Page 89 of The King's Pawn
Not even if it breaks me to stop it.
19
ALINA
Imake my escape plan throughout the night.
Finding myself in a predicament like this is the last thing I ever thought would happen. For weeks, escape was a fantasy born of desperation, a mental exercise to keep myself sane when the walls felt like they were closing in.
I imagined slipping away because I was afraid. Because I was cornered. Because I needed to save myself. I never imagined I would be leaving like this.
I never imagined I would be running notfromSasha, butforhim.
The irony of it settles heavily in my chest as the hours crawl by, each minute dragging. I lie awake, staring at the ceiling, listening to the estate settle into its nighttime rhythm. I turn the words over and over in my head, trying to make them make sense.
Do you love her?
Yes.
It still feels unreal, like a line from a story. Love was never part of the deal. Not when I was sold. Not when my life became collateral damage in a world where men think feelings are weaknesses and women are leverage.
Sasha doesn’t love safely. He loves the way he does everything else, with absolute destruction and with no exit strategy. His loving me means he would burn down his world to keep me, even if it meant standing in the ashes. I don’t know how to live with that kind of devotion pressing against my throat.
I never asked for it, and I refuse to be the reason he loses everything.
I strip the emotion from it the way my father taught me to, even though thinking like him makes my skin crawl. I break the night into segments. I map routes in my head of the house from memory, hallways, staircases, blind corners where cameras don’t quite reach.
Sasha thinks I won’t leave because I care, but he’s wrong. That’s exactly why I have to.
I pack nothing that would be noticed. I layer clothes over my own and take only what I can’t live without and pack it into a small bag I found weeks ago at the back of my closet. By the time the sky begins to lighten at the edges, my decision has hardened into something unbreakable.
I stand quietly in the center of my room and take one last look around what was once both my prison and my refuge.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
I don’t know if I mean it for him or for myself or for the version of us that might have existed in a different life if we were ever given the chance. Maybe all three.
Then I turn toward the door and slip out into the hall before Lev comes to retrieve me for breakfast.
When I arriveat the reinforced gates, I hesitate.
The rideshare has already pulled away, its taillights dissolving into the fog like a decision I can’t undo, leaving me standing alone. For a heartbeat, I just stare, my hands clenched inside my coat pockets while the weight of where I am settles into my bones.
The estate that looms beyond the gates is enormous in a way that feels intentional rather than beautiful. Sasha’s home, despite its size and severity, has warmth beneath its bones. I spent weeks pretending I didn’t feel that warmth. Days where I fantasized about escaping it.
Nikolai Malyshko’s estate holds no such illusions.
The gates alone are a warning, thick steel reinforced with angular ironwork that looks less decorative and more like it was forged for war. Beyond them, the main structure rises from the earth like a monument to dominance, stone upon stone, no soft curves, no concessions of comfort. Even the landscaping feels aggressive.
This is a place designed not to shelter, but to withstand.
I swallow hard, my throat tight, and force my feet to move closer to the gate. Each step feels heavier than the last.
Is this a stupid decision? Absolutely.
Coming here to beg for Sasha’s life—because that’s what this is, no matter how I dress it up in nobler language—is probably the most reckless thing I’ve ever done. I’m walking straight into the territory of a man who is rumored to thrive on breaking people apart. I know that. I’m not naive.
But I still have to do it because the alternative is worse.
