Page 47 of Beautiful Ruin

“Yes, Pakhan.”

I rise slowly to my feet. Shame coils low in my stomach, completely overriding the pain pulsing through every muscle in my body. As I walk out, the guards stationed outside the door suddenly find the floor very interesting. I don’t bother acknowledging them as I pass by.

My feet drag as I move down the hallway.

What am I becoming?

Who am I becoming?

I have always obeyed, always served my Pakhan without fight, without any argument because I had no reason to. I always believed loyalty was my anchor, the purest way I could show my gratitude.

Yet the moment Sofia Kuznetsov stepped into my life, I faltered. I chose her questions over Ivan’s command, her hunger for truth over his authority. And now in the aftermath, I am stunned by the enormity of what I’ve done.

Tomorrow, I will be Ivan’s perfect weapon again.

I have to be.

I don’t go to my room. I can’t face the silence there. Instead, I retreat to the small sitting room at the end of the east corridor, the one with the large armchairs and the fireplace that always seems to be lit.

My hands shake horribly as I pour myself a drink. The first swallow burns, the second one numbs the worst of the shaking. It isn’t enough to erase the ache spreading through my body or the deeper one settling heavily in my chest, but it quiets the roar in my head just enough to be bearable.

Eventually, I sink into one of the chairs and allow my eyes to close as I tilt my head back and rest it on the cushion behind me.

I don’t hear her enter.

Not until cool fingers slip the empty glass from my loose grip.

I startle, instincts flaring, but it’s only Sofia.

She’s already moving, crossing to the wet bar with quiet grace to pour another glass of amber liquor as if she’s done it for me a hundred times before. I should turn away and hide the darkening imprint of Ivan’s knuckles on my cheekbone, the split in my lip that burns, the swelling near my temple. I should shield her from the reality I’ve lived under from her uncle for years.

But… I don’t.

Some quiet, reckless part of me wants her to see this. Wants her to understand the cost of the world she’s so eager to dissect and enter. She needs to know that power is bought not through secrets but with spilled blood. Sometimes your own.

She returns and hands me the glass without comment, then she sits beside me on the wide arm of the chair. There is something in her hand that catches my attention first, and it isn’t until she raises it to press against the knot forming at my temple do I realize it is a small towel packed with ice. The cold shocks me but the tenderness shocks me more. No one has ever touched me like this before.

Her gaze softens. Guilt clouds her expression.

“I’m sorry I got you in trouble,” she murmurs.

My throat works. “Don’t ever apologize to me. I took what I earned.”

She looks like she wants to argue, maybe even to tell me I deserved none of it. But she swallows whatever words are burning on the tip of her tongue and presses the ice a little more firmly against my skin, a silent rebellion wrapped up in compassion.

Then, slowly, Sofia begins to speak.

She tells me about a memory she has of her mother in a warm kitchen. Her small hands guided by larger ones as she learned how to knead dough. The way her mother’s laugh filled the room like sunlight and the love that was shown to her so gently, it left shadows in its absence when it was gone.

I listen, eager to hear more. Her voice wraps around me like a balm I didn’t know I desperately needed. For the first time in years, I let someone lull the torrent in my head into silence. She talks until the ice melts inside the towel and the glass in my hand grows warm. Until the bruises stop throbbing quite so viciously and the shame in my chest feels a fraction less suffocating.

When she finally falls silent, I set the glass aside. My hand finds her wrist, tugging the towel away from my face.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I say quietly.

She lifts her other hand up, threading her fingers through my hair. “Where else would I be?”

The simple question unravels something inside me. I pull her closer, slow enough that she can pull away if she wants to. To my surprise, she comes willingly, sliding into my lap, her knees bracketing my hips. Her hands frame my face with infinite care, thumbs brushing over the swelling on my cheekbone.