alexsi saw it. The silk stocking was torn and bloody. But it wasn’t the fabric that was cut. The soles of her feet, both of them, were a crosshatch of angry, deep lacerations. Deliberate, cruel cuts meant to make every step agony. A farmer hamstringing a cow.
“Jesus Christ,” Andrey breathed, having glimpsed it in the mirror.
Rage, white and pure, blinded Alexsi for a second. It was a different rage than from the green room. That had been hot and immediate. This was colder, deeper, a vow of retribution filed away in a dark corner of his soul. Her uncle.
“Okay,” Alexsi said, his voice dangerously calm. “That’s it. You are not walking another step. Not until those are healed.” He moved decisively. “Andrey, pull over up here. Not at the hotel entrance.”
Andrey swung the Chaika into a dim service alley beside the grandiose facade of the Aurora Hotel. The back door was unmarked, for staff and discretion.
Before Mila could react or protest, Alexsi leaned over. “I am going to carry you. It will be easier. Is that alright?”
She stared at him, bewildered by the request for permission. She gave a tiny, uncertain nod.
He slid one arm under her knees, the other behind her back, and lifted her from the seat. She was startlingly light, a bundle of bones and blanket. She gasped, her arms instinctively looping around his neck for stability, then she froze, as if remembering she was not supposed to touch him so familiarly.
“It’s okay,” he murmured, stepping out of the car. The cold night air hit them. Andrey was already out, a looming shadow scanning the alley. He reached back into the car and retrieved the canteen.
“I have you,” Alexsi said, shifting her weight slightly. “Just relax.”
Andrey fell into step beside them as Alexsi walked toward the service entrance. “Suite 614 is ready. Clean, quiet. Top floor corner. No adjoining rooms.”
“Good.”
Mila was rigid in his arms, her face buried against his shoulder, hiding from the world. As they walked, Alexsi kept talking, a low, steady stream of gentle, true things.
“We’re going to a suite. Big rooms. A big bed, all for you. There’s a bath. Deep tub. We can get you some clean clothes. Whatever you want to eat, we’ll get it. You can sleep for a week if you want. No one will come in. Andrey or I will be right outside the door, all night, every night. Not inside,” he emphasized. “Outside. Your space is yours.”
Andrey chimed in, his voice trying for lightness. “I hear they have pastries from France at the breakfast buffet. Little chocolate ones. We’ll get you a whole tower of them.”
They entered through the service door, into a warm, dim corridor with polished floors. A hotel manager in a discreet suit was waiting, having been alerted by Andrey earlier. His eyes widened slightly at the sight of the decorated Commander Volkov carrying a bruised, blanket-swathed woman, but years of servicing the elite had trained his face to impassivity. He merely nodded and led them to a private elevator.
The ride up was silent. Mila’s grip on Alexsi’s neck tightened.