Page 61 of Gilded Shackles
His eyes flash at the name. I instantly regret saying it. Natalia stiffens behind me. I don't look at her.
"I don't want her in my house," Nikolai says through his teeth.
"She's leaving. Now." I nod at the guard by the door.
The guard moves. Natalia stumbles back, clutching her bag like a lifeline.
"I'm sorry," she whispers. "I just needed to know he was okay."
"Don't come back," Nikolai growls. "Next time, I won't be this polite."
She nods. Follows the guard out. The door shuts behind her with a final-sounding click.
Nikolai turns to me. Rage written in capital letters across his forehead. I'm sleeping with one eye open tonight and a knife under my pillow.
"I didn't mean to overstep," I say quietly.
"You think this is a joke? You let someone in. A stranger. Someone from before. You don't know what that could mean."
"I know she could've been lying. That's why I kept Pasha from her. I didn't tell her his name. I interrogated her, Nikolai, and it was only when I believed she was telling the truth that I let her in to talk."
"Pasha could've been taken. Poisoned. Shot. Do you know how many enemies I have?"
"I know what it's like to grow up feeling abandoned," I say, and my voice cracks. "Wondering why I was never loved by the person who was supposed to love me most. I looked at that woman and I saw someone who wanted to love her kid. And I couldn't be the one who slammed the door."
He stares at me. Something flickers behind the rage. Not softening exactly, but fracturing.
"You can't make decisions like this alone," he says. "Not here. Not in this world."
"Then be here." The words come out sharper than I intend. "Be here when these things happen instead of disappearing into meetings all day. You want me to ask permission? Fine. But you have to be present enough to give it."
The silence that follows is thick enough to choke on.
He stares at me for a long beat. Then he turns and walks out. Slams the door behind him.
I sink into the chair, heart pounding, arms numb.
Nikolai and I were just starting to figure each other out. To share space. To feel real.
And now I don't know if I made things better or worse.
All I know is that today, I made the right call for a boy who launched a rocket and laughed like it could carry him to the stars.
But maybe it cost me everything else.
17
NIKOLAI
Ilie in bed, still wearing my suit scrolling through security upgrade options on my phone, beyond pissed.
I slammed the door on Elle over two hours ago. Since then I've been imagining all the ways that woman, Natalia, could have hurt my son. Every scenario is worse than the last. Poison. Abduction. A distraction while someone else got in through the back.
I swipe through reinforced gate specs, drone surveillance systems, motion-triggered perimeter alarms. If I'm going to have a wife who invites strangers into our home, I'm going to need a fortress that shoots before they can knock.
The door creaks open.
I don't look up. I can scent her perfume from across the room. Vanilla. Soft. The kind that sinks into your skin and stays there like a whisper you didn't ask to hear.
