Chapter 3: The Leash and the Promise
The man sat on the edge of the velvet divan, his huge frame making the ornate furniture look stupidly small. He was dressed in the simple linen trousers and tunic Anya had laid out, the fabric straining across his shoulders. He stared at his own hands as if he’d never seen them before. The drugs were wearing off, leaving behind a thick, toxic haze of confusion and the raw, screaming ache of humiliation.
Anya perched on a low stool a few feet away, watching him. Rustam leaned against the wall by the door, a silhouette of pure vigilance, his arms folded. The silence was a living thing, crowded with everything that had just happened.
“You’re in the Kremlin’s midway station,” Anya said, her voice low but clear. It wasn’t the honeyed tone she used for Kaderov or his guests. This was flat, factual, a clean needle of truth. “A sort of guest house for… transactions. My name is Anya. This is Rustam. You belong to Kaderov. He is the warlord who controls this territory. But you are in my quarters. For now.”
The man’s eyes, a pale, washed-out blue, flicked up to her face. He didn’t speak. His breath was still too shallow.
“I won’t hurt you,” she continued. “He will not hurt you.” She nodded towards Rustam. “Unless you try to hurt me. Then he will kill you. Very quickly. So don’t do that.”
Rustam gave a single, slow nod, his dark eyes fixed on the man. A confirmation.
“I don’t want anything from you,” Anya said. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “I don’t want a pet, or a servant, or… anything else. You can sit here. You can sleep. You can eat. That’s it. Do you understand?”
A muscle twitched in the man’s jaw. He looked from her to Rustam and back again, the calculation visible beneath the fog. Trust was impossible here. He was weighing threats, exits, weaknesses.
“Why?” The word was a rough scrape from his throat, rusty from disuse or screaming.
Anya sat back. Why. The question echoed in the silent, opulent room. She looked past him, at the portrait of some stern-faced tsar on the wall, the canvas cracked like dry earth.
She’d just had enough.
It was that simple, and that stupid. A cumulative weight, grain by grain, that finally made the scale tip. That day, walking through the colossal bazaar in the adjacent oblast, the air thick with the smells of roasting meat, spices, and the underlying reek of human sweat and animal dung. Kaderov was playing tour guide for a pack of oily dignitaries, showing off his control, the vibrant chaos of his domain. Rustam was a step behind her left shoulder, a constant, solid presence, his eyes missing nothing.
The market had beautiful things. Silks that flowed like water, intricate silver jewellery, stacks of Persian carpets in colours so deep they felt like falling. Anya had admired them with a hollow, practised smile. But her feet, clad in soft leather boots, had carried her with a will of their own, pulling her away from the glitter and towards a different current—a darker, faster, meaner stream of commerce.
They turned a corner.
The auction block wasn’t hidden. It was a flat, raised concrete slab stained with things she didn’t let herself identify. A crowd of men—buyers, traders, bored lieutenants—stood around it. And on it, he was being disassembled.
A huge, strong, Soviet-looking man. That was her first, detached thought. Like a statue from some socialist realist mural, all broad plains and squared angles. They’d stripped him to his underwear, his pale skin goosefleshed in the cool air. His hands were bound behind him with coarse rope that bit into his wrists. A man in a leather vest was pulling his head back by the hair, forcing him to show his teeth to the crowd like a horse. Another was running hands over his biceps, his shoulders, squeezing muscle, estimating worth per pound.
He’d been forced to his knees. His body was heaving, not with sobs, but with ragged, shuddering breaths of pure animal panic. His eyes were wide and unfocused, the pupils huge and black. Drugged. They had him drugged to keep him compliant, to mute the fight that was obviously in him. To make him a manageable thing.
Something in Anya’s chest, something that had been coiled tight for years, snapped.
She didn’t think. She just moved. She felt Rustam’s subtle shift behind her, his readiness tuning to a higher, sharper frequency. She walked straight to Kaderov, who was laughing at some joke an Azeri oilman had made.
“My lord,” she said, layering her voice with a whimsical, capricious note. It made her skin crawl. “I want that one.”
