Chapter Five: Emilia

The bullet sat in the velvet box like a tiny promise of death.

I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until Aleksei reached out and gently closed the lid. His hand brushed mine for a second—warm, steady, calloused. And then the contact was gone, and I was left with the weight of that single phrase echoing in my head:

For the ballerina. One shot. One warning.

I’d grown up in the orbit of danger. Guns in drawers. Men with broken knuckles and sharp eyes. I’d danced on bloodstained floors, and kissed my brother’s cheek after he’d returned home from meetings that ended in screams.

But this was different.

This was personal.

A direct message. Not to Mikhail. Not to scare him.

To scare me.

And it worked.

I backed away from the table slowly. My hands were trembling, and I hated it. I didn’t want Aleksei to see me like this, didn’t want him to think I was weak or frightened. But when I met his eyes, I saw none of the disgust or mockery I expected.

Just calculation. And something darker beneath it.

Protectiveness.

“I want to leave,” I whispered.

“You can’t.”

I snapped my head toward him. “You don’t get to tell me what I can or can’t do.”

“Yes,” he said calmly, “I do. If you step outside that door, you’ll be dead within twenty-four hours.”

I let out a bitter laugh. “So that’s it? You lock me in a house and expect me to smile while people send bullets with my name on them?”

He took a step forward, and I instinctively stepped back—only to hit the wall behind me.

“You think I like this?” he asked, his voice low, dangerous. “You think I enjoy caging someone who doesn’t deserve it?”

“Then why are you doing it?” I asked. “Why follow orders like some soldier without a soul?”

He leaned in closer. “Because Mikhail saved my life. And because keeping you alive is the only way I repay that debt.”

“Then I’m just another job to you.”

Something flickered in his eyes. A crack in the stone.

“No,” he said quietly. “You’re not.”

The air between us changed.

We both felt it. The shift. The line that blurred for just a second between protector and prisoner, between the enemy and something else. His gaze dropped to my mouth. My heart thudded once, hard like it wanted out of my chest.

I looked away.

“I need air,” I muttered, pushing past him.

He didn’t stop me this time.

I walked out onto the back deck, wrapping my arms around myself as the cold wind hit my face. The lake was frozen, the trees swaying like ghosts in the distance. I drew in a shaky breath, trying to calm the panic coiling in my gut.

I wanted to scream. To throw something. To cry.

But I didn’t do any of that.

Instead, I sat on the cold wooden step and stared at the ice.

When I was little, I used to dance for Mikhail in the living room of our apartment, my bare feet thudding on cracked floorboards while he clapped and whistled. Back then, I thought love was protection. I thought family meant safety.

But now I knew the truth.

Love was control. Safety was an illusion. And I was just a pawn in a world that used bullets as punctuation marks.

The sliding door opened behind me. I didn’t turn around.

“You shouldn’t be out here,” Aleksei said.

“Do you do anything besides tell people what they shouldn’t do?”

A pause. Then, “I used to.”

That made me turn.

He stood in the doorway, arms crossed, eyes shadowed. Snow had begun to collect on his shoulders, but he didn’t seem to notice.

I hated how good he looked in the cold. Like he belonged to it. Like the winter bowed to him.

“You used to what?” I asked.

He walked over and crouched beside me.

“I used to want things,” he said. “Before I learned the cost of wanting.”