Extras Ch 14: Kazimir - She’s Mine to Protect

Extras Ch 14: Kazimir - She’s Mine to Protect

The drive back from the marina was too quiet.

Kazimir sat in the passenger seat while Leo drove, his knuckles still raw from the fight, his shirt flecked with blood that wasn't his. The Conti crew had folded in under an hour. Clean. Efficient.

Suspiciously so.

They barely fought back. Kazimir thought, staring out the window at the grey dawn bleeding over the cliffs. They took the marina, took our men, and then just... let us win?

Leo seemed to read his thoughts. "It was a distraction."

"I know."

"Dante wanted you out of the mansion."

"I know." Kazimir's jaw tightened. "The question is why."

Leo didn't answer. They both knew why. Dante had been circling for weeks, testing boundaries, probing for weaknesses: the Ferrante ambush, the Conti hijacking, the private dinners with the soldiers. Every move was a scalpel sliding between Kazimir's ribs, and this marina operation had been no different—a misdirection, a way to clear the board so Dante could make his real play.

But what play? What had he done while Kazimir was gone?

The question gnawed at him as the car wound up the cliff road. He should have been thinking about the Contis, about the Ferrantes, about the dozen other fires that needed putting out. Instead, his mind kept drifting back to the office. To the girl he had left there.

Elena.

He had learned her name the morning after she bandaged his wound. He had asked Leo. The name suited her. I sounded soft, kind.

She's probably still in the chair, he thought. Exactly where I left her.

The memory of the past few days surfaced unbidden. The ledger incident, when Dante had tried to frame her as a thief. Kazimir had seen the trap immediately: it was a performance, a way to test whether Kazimir would defend his wife or throw her to the wolves.

He should have thrown her to the wolves.

That was the strategic move. That was what Leo had advised.

“She's a liability,” Leo had said, his voice flat. ”Dante planted her to either provoke you or spy on you. Bringing her into your study is anything but strategic.”

"I know," Kazimir had said.

Leo had stared at him for a long moment before he shook his head and walked away.

Kazimir didn't care. He had made his decision the moment he saw her standing in Dante's study, trembling like a leaf, her eyes pouring a desperate plea he couldn't ignore.

But he had been too impulsive; the days that followed proved it. He had never shared his workspace before. The office was his sanctuary—the one room in the mansion where he could think clearly, where no one but Leo and Valentina dared interrupt him.

And Elena had been there in terror while he worked in silence. She was so quiet, so still, so desperate to be invisible that she barely seemed to breathe.

Like a fidgety little bird, he thought, and the corner of his mouth twitched.

He had watched her more than he meant to. The way she held her bladder for hours rather than risk asking permission. The way she devoured her lunch like someone who had never been sure where her next meal was coming from. She was terrified of him—he could see it in every flinch, every averted gaze—but she was also... endearing.

She's been hungry for a long time, he had thought, watching her shovel chicken into her mouth. Someone should take care of her.

And then, quieter, more dangerous: I want to be the one who takes care of her.

He had pushed the thought away. He was too busy, too stretched, too surrounded by enemies to play protector for a mute girl who might still be Dante's pawn. But the thought kept coming back. Especially at night, when he sat alone in the office after she had gone to bed, staring at the empty chair where she had been.

The night before the marina operation, she had taken care of him.

He had been running on fumes for days—meetings, shipments, damage control. The wound on his ribs had reopened twice. He had meant to clean it, meant to change the bandage, but there was always another crisis, another fire. By the time he stumbled into the bedroom, the gash was hot and angry, the skin around it swollen with infection.He told himself he will take care of it when he wakes from a nap. But he never had that chance.

She had taken care of the wound for him.

Now, in the car, Kazimir touched the bandage through his shirt. The infection was gone. The wound was healing cleanly. Because of her.

Add it to the list, he thought. The list of things you need to talk to her about when you get back.

He didn't know what he was going to say. He had never been good with kind words. Orders, threats, negotiations: those came easily. But apology? Gratitude? The admission that he had been wrong? Those were harder.

But Kazimir steeled himself. When he gets back to the office, he will find her and say the first honest thing he had said to anyone in years.

When the car pulled into the courtyard. Kazimir was out before the engine died.

"Kazimir." Leo called after him. "There's something you should—"

But Kazimir was already gone. Through the foyer, up the stairs, and down the corridor toward the office. His heart was beating too fast.

The office door was unlocked. He was sure he had locked it before he left.

Something was wrong.

With a sinking feeling in his chest, he pushed the door open.

The room was a wreck. Papers scattered across the floor. The wardrobe door hung open, suits spilling out in a tangle of dark fabric.

And Elena—Elena was in the chair. Her hands were folded in her lap. Her eyes fixed on the wall.

"What happened?" His voice came out sharper than he intended.