Kaderov turned, his eyebrows raised. He followed her gaze to the block. “The beast on the slab? Anya, darling, he’d break you in half. He’s for the mines or the fighting pits.”
“I’m bored,” she shrugged, a petulant twist to her mouth. “The little Dagistani maid you gave me is too quiet. I want a project. A pet. You have the drugs to keep him soft, don’t you? And Rustam is always there.” She gestured vaguely behind her. “I can civilize him. I’m sure he can be… useful.”
The words tasted like poison. Civilize him. Useful. Reducing a human to a broken tool. Kaderov’s eyes lit up with delight. It was perfect for him—a display of his boundless generosity to his prized captive, and a chance to showcase Anya’s own perceived decadence and base tastes to his guests. Look how spoiled his bird was, asking for a dangerous brute as a plaything.
“A generous gift!” he boomed, clapping her on the shoulder. “For your continued… companionship.” He nodded to one of his guards, peeling notes from a thick roll. The transaction took seconds.
One of the men in the party, an Arab prince from the Gulf who had been a occasional, complicated fixture in this world for years, caught her eye. He knew her better than most. His glance was a silent question, a raised eyebrow of disapproval. She leaned in close as if adjusting her shawl, her lips barely moving, the words a rapid, venomous whisper in Arabic.
“Stop being dumb. Buy the beast yourself if it offends you. Or better yet, hurry up and get me out of this political hellhole yourself. Your condolences are worthless.”
He blinked, the amusement fading from his face, replaced by a cold, sober understanding. He gave a minute, almost imperceptible nod. They both knew the truth. His hands were tied by layers of diplomacy and his own family’s interests. And he would, if he could. The moment passed.
She had to stand there then, smiling faintly, as the man who was now hers was dragged off the block. They put a leather collar around his neck and attached a lead. He stumbled, still drugged, his bare feet scraping on the rough ground, as one of Kaderov’s men paraded him past her like a prize hound. The humiliation was a physical force in the air. She met his glassy, uncomprehending eyes for a second before looking away, her heart a cold, hard stone in her chest.
Back in the present, the man on her divan was still waiting for an answer.
“I was bored,” Anya said, echoing the lie she’d fed Kaderov. It was easier than the truth. The truth was too fragile, too dangerous to say out loud. I saw a piece of suffering I could maybe stop, just for a minute. I don’t know what to do with you, but I couldn’t leave you there.
The man stared at her. He didn’t believe her. But he was too exhausted, too shredded, to challenge it.
Rustam pushed off the wall. “You need food,” he stated, his Dagistani accent thickening the words. He looked at Anya. “Both. You did not eat at that circus.”
He moved to a sideboard where a covered silver tray sat. He brought it over, setting it on the low table between them. Flatbread, hard cheese, a bowl of olives, some dried apricots. Simple, sturdy food. He tore a piece of bread, topped it with cheese, and handed it to Anya first. A command. She took it, nibbled without appetite.
Then Rustam prepared another, larger portion. He didn’t hand it to the man. He placed it carefully on the table within his reach, then took several deliberate steps back, reclaiming his post by the door. An invitation, not a demand.
The man looked at the food, then at Rustam’s retreating back. Hunger warred with suspicion. Survival won. His huge hand shot out, snatched the bread and cheese, and shoved it into his mouth. He ate like an animal, barely chewing, his eyes darting around the room as he did.
“Slow,” Rustam said, not unkindly. “Or you will be sick. The drugs are still in you.”
The man ignored him, finishing the first portion and grabbing for more. Anya watched, sipping from a glass of water Rustam had also wordlessly provided. She felt a profound, weary sadness. This was what she’d taken on. Not a person, not yet. A traumatized creature, all instinct and fear.
“What is your name?” she asked softly, when his eating slowed.
He froze, a piece of bread halfway to his mouth. He lowered it. For a long time, he was silent, as if remembering the word, or deciding if it was safe to give it up.
“Mikhail,” he finally muttered, staring at the floor.
“Mikhail,” Anya repeated. It was a common name. A strong name. It suited him. “I am Anya. He is Rustam.”
