Chapter 40: The Despair

The new studio was too perfect.

It was vast, pristine, and engineered for maximum focus. The north light streamed in, cool and steady, illuminating every particle of dust that dared to land on the polished floor. It smelled of new lumber and freshly unrolled canvas—the expensive, high-grade materials Ivan had ordered. It was the perfect stage for creation, and I was the broken puppet forced to dance.

The first three days after The Lock-Down were a blur of numb silence. I didn't work on the 'Sculpture'—the cold, ambitious monument Dmitri wanted for the Volkov legacy. I couldn't. The very thought of translating their possessive certainty into marble made me sick.

Instead, I spent hours just staring at the wall, listening to the suffocating quiet. I knew that just outside this soundproofed sanctuary, the security details were stationed. I knew the cameras were adjusted to focus only on my work area, respecting my privacy while recording my productivity.

I am a factory now. A luxury production unit, fueled by fear and guilt.

The guilt was the worst part. It settled deep in my bones. Every time I thought of Mom's peaceful, trusting smile, I felt the chain around my neck tighten. My safety, my very ability to breathe, was bought at the price of my soul, and it was the only way to ensure her security. My life was no longer my own; it belonged to her lie.

When the numbness finally gave way, it wasn't to inspiration, but to a dark, chaotic energy. I grabbed the thickest charcoal stick I could find and attacked the largest canvas.

I didn't draw figures or scenes. I drew noise.

The strokes were aggressive, black and raw, a frantic attempt to give shape to the formless, crushing weight of my despair. I smeared the charcoal with my palms, grinding the pigment into the fabric, creating whirlpools of shadow and lines that looked like shattered glass. It was pure chaos, a desperate, silent scream against the walls of the gilded cell.

I worked until my fingers were raw and the room was thick with charcoal dust. When I finally collapsed back onto the floor, panting, I looked at the result: it was ugly, frantic, and entirely honest. It was the portrait of a soul in freefall.

Ivan appeared an hour later, stepping over the threshold with the soft precision of a cat. He didn't knock. He simply walked into the studio, saw the mess, and didn't react to the chaos of the room or the man curled up on the floor.

He walked straight to the canvas, studying the black, visceral storm I had created. He wasn't wearing a suit; he wore black trousers and a simple, expensive cashmere sweater, looking utterly relaxed.

"Visceral," Ivan commented, his voice flat, analytical. "Uncontrolled. The complete opposite of what Dmitri commissioned."

I pushed myself up onto my elbows. "It's what happens when you crush a person, Ivan. You get fragments, not form."

Ivan turned from the canvas, his expression detached. "We crushed the weakness, Leo, not the talent. The talent is still intact. This," he gestured to the chaotic artwork, "is a necessary phase of self-pity. You are attempting to externalize the emotional turbulence you cannot process internally."

"No," I argued, my voice hoarse. "This is my mind finally shouting the truth. I am trapped. I am owned. And every hour I spend here is a betrayal of the only life I had."

Ivan walked toward me, not with hostility, but with a terrifying, intellectual curiosity. He stood over me, his shadow falling across my face.

"Tell me, Leo," Ivan said, squatting down slightly to bring himself closer to my level. "What is the structural difference between 'betrayal' and 'security' in your mind? You define betrayal as staying here and keeping your mother safe. You define freedom as running and watching her life collapse. Your internal definition of morality is flawed."

He reached out and brushed a smudge of charcoal from my cheek with a cold, elegant finger. "Your despair is real. I don't deny that. But you are wasting it. Despair is a powerful tool. You should be channeling it. You should be putting the darkness, the crushing weight of ownership, into the 'Sculpture.' Use your rage. Let the piece be monumental because it is your prison. That is the only way this becomes sustainable for all of us."

"You want me to weaponize my own pain," I whispered, the realization cold and sharp.

"Precisely," Ivan confirmed, rising smoothly. "Don't waste it on these small, self-indulgent canvases. Dmitri needs certainty. And you need a channel for your suffering that doesn't involve running into the street with eighty dollars."

He walked toward the door. "Think about that, Leo. Your despair is a resource. Use it correctly."

Later that evening, the heavy silence was broken again, this time by Dmitri.

Dmitri didn't look at the chaotic canvas. He didn't need Ivan’s analysis; he knew exactly what the charcoal meant. He walked past the wreckage of my emotional collapse and stood by the workbench where the technical drawings for the 'Sculpture' lay.

"Ivan explained your... output," Dmitri said, his voice deep, tired, and devoid of the earlier fury. "He sees it as a mathematical error—a misallocation of energy. I see it as a lack of focus."

He turned to me, his expression intense. "I didn't acquire you for your weakness, Leo. I acquired you for your capacity for beautiful expression. This," he gestured vaguely toward the canvas, "is ugly. It’s small. It’s pathetic."

"It's honest," I countered weakly.

"No," Dmitri dismissed the word with a decisive shake of his head. "Honesty is when you admit that the only thing holding you back is your own refusal to accept what is true. The truth is, you are ours. The truth is, your mother is safe because of us. The truth is, you are a phenomenal talent who is finally free to create without the distraction of ruin."

He walked closer, his presence radiating an undeniable, possessive gravity. "We need the 'Sculpture' to reflect the scale of our certainty. We need the cold, relentless beauty of permanence. Channel that chaos into the core of the piece. Make the marble feel like it is crushing something beautiful. But do not waste your anguish on these self-pitying scribbles."

He took my hand, his palm warm and calloused, and led me over to the pristine white drawing board where the technical plans for the 'Sculpture' lay.

"I know this hurts, Leo," Dmitri said, his voice surprisingly gentle, yet terrifyingly possessive. "I know this feels like the end of your world. But if you channel that pain into the work, the art becomes eternal. And in that eternity, you will find a different kind of peace—the peace of knowing your suffering was used for something monumental."

He squeezed my hand. "We are not letting you go. Ever. So stop wasting energy trying to fail. Start using that anger to succeed for us. For Mom. For the certainty."

He didn't demand a response. He simply released my hand and left the studio, the heavy door closing silently behind him.

I stood there, staring at the technical blueprints. The cold, logical commands of Ivan and the possessive, demanding devotion of Dmitri had finally aligned. My despair was not a tool for my freedom; it was simply another resource for the cage.

They want my pain. They want the rage. They want the crushing weight of this captivity rendered in cold, hard marble.

My body was exhausted, my mind numb. But a slow, cold focus began to set in. The despair didn't vanish; it simply turned inward, hardening into a core of bitter, artistic resolve. I would give them their monument. I would create the perfect cage, and I would trap my own soul inside the finished work.

I walked over to the charcoal canvas, picked up a fresh stick, and deliberately began drawing over the chaos, this time with measured, precise lines, channeling the black rage into the calculated, brutal structure of the 'Sculpture.' The fight was over. T

he creation of the prison had begun.