Chapter 2 I Don't Need Your Love

ANNA He dropped the smoldering book at my feet. Ash whispered across my lap as the final pages curled inward, devoured by flame. The lighter clinked softly to the floor. My lungs refused to expand. My fingers clenched the armrests of the chair so tightly my nails dug through the velvet. That book, my last escape, the only place I could still breathe was gone. Burned because I dared to imagine a life beyond this cage. “You bastard,” I whispered. His silhouette moved through the haze of smoke. Unflinching. Unapologetic. I didn’t expect an answer. I didn’t expect anything but the cold weight of his silence pressing down. Then he moved. Fast. A blur of black stormed past me, and before I could scream, his hand closed around Elisabetta’s throat. “No!” Her body slammed into the wall with a sickening crack. Her feet skidded, then dangled as he hoisted her upward. She clawed at his wrist, her face going red, then purple. “Gleb! please!” My voice broke as I lurched forward. My wheels jammed in the rug’s edge. I couldn’t reach her. “Stop! What is she doing? What has she done?” He didn’t answer. Didn’t even look at me. The only sound was the desperate rasp of Elisabetta’s breath—thin, fleeting, wet. I panicked. My hand shot out. I grabbed the nearest thing, a plate from the untouched breakfast and hurled it at his shoulder. It shattered. He didn’t flinch. I grabbed a fork. “Let her go!” And then, instinct took over. I thrust it deep into his arm. He grunted, his grip faltering. Elisabetta crumpled to the floor in a heap, gasping and coughing, eyes wild. Blood dripped from Gleb’s sleeve in a thin, clean line. He turned toward me, slow and controlled, and pulled the fork from his arm with an awful crunch. “Why?” he asked, voice quiet. Measured. My throat tightened. “You were going to kill her.” Stillness. The kind that made your skin crawl. Then, he looked down at Elisabetta, who now knelt on the floor, clutching her throat. “She’s been poisoning you,” he said. My breath caught. “No.” My voice cracked. “That’s not possible. You’re lying.” His tone remained infuriatingly calm. “Ask her.” I turned to Elisabetta. “Tell me he’s lying.” She didn’t speak. Gleb’s voice hardened. “Confess. Or die.” Her shoulders trembled. Tears streaked down her face. “I’m sorry, Anna.” My heart squeezed. “Elisabetta, no. Tell me the truth.” She choked out a sob. “I was following your father’s orders. He said… he said you had to stay weak. That you could never walk again. I… I just did what he told me.” The floor dropped out beneath me. My father. The man who kissed my forehead, who told me bedtime stories and called me his princess. Five years. Five years of failed therapy, of confusion, of wondering why I couldn’t stand even when doctors said I could. He did that to me? He did that to me. Gleb didn’t look victorious. Or angry. He just watched. Like this was a lesson. A necessary cruelty. “You’re lying,” I whispered again, but my voice had no strength. Then, two deafening shots. I screamed, too late. Elisabetta’s body dropped. A single, clean bullet between the eyes. Her mouth still open mid-sob. Blood splattered across the marble. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. My scream never made it past my throat. Gleb turned and walked away, his boots trailing blood. “You promised to spare her,” I whispered, voice trembling. “You said if she confessed…” “She did,” he said. “Too late.” I couldn’t stop staring. Not at her face, that was gone, ruined. but at her hands. The ones that used to braid my hair. The ones that once trembled when they tucked me into bed after my first seizure. The ones that held me every night after Maria ran away. Now they were still. Motionless. Lifeless. And it was my fault. I stabbed him. I made him angry. I… No. He pulled the trigger. Not me. He murdered her. I slammed my fist into the armrest. My throat was raw from screaming, though I couldn’t remember when I’d stopped. Gleb reentered like he hadn’t just shattered my world. His sleeves were rolled up now. Calm. Controlled. Blood dried at the edge of his cuff. He poured himself a glass of something dark. Sat in the chair across from me, legs spread like a king who’d just claimed a new province. “This is war, Anna,” he said. “War doesn’t wait for your comfort.” My laugh came out broken. “You call this war?” “I call it cleansing.” He took a sip. “She was the only one I had,” I hissed. “The only person who ever…” “Lied to you.” His interruption was quiet. Almost… gentle. That made it worse. “I hope you rot,” I said. “Already am.” He tilted his glass. “But so are your enemies. Your family included.” I froze. “My father…” “Drugged you.” His gaze pinned me like a knife. “Kept you helpless. Sent you to me as a pawn.” “You’re worse.” “I’m honest.” No. No, he wasn’t. He was brutal. Cold. Calculating. But honest? No. There had to be something more. Some ulterior motive. He was too precise to be just a sadist. “You didn’t kill her for justice,” I said. “You killed her for power. To prove I belong to you.” His lips twitched. The ghost of a smirk. “You’re learning.” I hated him more in that moment than I had yesterday. And yet, deep beneath the rage and grief, was something uglier. Relief. I had answers now. All the missing pieces, the weakness, the slow decline, the therapy that never worked, finally made sense. My father had caged me in a broken body. Gleb had forced me to see it. Did that make him my savior? No. But it made him necessary. And that was worse. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “I don’t need your love,” he said. “But I will have your loyalty. One way or another.” I stared at him, breathing hard. “I’ll never be loyal to you.” His eyes gleamed. “You will. When I show you the truth of your blood.” He stood. “You have two minutes to say goodbye,” he sa id, nodding at Elisabetta’s corpse. “Then you will bathe, change, and dine with me. Like the wife you now are.”