She didn't move. Didn't look at him. Her face was utterly empty.

"Look at me."

Her head turned. Her eyes lifted to his. And what he saw there stopped his heart.

Nothing. There was nothing in her eyes. The terror, the softness, the gentle concern that had undone him so completely—all of it was gone—replaced by a void so absolute it didn't even register his presence.

His gaze dropped to her nightdress—the delicate white lace, the pearl buttons. It was wrong. She never wore white. She wore grey and faded yellow and the cheap dresses she had arrived in. This was someone else's choice.

"Why are you dressed like that?"

No answer. Her lips didn't move.

Stolen story; please report.

His patience—already frayed by the sleepless night—snapped. He crossed the room in two strides and reached for the collar of the nightdress. Not to strike. Just to shake her. To break through that terrible, empty stillness and find the girl who had reached for his split knuckles.

The lace tore. Buttons scattered across the floor.

And beneath the torn fabric were bruises. Deep purple and black, blooming across her ribs, her stomach, her chest. A map of violence so extensive froze him in place.

Someone touched her. Someone put their hands on her.

His breath seized. His vision went white at the edges.

"Who?" The word came out like a snarl. "Who did this?"

She didn't answer. Her hands rose mechanically and began to re-button the torn nightdress. Slow. Methodical. As if he wasn't there. As if nothing was there.

"Do you not understand what they did?" He was shouting now—he could hear himself shouting, could feel the rage tearing through his throat, but he couldn't stop. "You will give me their names! Speak! Why? Why won't you speak?"

She finished buttoning the nightdress. Her hands returned to her lap. Her eyes fixed on the wall.

Kazimir stared at her. His chest heaved. His fists were clenched so tightly his nails bit into his palms. He ran a hand through his hair and pulled out his phone. He typed a message to Leo with shaking fingers.

Less than a minute later, Leo appeared in the doorway. His dark eyes swept the room. His expression didn't change.

"Find the people who weren't with us," Kazimir said. His voice was calm now, deadly calm. "Bring them to the west courtyard. Now."

Leo nodded and turned to leave.

"Wait. Post a guard by this door. No one is allowed to enter."

Kazimir turned back to Elena. She hadn't moved. She was still staring at the wall, her hands folded in her lap, a living ghost in a torn white dress.

"When I am done with them," he said, low and hoarse, "you and I will have a talk."

He strode to the door. The lock turned behind him.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

The west courtyard was grey with dawn.

Kazimir stood in the center of the stones, a pistol in his hand, and watched the men who had hurt her fall one by one.

Silvio first—the boy was crying and begging. But Kazimir didn't let him finish. The shot echoed off the stone walls, and Silvio crumpled.

Vieri and Connor next—quick, methodical. He didn't offer them a chance to speak. They didn’t deserve explanations.

Then Marco. Marco, who had touched her with hands that had no right to exist. Marco, who fell to his knees on the blood-slicked stone and finally, finally looked afraid.

"You entered my office. You dared to touch what was mine. You think you can climb over my head." Kazimir growled, his voice carrying across the silent courtyard. "You were wrong."

He pulled the trigger.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

The aftermath was a blur. Cleanup crews. Reports. The cold, clinical work of disposing of bodies and erasing evidence. Kazimir moved through it all like a machine, his mind still fixed on the image of Elena's empty eyes.

When he finally returned to the office, the guard was still at the door. The room was exactly as he had left it.

Elena was still in the chair.

He crossed to her and pulled something from his pocket—a single pearl button he had picked up from the floor before he left. Matching the ones still scattered around her feet.

"They won't touch you again," he said, placing it on the arm of her chair. "No one will."

She looked at the button. Then back at the wall. Still nothing.

Kazimir's jaw tightened. He turned and walked to the bathroom, closing the door behind him. He stood in front of the mirror.

You killed four men today.

The thought should have bothered him. He had never executed his own soldiers before. Viktor had done it, in that very courtyard, and the stories had always made Kazimir's stomach turn. But standing over Marco's cowering form, he had felt nothing but cold, implacable purpose. The same purpose he had felt when he pulled Elena out of Dante's study. The same purpose he had felt when he left that cornetto on the butcher's block.

She's mine to protect. And I failed her.

He had been too slow. Too cautious. Too afraid of what Dante would do if he showed his hand. He had let the whispers continue, let the soldiers believe he was weak, let Marco think they could touch what belonged to him.

And Elena had paid the price.

This wouldn't have happened if you had been firmer.

The thought cut deep. He had spent years trying to be strategic—to outmaneuver Dante rather than confront him, to win loyalty through patience rather than force. But Dante didn't respect patience. Dante respected power. And as long as Kazimir hesitated, as long as he let people like Marco believe they could act with impunity, the people around him would keep getting hurt.

He straightened and stared into the reflection’s eyes.

