The discharge papers didn't feel like a release; they felt like a death warrant signed in clinical ink.
I sat on the edge of the hospital bed, swallowed by a set of oversized clothes my mother had brought from home. They smelled of my old life—lavender detergent and the dusty, comforting air of our cramped apartment. But when I caught my reflection in the darkened window, I didn't recognize the girl staring back. My skin was a ghostly parchment, my eyes were hollowed by trauma, and a jagged, angry scar traced the edge of my hairline like a lightning bolt.
"Are you ready, Jessy?" my mother asked. She hovered by the door, her eyes darting nervously toward the two men standing in the hallway.
They weren't hospital security. They wore sharp, slate-grey suits and coiled earpieces, their posture suggesting concealed submachine guns. They didn't look at us; they looked through us, scanning the corridor for threats I couldn't see.
"Who are they, Mom?" I whispered, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
"Yuri's men," she said, her voice dropping to a terrified, fragile breath. "He said it wasn't safe for you to go back to the apartment. He said the people who hit your car... they're still hunting you."
"And you just believed him?" I stood up, my knees feeling like poured jelly. "He's a stranger, Mom! He's a criminal—I saw the darkness in his eyes."
"He bought your life, Jessy!" she snapped, her eyes suddenly brimming with the tears of the desperate. "The hospital bill alone was more than we'll earn in a decade. Your father... he did something unforgivable. He stole from the wrong people and vanished. Yuri is the only reason they haven't burned our world down yet."
The air left my lungs in a silent wheeze. My father. Even in his absence, he was a ghost that continued to haunt my bloodline, finding new ways to ruin me from the shadows.
The door pushed open, and Yuri Volkov stepped in. Today, he was draped in a navy-blue suit, looking every bit the polished billionaire—save for the lethal, predatory stillness of his posture. He didn't just enter a room; he annexed it.
"The car is idling," he said. It wasn't an invitation. It was an ultimatum.
He crossed the room, ignoring my mother as if she were part of the furniture. He reached out, his long, pale fingers tucking a stray lock of hair behind my ear. His touch was a paradox—fire on ice. I wanted to flinch, to recoil from the man who had effectively purchased me, but my body was paralyzed by the sheer intensity of his slate-grey gaze.
"Don't look so frightened, Jessy," he murmured, his thumb grazing the line of my cheekbone. "I don't break my expensive things. I protect them."
"I am not an object," I hissed, finally finding a spark of my old self beneath the layers of trauma.
A dark, amused smile tugged at his lips, though it never reached his eyes. "We'll see."
He led me out of the hospital, his hand a heavy, possessive weight on the small of my back. Outside, a fleet of black SUVs sat waiting. As we surged away from the city, the concrete jungle began to thin, replaced by the oppressive green of thick forests and high stone walls topped with shimmering security wire.
Finally, the massive iron gates of the Volkov estate groaned open. The mansion was a monolith of glass and black marble, perched on the edge of a jagged cliff like a vulture waiting for a kill.
"Welcome home," Yuri said as the heavy SUV door was pulled open by a silent guard.
"This isn't my home," I said, staring up at the cold, beautiful tomb.
"It is now," he replied, his voice dropping to a low, territorial rumble. "In fact, it's the only place in the entire world where you are allowed to exist."
The transfer wasn't a homecoming; it was a surrender of sovereignty. I was whisked through the grand entrance, the tinted windows of the car having already turned the afternoon sun into a bruised, sickly purple. The interior of the mansion was a palace of marble and silence, breathtakingly beautiful and utterly devoid of warmth.
"This is your suite," Yuri said, gesturing toward double doors that opened into a room larger than my entire childhood home. "There are clothes in the wardrobe, food will be brought to you on schedule, and there is a library down the hall. You are free to move within the house, but the perimeter is strictly off-limits."
"And if I decide I want to leave?" I challenged, stepping into his personal space, my chin tilted up in defiance.
Yuri leaned down until his breath stirred the hair at my temples. I could smell the faint, intoxicating scent of sandalwood, expensive tobacco, and power. "Then you would be dead before your foot hit the gravel of the driveway. My enemies are patient, Jessy, but they have never been accused of kindness. Here, you are a guest. Outside that gate, you are a target of opportunity."
He turned to leave, but stopped at the threshold, looking back over his shoulder. "Try the clothes. I think you'll find I have excellent taste in what suits you."