Chapter 13: Salt Water and Secrets

The first week on the island passed like a fever dream.

Days bled into each other: sun, salt, sex, sleep.

Czar woke me with his mouth between my legs more mornings than not.

He cooked barefoot, fed me mango from his fingers, carried me into the ocean when the heat got too heavy.

No phones. No news. No Lagos.

Just us, the guards who pretended to be invisible, and the baby growing quietly between us.

But paradise always has cracks if you look hard enough.

It started with the nightmares.

I’d wake gasping, sheets twisted around my legs, convinced I was back in the cellar he’d once locked me in.

He’d pull me against his chest, rock me like a child, whisper promises in Russian until I stopped shaking.

“You’re safe,” he’d say.

I never believed him.

Then came the boat.

Every dawn, a sleek white yacht appeared on the horizon, dropped anchor for exactly thirty minutes, then vanished.

Supplies, the chef said. Nothing more.

But on the eighth morning, I saw something else.

A man on the deck. Tall. Dark suit in this heat. Binoculars.

Watching the house.

I stood on the terrace in one of Czar’s shirts, hand instinctively covering my stomach.

Czar came up behind me, arms sliding around my waist, lips to my neck.

“Who is he?” I asked.

His body went rigid.

“No one.”

“Liar.”

He turned me to face him, eyes suddenly cold.

“Some things don’t get to touch this place, Eden. Let me handle it.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one you get.”

He kissed me hard, possessive, then disappeared into the house.

That afternoon the yacht didn’t leave.

It stayed until sunset.

And Czar didn’t come back to bed until 4 a.m., smelling of gunpowder and the sea.

I pretended to be asleep.

The next day, the ankle chain was back.

This time in rose gold, thinner, almost invisible.

He fastened it while I was still drowsy from the orgasm he’d just given me against the kitchen counter.

“For your safety,” he said, not meeting my eyes.

I stared at the new chain glinting against my skin.

“Whose boat is it, Czar?”

Silence.

Then: “Your father’s.”

The world tilted.

“My father is dead.”

“That’s what the world thinks.”

He sat on the edge of the bed, head in his hands.

“Three weeks ago he reached out. Said he had information. About me. About the baby. Things that could destroy us both. I paid him to disappear. He took the money and ran straight to the one person who’d pay more to watch me burn.”

I went cold.

“Who?”

He looked up, eyes dead.

“My brother.”

The name hung in the air like smoke.

Dimitri.

The brother Czar had buried alive in a Siberian prison five years ago.

The one who’d sworn to gut him slowly if he ever got free.

“He’s out,” Czar said quietly. “And he knows about the pregnancy.”

I laughed: sharp, hysterical. “So this island—”

“Is the only place on earth he can’t reach us. Yet.”

He stood, paced like a caged animal.

“The yacht is a message. He’s close. Watching. Waiting for me to make a mistake.”

I touched the chain around my ankle.

“And this?”

His jaw clenched.

“If he gets past the guards, past me, you run. The chain has a tracker. I’ll find you.”

I stared at him.

“You brought me to paradise to hide from your own blood.”

“I brought you here to keep you alive.”

He knelt in front of me, took my face in his hands.

“Listen to me. I will burn this island down before I let him touch you or the baby. Do you understand?”

I nodded, throat tight.

Then I asked the question that had been eating me alive since Paris.

“What did my father tell him?”

Czar’s eyes darkened.

“Everything.”

He stood, walked to the window, stared out at the ocean like it had betrayed him.

“The cellar. The first time I hit you. The abortion you almost had in London. The night I forced you to say yes on your knees. Every ugly truth. He recorded it. Sold it.”

I felt the blood leave my face.

“So the world—”

“Not yet. Dimitri wants me to sweat first. Then he’ll leak it. Destroy my name. Take everything.”

He turned back to me.

“But he made one mistake.”

“What?”

“He forgot I have nothing left to lose except you and this child.”

He crossed the room in three strides, pulled me up, kissed me like the world was ending.

“I’m flying to Moscow tomorrow,” he said against my lips. “Three days. I end this.”

“No.” The word ripped out of me. “You don’t get to leave me here like a sitting duck.”

“You’re not a duck. You’re the queen. And queens don’t fight on the battlefield. They wait in the castle.”

I shoved at his chest.

“I’m not waiting while you get yourself killed!”

He caught my wrists, pinned them behind my back.

“Listen to me.” His voice was lethal calm. “I’ve survived worse than Dimitri. I’ll come back. And when I do, this will be over.”

He released me, walked to the safe, pulled out a small silver pistol.

Pressed it into my hand.

“If anyone comes through that door who isn’t me, you shoot. No hesitation.”

I stared at the gun like it was alive.

“I can’t—”

“You can. And you will. For our baby.”

He kissed my forehead, then my stomach, then my lips one last time.

“I love you, Eden Aslanov. More than my life. More than my vengeance. Remember that when you’re scared.”

Then he walked out.

The door closed.

The ankle chain suddenly felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.

That night the storm came.

Thunder. Lightning. Rain like bullets on the roof.

I sat on the bed with the gun in my lap, watching the door.

At 2:17 a.m., the power went out.

The guards’ radios went silent.

And in the darkness, I heard it.

A boat engine.

Close.

Too close.

I stood, barefoot, gun heavy in my shaking hand.

The bedroom door opened slowly.

A silhouette in the lightning flash.

Not Czar.

Tall. Broad. Familiar in the worst way.

The voice that came out of the dark made my blood freeze.

“Hello, little sister-in-law.

Did you miss me?”

Dimitri.

To be continued…