Page 73 of Scarlet Chains
Osip— because it is Osip, undeniably, impossibly Osip— sets the mask aside. His gray-blue eyes, which I’d never been able to see clearly behind the leather, are filled with something that might be regret. Or fear. Or both.
“It’s me,” he confirms quietly, his voice carrying the same gentle authority that had comforted me before but now sounds like a confession. “It was always me.”
The world feels like it’s spinning, so I grip the edges of the couch, as if it could anchor me while my entire understanding of reality reshapes itself around this impossible truth.
That night when I’d poured out my pain about losing my father. When I’d wept against the chest of a stranger I thought I could trust because he existed outside the complicated web of my life. When I’d let him touch me, comfort me, see me at my most vulnerable.
He’d known. The entire time, he’d known exactly who I was, exactly whose daughter he was holding, exactly what he’d taken from me.
“You knew.” It’s not a question. It’s an accusation that tastes like betrayal and old blood. “You knew who I was.”
Osip doesn’t deny it. He just watches me with those eyes that had seemed so mysterious behind the mask but now feel like they’ve been looking right through me all along.
The gentle touches that had felt like salvation now feel like manipulation. Every whispered comfort had been a lie. Every moment of connection had been built on a foundation of deception so vast I can’t see the edges of it.
Oh God…
Oh, my God!
My breath comes in short, sharp gasps that make my ribs ache. The room feels like it’s closing in around me, the elegant walls becoming the sides of a trap I’ve been walking into for months without realizing it.
“I trusted you,” I whisper, and my voice breaks around the words. “I told you everything. About my father, about my pain, about how lost I felt. And you… you were the one who made me feel all of that in the first place.”
He leans forward again, and I instinctively recoil, pressing myself back against the seat. The movement sends pain shooting through my neck, reminding me of Stanley’s hands around my throat, of violence and betrayal and men who take what they want regardless of the cost.
“Ilona—”
“Don’t,” I snap, the word edged with a pain so deep it feels like it might split me in half. “Don’t say my name. Not with that voice. Not when I know…”
I can’t finish the sentence because the truth is too big, too impossible to speak out loud. The man who’d been my sanctuaryis the man who destroyed my world. The stranger who’d made me feel safe is the killer I should be running from.
How is that possible? How can the same hands that had touched me with such reverence have taken my father’s life? How can the voice that had whispered comfort in my darkest moments belong to the man who created those dark moments in the first place?
Memories cascade through my mind like falling dominoes, each one reshaping itself with this new, horrible knowledge. Every encounter in Room Five takes on a sinister undertone. Every gentle caress becomes a mockery. Every moment of peace I’d found in his arms was built on a lie so fundamental it makes me question everything I thought I knew about myself.
“You let me cry for him,” I say, my voice getting stronger as anger begins to overtake shock. “You held me while I grieved for my father, knowing you were the reason he was dead.”
Osip’s jaw tightens, the only sign that my words affect him. “I never meant for you to get hurt.”
“But I did get hurt!” The words explode from me with a force that surprises us both. “I got hurt every single day! I lost everything— my father, my home, my sense of safety in the world. And you pretended to comfort me, knowing exactly why I needed comfort in the first place.”
The betrayal is so complete, so devastating, that I can’t process it all at once. It comes in waves, each one threatening to pull me under. The masked stranger who’d been my lifeline was actually the architect of my destruction.
And the worst part— the part that makes me want to crawl out of my own skin— is that even now, even knowing what he’s done, some treacherous part of me still responds to his presence. Still remembers the safety I’d felt in his arms, the connection that had seemed so pure and real.
How can I still feel drawn to him when I know what he’s capable of? What does that say about me?
“I need to leave.” I start to push myself up, but the movement makes my head spin violently. Black spots dance across my vision, and I have to grip the arm of the couch to keep from falling off it.
“You’re not well enough—”
“I said don’t!” I cut him off, my voice cracking with the effort. “Don’t tell me what I can or cannot do. Don’t pretend to care about my wellbeing. You’ve done enough.”
But even as I say the words, I’m still sitting on the couch, too dizzy and disoriented to actually leave. The irony isn’t lost on me— once again, I’m trapped in Osip’s world, dependent on his protection even as he’s the thing I need protection from.
The silence stretches between us, dark and unending. He sits perfectly still, hands resting on his knees, watching me with an expression I can’t read. There’s no trace of the cold calculation I’ve seen from him before, none of the dangerous edge that makes him so formidable. Instead, he looks almost… vulnerable.
It’s a trick.
