Chapter 18: Sasha's Suspicion

Leo Vance

It had been four days since I officially moved into the Volkov Residence—four days of suffocating isolation. The solitude was a lie; I was never alone. Even when Dmitri and Ivan were conducting their international calls in the adjacent study, I felt their awareness, their gravitational pull. The sheer size of the house didn’t offer freedom; it just meant they had more space to hunt.

The days were structured with horrifying precision: morning check-ins with Dmitri about the gallery's capital allocation (which now sounded like a military budget), afternoon "structural assessment" meetings with Ivan, and silent, tense meals where one of them was always sitting across from me, watching my every swallow. They weren’t cold anymore; they were personal. They would discuss their current deals, explain the mechanics of a hostile takeover, and then suddenly, Ivan would lean in and ask, genuinely, “Are you feeling the fatigue in your neck, Leo? Dmitri, check his posture. His focus is drifting.”

They were dismantling my defenses through unrelenting, possessive presence. My hatred was a dull ache now, replaced by a terrified, compliant exhaustion.

The one thing holding me together was the small promise that I could contact Sasha. This afternoon, Ivan finally granted the "managed channel."

“A ten-minute video conference, Leo,” Ivan said, setting up a sleek laptop on a desk in the main living area. Dmitri stood silently by the fireplace, his arms crossed, watching. “We need to stabilize the external narrative. You will convey focus, success, and necessary distance. No emotional volatility. Your current stress levels are your concern, not hers.”

I felt a surge of familiar rage, immediately dampened by the cold fear of losing the gallery funding. “She’s my best friend. I can’t just treat her like a business contact.”

“You can, and you will,” Dmitri stated, his voice quiet but absolute. “You will sacrifice the emotional comfort to ensure the integrity of the external structure. That is the price of the capital injection.”

Ivan sat beside the laptop, his presence a silent guarantee that if I strayed from the script, he would end the call instantly. I walked over and sat down, forcing my exhausted face into a credible smile as Sasha’s worried face filled the screen.

“Leo! Oh my God, finally!” Sasha’s voice was loud with relief and frustration. “Where the hell are you? You look like you’re in a museum vault! And why are you answering from that laptop? I thought you were supposed to be reviewing some old archive?”

I took a deep breath, locking eyes with Ivan, who gave the barest, sharpest nod. The performance starts now.

“Hey, Sash. Sorry, the security here is insane,” I lied, trying to sound important and harassed. “I’m at the main facility for the Thorne Foundation’s acquisition team. It’s an old estate. Highly secure. I can’t use my personal devices on their network.”

“A high-security estate? Leo, come on, you look awful,” she countered immediately, her brow furrowing with genuine alarm. “Look at your eyes. Those aren’t ‘busy’ dark circles; those are ‘haven’t slept in a week and someone’s holding your shoes hostage’ dark circles. What is actually happening? Is this ‘patron’ keeping you there?”

The word keeping hit me hard. I glanced at Dmitri, who remained completely still, his lack of reaction somehow more threatening than any movement.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Sasha,” I snapped, the denial sounding harsher than I intended. The need to push her away, to protect her from my disaster, fueled the cruelty. “I’m fine. I’m working. This is high-level finance, not a gallery hang. It demands total commitment. My mother’s future relies on me succeeding at this.”

“I don’t care about your mother’s future right now, I care about yours!” Sasha’s voice cracked slightly. “You haven’t been yourself since that first night. You’re evasive, you’re pale, and you sound like you’re reading cue cards. You’re talking about leveraging structural assets when you used to talk about the emotional weight of color! What have those Volkov men done to you?”

The accusation was too close. The pressure of Dmitri's unwavering stare and Ivan's silent scrutiny was crushing me. I had to end this. I had to make her leave me alone.

“They’ve done what needed to be done, Sasha,” I bit out, my voice laced with a cold, desperate anger. “They’ve shown me that my entire life before this was a romanticized failure. We were barely solvent. Your job—my gallery—was one bad season away from collapse. They offered me stability and real power, and I took it. You should be grateful they’re injecting capital, not sitting here questioning my commitment!”

Sasha’s face on the screen hardened, the worry replaced by shock and genuine hurt. “You think our work was a failure? We built that gallery from nothing! We were a team! And now you're speaking their language, talking about me like I'm part of the 'sub-optimal' structure you needed to cut out!”

“Maybe you are,” I whispered, the words tearing out of me, fueled by shame and the terrifying need for compliance. “Maybe I needed this distance to focus. Maybe I don’t need the constant emotional drama and the distraction of worrying about your feelings right now. I have bigger responsibilities.”

The betrayal was visible on her face. Her eyes swam with unshed tears, and she pulled back slightly from the camera. “Wow. Okay, Leo. I get it. You’re in. You’ve gone full Volkov. I won’t distract you anymore.”

“Good,” I said, forcing a harsh finality into the word, even as the sound of it tore through my heart. “I’m glad you finally understand the necessity of the separation. I’ll be extending my commitment here. Don’t expect me back in the city for a while. Focus on the inventory.”

She stared at me for one long, silent, heartbreaking second—a moment filled with the death of our long friendship. Then, she reached out and disconnected the call. The screen went black.

I sat there, staring at my reflection in the dark screen. I felt utterly hollowed out. I had sacrificed my only real connection, the last pure thing in my life, all for the sake of the Integration Phase. I had chosen their control over my friend's love.

I buried my face in my hands, a silent, dry sob racking my body. What have I become? I hate them for doing this to me, but I hate myself more for helping them.

Ivan reached out, his hand warm and gentle on the back of my neck, the exact spot Dmitri usually claimed. His touch was almost comforting, but the words that followed were a cold confirmation of my destruction.

“That was exceptionally well executed, Leo,” Ivan praised, his voice carrying genuine appreciation. “The rejection was clean, final, and entirely convincing. You have eliminated a significant emotional vulnerability. You understand the required cost.”

Dmitri walked over, standing right beside Ivan. The two of them flanked me, a unified force, observing the successful outcome of their command.

“Your compliance is now complete on the external perimeter,” Dmitri confirmed, his hand settling on my shoulder, not gently, but firmly, possessively. “We have observed your emotional output. It is high, but contained. You are exhausted. We will allow you an hour of quiet reflection before we begin the next stage of the physical calibration.”

He lifted my chin, forcing me to look up at them—two faces, two wills, one single, terrifying ownership.

“You earned this rest, Leo,” Ivan murmured, his hand tightening on my neck, pulling me closer to the center of their power. “You chose us. Now we take care of you.”

I closed my eyes, too tired to fight the finality of their claim. The terror was still there, but it was now laced with the dark, overwhelming reality that I had helped them build this prison, brick by calculated brick. My compliance was complete, and the next stage of thei

r dominance was about to begin.