Anna
She played the role now.
Silent. Compliant. Eyes lowered when he looked her way. She answered when spoken to, ate what was given, even offered a thank-you when he handed her a glass of water yesterday. Ivan Astra had noticed, of course. He always noticed. That was what made it work—her careful mask, stitched together with trembling patience and rehearsed control.
But under it?
She watched. Counted footsteps. Marked voices. Timed the shift changes of the men in black suits who walked the corridors with glassy eyes and earpieces. She memorized the floorplan in her head—what few pieces she had seen—like a puzzle she would eventually solve. It wasn't much, but it was all she had. That, and her will.
Her father had made her a target. Ivan had made her a prisoner.
But she wouldn't be his forever.
At least… she told herself that.
This morning, he entered the dining room without a word. She was already seated, her hands folded neatly on the table, breakfast untouched. He was dressed in dark grey, the sleeves of his shirt rolled to his elbows, his movements slow and deliberate. He looked like a man with no urgency. A man who had already won.
"Good morning," he said.
Anna looked up. "Good morning, Mr. Astra."
A slight lift of his eyebrow. "You've dropped the fight in your voice."
She offered a careful smile. "Maybe I've realized it doesn't get me anywhere."
He studied her, quiet.
"You're lying," he said eventually, and poured himself coffee.
Anna didn't flinch. She met his gaze and tilted her head slightly, as if amused. "Then why not punish me for it?"
He took a sip, then replied coolly, "Because I'd rather watch you pretend. Pretending reveals more than resistance."
She clenched her jaw, but gave no reaction.
Ivan sat across from her, the silence between them thick with unspoken things.
"You're adapting," he said. "That's good. Smart."
"I don't have many options, do I?"
"You have choices. You're just afraid to make the wrong one."
Anna's stomach churned. Every moment with him felt like walking a ledge. He wasn't violent—not yet—but his danger was colder than rage. It was in his calm. In the way he said things like they were facts written into the stone of the world.
"What happens to the girls who made the wrong choice?" she asked.
Ivan smiled faintly, but the smile never reached his eyes. "They don't get breakfast with me."
---
Ivan
He should've had her broken by now.
But Anna Kimberley was nothing like the others. She didn't cry herself to sleep. She didn't beg. She didn't scream anymore. She studied. Measured. Wore obedience like a fitted dress—tight, unnatural, uncomfortable. It was beautiful, in a dangerous way.
And that made her far more valuable than he'd expected.
He watched her now, from across the grand library where she'd been allowed to sit and read. Another test. Another leash offered under the illusion of slack. She was thumbing through a book of poetry, but her eyes weren't really reading.
She was planning something.
Good.
"I thought you might enjoy that one," he said from the far wall.
She looked up, startled. Just slightly.
"Keats," he said, stepping closer. "He understood pain. Wrote about it like it was a lover."
Anna shut the book. "Do you always quote dead men?"
"They're the most honest."
"Because they can't contradict you?"
"No. Because they already lost everything. There's nothing left to hide."
He stood beside the table now, hands in his pockets, posture deceptively relaxed. Anna looked up at him, her expression unreadable.
"I don't understand you," she said quietly.
"That's by design."
She hesitated, then asked, "Why am I here, really? What do you want me to become?"
His gaze didn't leave her. "Not a prisoner. Not forever."
Her breath caught. That wasn't the answer she expected.
"Then what?"
Ivan didn't answer immediately. He looked down at the book in her hands. "Something useful. Something close."
"Close?" she repeated.
He met her eyes. "Close enough to choose me."
Anna's fingers tightened around the book's spine. "You want me to want you?"
His voice was soft. "Eventually."
A pause. A very long one.
"Is that why you haven't touched me?"
The air shifted. Thicker. Hotter.
Ivan stepped back then, and his voice, when he spoke, was lower.
"I don't need to force what I can have willingly."
Anna rose slowly from the chair. "And what if I never give it willingly?"
He gave her a faint, unreadable smile. "Then I'll wait until you think you did."
She exhaled hard, fury surging under her skin—but not just fury. Something else. Something she hated.
It wasn't attraction. Not exactly. It was pull. Something raw, confusing, like the moment before a storm hits. She turned away and placed the book on the shelf, hiding the tremor in her hands.
"You're a monster," she whispered.
Ivan didn't deny it.
He left her there, in the quiet hum of the library, heart pounding against the wrong kind of silence