Mikhail’s eyes lifted to Rustam. “Dagistani?”
Rustam gave another single nod.
A flicker of something passed over Mikhail’s face—not recognition, but a geographical understanding. A placing of pieces on a map. He was from the north, his accent placing him somewhere past Moscow. They were all far from home.
“You cut the ropes,” Mikhail said to Anya, the statement an accusation.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“They were too tight.”
He shook his head, a frustrated, ragged motion. The logic of kindness was alien here. It was a trick, a trap. It had to be.
The fever of the previous week felt like a distant dream to Anya, but the residual weakness clung to her bones. She understood his disorientation on a cellular level. The world was unstable, shifting beneath your feet. You reached for anchors.
“Get some sleep, Mikhail,” she said, standing up. The movement made her lightheaded. Rustam’s gaze sharpened on her. “The divan is yours. There is a blanket. The door is locked from the outside, and Rustam will be there. No one will come in tonight.”
She walked towards the arched doorway that led to her bedchamber. She paused, looking back. Mikhail was watching her, his body still coiled with tension.
“The first night is the worst,” she said, and it wasn’t just for him. “It gets… different. Not better. But you learn the shape of the cage.”
She left him there, sitting in the gilded gloom of the sitting room.
In her bedchamber, the air was still and cool. The peeling murals of warlords seemed to watch with more indifference than the tsars outside. She sat on the edge of the iron bedframe, the one Rustam had pressed his back against night after night during her sickness.
He entered a minute later, closing the door softly behind him. The public stoicism melted from his face, leaving only deep lines of fatigue and concern.
“That was a bad idea,” he said quietly, his voice a rumble in the quiet.
“I know.”
“He is strong. When the drugs are gone, the fear will turn to anger. I see it in him.”
“I know that, too.”
Rustam came over and sat beside her. The bed dipped under his weight. He didn’t touch her, just sat in solid companionship. “Why, aziz?” he asked, using the Dagistani endearment. His question held no judgement, only a search for understanding.
Anya looked at her hands. “I just… couldn’t watch it anymore, Rustam. One more second of it. It was like a weight. I had to lift it, just to breathe.”
He was silent for a moment. “The weight is now in our sitting room. And it is a heavy one.”
A weak laugh escaped her. “Yes. It is.”
“I will watch him. You must sleep. You are still pale.” He reached out then and pressed the back of his knuckles to her forehead, checking for fever with a practicality that was more intimate than any caress. “Cool.”
“I have you to thank for that,” she said, thinking of the smuggled IV, his voice reading aloud in the dark.
He stood up. “I will be at the door. Both doors.” He meant the outer one to the corridor, and the one between her and Mikhail. He hesitated. “He asked ‘why’. You gave a good answer. ‘They were too tight.’ It is a true answer. He may understand that one, in time.”
He left her then.
Anya lay back on the sheets, listening. She heard the faint creak of the divan in the other room as Mikhail finally lay down. She heard the soft, definitive thud of Rustam’s body settling against the main door, a barricade of flesh and bone.
Her mind replayed the auction block, the feel of the rough rope under her knife as she sawed through Mikhail’s bonds, the vacant terror in his eyes. She had wanted to stop a piece of suffering. She had, perhaps, for a moment. But she had also brought that suffering into her fragile sanctuary. She had added a volatile, unknown element to the precarious balance of her life with Rustam.
Kaderov was delighted. That was the most dangerous part. He saw it as a game, a deepening of her corruption. He would be watching now, waiting to see what she did with her new “pet.” The Arab prince’s warning glance meant something, but it was a thread too thin to cling to.
In the darkness, Anya closed her eyes. She had done the thing. The consequences were here, breathing raggedly in the next room, guarded by the man she loved. There was no going back. The only way was through, one tense, unpredictable hour at a time.
A faint sound came from the sitting room—a muffled, broken gasp, quickly stifled. Mikhail was trying not to cry. Anya lay perfectly still, listening to that solitary struggle in the dark, and felt the walls of her gilded cage press in just a little closer.