My room was a masterpiece of ivory and antique gold, a chamber larger than the entire apartment I'd grown up in. The bed was a sprawling continent of silk and down, soft enough to drown in, and floor-to-ceiling windows offered a panoramic view of the Atlantic, where the waves clawed at the base of the cliffs like hungry animals.
It was a dream room—until I tried to leave it.
I walked to the window and pushed against the glass. It didn't budge. I searched for a latch, a seam, anything. Nothing. It was a solid, transparent wall. I turned to the door and twisted the heavy brass handle.
Click. Locked from the outside.
A cold, sickening realization settled in the pit of my stomach. The "protection" Yuri had promised was merely a linguistic mask for a cage. I began to pace, my footsteps swallowed by the plush carpet. I was a prisoner in silk. Every scrap of my old life—my phone, my ID, the frayed jeans I loved—was gone. In their place were rows of designer dresses and robes that felt like spiderwebs against my skin.
The sound of the lock turning made me spin around, my heart leaping into my throat.
Yuri entered, carrying a silver tray with tea and a small plate of food. He looked absurdly domestic, yet his movements possessed a terrifying, predatory grace that suggested he could drop the tray and snap my neck in a single fluid motion.
"You didn't touch your lunch," he noted, his voice smooth and devoid of apology. He set the tray on a marble table with a soft clatter.
"I'm not hungry. I want to go home, Yuri. I want to see my mother."
"Your mother is safe. She's been moved to a private villa in the south. She has a staff, security, and everything she could possibly require," he said, pouring the tea with steady hands.
"You moved her? Without even asking me?" I marched toward him, my chest heaving with a cocktail of terror and rage. "You have no right to touch her! You have no right to keep me here!"
Yuri stood up slowly, and the air seemed to flee the room. He stepped into my personal space, his shadow swallowing me whole. I was forced to tilt my head back just to meet those freezing sea-gray eyes.
"Rights?" he repeated, the word vibrating in his throat like a low, dangerous rumble. "I bought your father's debt, Jessy. That debt included the deed to your home, your mother's continued breathing, and your very life. In the eyes of the law, you are a citizen. In mine, you are a liability I have chosen to transform into an asset."
"I am a human being!" I screamed, tears of pure frustration stinging my eyes.
"Then act like one," he countered, his voice turning to sharpened ice. "Eat. Sleep. Recover. If you attempt to breach the security of this room again without my permission, I will stop being the man who paid your surgeons and start being the man who made your father vanish."
He turned toward the door, pausing only to cast one last look over his shoulder.
"And Jessy? Don't waste your strength on the windows. They're reinforced ballistic glass. You could hit them with a sledgehammer and they wouldn't even star. Just like me."
The door clicked shut. The lock turned.
I sank to the floor, my back against the silk-covered bed, feeling the weight of the silence. I was in a golden cage, and the key hung around the neck of a monster who looked like a god.
I spent the following week wandering the mansion like a restless ghost. The staff were wraiths in uniforms, moving with a silent, terrifying efficiency and refusing to meet my gaze. My only sanctuary was the library—a massive, three-story cathedral of mahogany and leather that smelled of centuries-old secrets.
It was there, tucked inside a heavy, dust-caked ledger on the highest gallery, that I found the first clue.
A photograph fell out. It showed my father, looking younger and far more terrified than I had ever seen him. He was standing next to an older man who shared the same lethal, icy eyes as Yuri.
"He was my father's most trusted architect," a voice projected from the doorway.
I jumped, the ledger slipping from my numb fingers and hitting the floor with a heavy thud. Yuri was leaning against the frame, silhouetted by the hallway lights, watching me with a look of detached curiosity.
"My father built the empire," Yuri continued, his boots clicking rhythmically against the hardwood as he approached. "But your father... he built the walls. He created the 'Ghost Code'—a digital ledger of every transaction, every assassination, and every secret the Volkov family has ever owned."
He stopped inches from me, his presence cold and heavy. "He locked that ledger behind a biometric wall—a digital labyrinth that only his bloodline can navigate."
I looked down at my hands, the realization sinking into my bones like lead. I wasn't a guest. I wasn't even a hostage in the traditional sense.
"I'm not a person to you," I whispered, the horror of it catching in my throat. "I'm a password."
"You are the only password," Yuri corrected, his hand reaching out to tilt my chin up to meet his gaze. "And the world is full of people who would rather break the lock than use the key. Now do you understand why you stay in the room?"