You have to do better. Not just for her. For yourself.

She didn't need his violence. Killing those men was justice, but it wasn't comfort. It wasn't the apology she deserved.

He pushed off the sink and opened the door.

She was still in the chair when he returned.

He sat down across from her. Pulled his chair close. Spoke to her in a voice he barely recognized—low, careful, stripped of all the ice he had spent years cultivating.

"You need to eat. To drink water."

Nothing.

"Look at me."

Her head didn't move.

He waited. Seconds stretched into minutes. He didn't push or demand. He just sat there, his hands on his knees, palms up where she could see them.

"Are you in there?" His voice cracked. "What did they do to you?"

Something shifted. A flinch—a full-body recoil that sent pain through her ribs and widened her eyes with sudden, terrible awareness.

She was back. Wherever she had gone, she was back, and now she was drowning. Her breathing accelerated. Her hands shook. A thin, keening whine escaped her throat.

He reached out instinctively, trying to soothe her panic. His fingers brushed her arm.

Elena flinched so violently she nearly fell out of the chair. Her arms came up to shield her face.

Kazimir froze. His hand hovered in the air between them for a moment before he withdrew and placed it on his knee where she could see it again. Then the other hand. Both palms up, open.

"I'm not going to touch you again," he murmured softly.

He waited. Her breathing was ragged, her eyes darting around the room like a trapped animal's.

"You need to breathe. Just breathe."

She tried. The air came in fits and starts. Slowly—so slowly—her arms lowered. Her hands stayed crossed over her chest, gripping her own shoulders. But she was actually looking at him now.

"You're here," he coaxed. "You're in this room. Not there. Here."

He kept talking. Low and steady. Telling her they were gone, all of them, that she would never see them again. Telling her she was safe. Telling her the words he should have told her weeks ago, when she first arrived, when he had the chance to be kind instead of cruel.

She drank the water he offered. Stood when he asked her to stand. Walked beside him down the corridor to the bedroom, her steps slow and shaky.

At the threshold, he stopped. He wanted to give her space after what happened.

"Sleep. I'll be in the office. The guard is outside. No one will come in."

He pulled the door nearly closed, leaving a crack. Then he walked away.

But he didn't go to the office.

He stood in the corridor, his back against the cold stone wall, and listened for the sound of her breathing evening out.

The minutes stretched. The house settled into silence.

He should leave. He should go back to his office and meet with Leo about the fallout from the executions. There was a dozen things that needed his attention. But he couldn't make himself move. The image of her empty eyes kept replaying in his mind.

Kazimir pushed off the wall. No, he needed to check in on her again. Just to be sure.

When he arrived, the bedroom was dim, lit only by the pale moonlight filtering through the curtains. Elena was curled in the center of the bed, her dark hair plastered to her forehead with sweat. Her breathing was shallow and rapid. Her skin, when he touched her cheek, was hot.

She's burning up. Because of the shock. Because of what they did to her.

Because of what he hadn't prevented.

Kazimir pulled the chair close to the bed and sat down. He didn't know what he was doing. He had never taken care of anyone before—not like this. But he remembered the night she had taken care of him. The cool cloth on his forehead. The gentle hands on his fevered skin. The medicine she had pushed past his lips when he was too delirious to swallow.

She saved your life. The least you can do is sit with her.

So he sat. He changed the cloth on her forehead when it grew warm. He made her drink water in small, careful sips. He talked to her when she started shaking—low, steady words that he hoped would anchor her to the present.

"You're safe," he said. "You're in the bedroom. The guard is outside. No one is coming."

Elena didn't respond. Her eyes were closed, her face slack with fever. But her breathing eased, just slightly.

He kept talking. He talked about the sea. About the way it looked at dawn, the horizon blurring into the sky. He talked about Nadia's garden—the roses she had planted decades ago, the way she had knelt in the dirt and taught him to be gentle. He talked about Viktor, about the old man's gruff kindness, about the way he had ruffled Kazimir's hair and told him he was too soft for this world.

He didn't talk about the executions. About the blood on his hands. About those men or Dante’s schemes. That wasn't what she needed to hear. That wasn't comfort.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, in the dark hours before dawn. "I'm sorry I wasn't there. I'm sorry I left you alone. I'm sorry for everything I did before—the dinner, the bedroom, the way I screamed at you. You didn't deserve any of it."

She couldn't hear him. The fever had pulled her under. But he said it anyway, because it was true, and because he had been too much of a coward to say it when she was awake.

When Elena’s fever broke around dawn, Kazimir didn't leave. He told himself he would stay just a few more minutes. Just until he was sure she was stable. But sometime after sunrise, his eyes drifted shut. His head fell against the mattress, his fingers laced in hers.

And for the first time in years, Kazimir Volkov slept soundly.