Page 68 of The Pakhan's Captive
He lies back down, turning his back to me again. The conversation is over. He’s the Pakhan; his word is law.
I stare at his broad shoulders, a cold, hard knot forming in my chest. He thinks he can lock me in this gilded cage and tell me when to breathe. He thinks because he owns my body, he owns my future.
I lie back down and stare at the ceiling.
He won’t teach me. Fine.
But I’m going to learn. And I know exactly who will be bored enough, or rebellious enough, to show me.
I close my eyes, and for the first time in months, I don’t feel like I’m running. I feel like I’m hunting.
18
LENA
The morning air in the compound is thin and biting, a sharp contrast to the suffocating heat of the bedroom I just fled. Every muscle in my body is screaming, a dull, throbbing reminder of the way Razvan reclaimed me in the dark of our suite. I can still feel the ghost of his hands on my skin, the phantom weight of him pinning me down, making me beg for a release that felt like a betrayal.
I hate him for it. I hate that he is the man who murdered my father, the man who kidnapped me and threw me into a damp dungeon for days until I forgot the color of the sky. He is the hand that delivered every woe I own, yet my body is a traitor that hums whenever he enters a room.
I walk toward the training wing, my steps echoing on the stone floor. My heart is beating hard, but my mind is a cold, clear blade. Last night, he told me no when I asked him to teach me to fight. He wants me in the light, a porcelain doll kept on a high shelf where the blood can’t reach. He wants to keep me helpless so I never have the means to strike back at the monster who destroyed my life.
But I’m done being a victim. Being a doll.
I push open the heavy double doors of the gym. The smell of sweat, old leather, and gun oil hits me instantly. Lyosha is alone in the center of the room, obliterating a heavy bag. He’s a mountain of a man, forty years of violence etched into the blunt planes of his face. He’s the Pakhan’s shadow, but he’s the only one who doesn’t look at me like a broken thing. The bag groans under a hook that would have shattered my ribs. He stops, the chain rattling, and turns. He wipes sweat from his forehead with a taped hand and stares.
“The Pakhan is in the study, Lena,” he says, his voice like grinding stones. “You took a wrong turn.”
“I’m exactly where I meant to be, Lyosha. I want you to teach me how to fight.”
He stills, narrowing his eyes. “Does Razvan know you’re here?”
“He told me no. He thinks his protection is enough. He thinks I should just sit pretty while men like Borodin leer at me in clubs and enemies wait at the gates. I’m tired of being the only one in this house who can’t hold a weapon.”
Lyosha lets out a low, rough bark of a laugh. He leans against the bag, looking me up and down. “He told you no, did he? Probably because he knows you’d use it on him first. You’ve got that look in your eye—the one Razvan gets right before he breaks someone’s neck.”
“Then help me make it a reality,” I say, stepping closer. “I want to be able to defend myself. I want to be able to protect Theo if the walls of this place ever fall.”
Lyosha studies me for a long beat. A slow, genuine grin spreads across his face, one that makes him look less like an enforcer and more like a man who simply loves a good complication. “You really want to do this? It’s not going to be pretty, Lena. You’ll have bruises that won’t hide under silk.”
“I’ve had bruises that didn’t hide under anything,” I remind him, thinking of the dungeon floor. “I don’t care about the pain.”
“Alright,” Lyosha says, reaching for a pair of sparring mitts. “On one condition. If you actually get good, you have to promise to use a left hook on Razvan at least once. I’d pay a year’s salary to see him have to explain a black eye to the council.”
I feel a genuine grin tug at my lips—the first one in a long time. “That’s been the plan since I walked through the door.”
“Good girl. Pick up those wraps. If you’re going to hit something, you don’t want to break your wrists on the first go.”
The training is brutal. Lyosha has no patience for “soft” versions of combat. Within minutes, my knuckles are raw and my lungs are burning. He doesn’t go easy on me. He moves with a frightening speed for a man his size, forcing me to react, to move, to stop thinking and start feeling the rhythm of the violence.
“Again!” he barks. “Don’t look at my hands, look at my shoulders. The punch starts in your feet, Lena. Twist. Explode. Think about the man who put you in the dungeon. Think about the man who took everything. Kill him.”
A red veil drops over my vision. I scream—a raw, jagged sound—and unleash a flurry of strikes. I’m not a woman in a silk dress anymore. I’m the daughter of a murdered man. I’m a prisonerfighting for a way out. I’m hitting the mitts, but in my mind I’m hitting the man who holds my leash.
The air in the room suddenly changes. It’s a shift in pressure so violent it feels like the oxygen has been sucked out of the gym. Lyosha freezes. He drops the mitts, his expression shifting from a delighted teacher to a wary soldier in a heartbeat. I spin around, my chest heaving, sweat dripping down my nose.
Razvan is standing ten feet away. He’s still in his charcoal suit pants and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing the dark ink of the serpent on his wrist—the same mark that haunted my father’s final moments. He stands there, a pillar of lethal, frozen energy. He doesn’t speak, but the weight of his presence is a physical blow, a silence so heavy it makes the sound of my own heartbeat feel like a deafening roar.
“Out, Lyosha,” Razvan says. The words are quiet, but they carry the finality of a closing coffin lid.
