BOUND BY THE SESSION

Leona’s POV The waiting room felt like someone had turned the brightness up too high on reality white walls, pale blue chairs, and overhead lights sharp enough to cut. I worried the frayed thread on my sleeve until it curled into a little knot between my fingers. If I pulled any harder, I’d unravel the whole thing. The receptionist kept pretending not to watch me, glancing up from her monitor like I might suddenly make a run for it. She wasn’t wrong I’d already planned my escape a dozen times in the last twenty minutes. “Leona Winters?” The voice was deep, accented, the syllables of my name drawn out into something smoother than I’d ever heard it. I looked up and instantly wished I hadn’t. This wasn’t the picture I’d painted in my head. Dr. Nikolai Volkov wasn’t the middle-aged man with a receding hairline and wire glasses I’d been expecting. He was… tall. Broad across the shoulders. Dark hair brushing his forehead like it had ideas of its own. Eyes the color of amber liquor that belonged in a crystal glass. And the way he looked at me? Like he was cataloging every inch of me without moving a muscle. “Yes?” I stood, pretending it didn’t feel like the air had just shifted. “Come in,” he said, holding the door open. The accent was thicker now Russian. No one had mentioned that part. I kept my eyes on the floor as I followed him in. The carpet was deep navy, soft enough my sneakers sank into it, and I focused on that instead of the fact that I could feel him there tall, close, dangerous in a way that made my skin hum. “Sit wherever you’re comfortable.” His office didn’t match the waiting room. This was warmth dark shelves lined with books, leather chairs that had history, a tall window spilling in the gray wash of a rainy morning. I picked the seat farthest from his desk. He took the chair across from me, leaning back, hands resting easily on his knees. No notepad, no pen just a single gold ring he turned absently with long fingers. “You can call me Dr. Volkov. Or Nikolai, if you like.” “Dr. Volkov is fine.” My voice barely reached the space between us. The truth was, I didn’t want to be here. I was only sitting in this chair because my last panic attack had played out in front of half the café where I worked, and my boss had made it clear get help or get gone. Rent doesn’t pay itself, and I didn’t have anyone left to catch me if I fell. He nodded. “Your social worker sent me the basics, but I’d rather hear from you. Why today?” A laugh threatened, bitter at the edges. Why today? Because years of being shuffled through foster homes had hollowed me out. Because nightmares didn’t care if I screamed into my pillow. Because I’d learned to survive but never learned how to live. “My boss thinks therapy will help,” I said instead, twisting my sleeve tighter. “I had… an incident at work.” “Incident?” His brow lifted. “Panic attack,” I said. The words were heavier out loud. “Not the first. Just the first one people saw.” He studied me, his gaze steady but not sharp, like he was trying to see the shape of me beneath the cracks. “And before that?” “I wasn’t managing. I was surviving.” “Survival is no small thing,Leona” he said, and my name in his mouth—Lee-oh-nah—made it sound like something worth protecting. He kept his tone even as he brought up my file. “It says you’ve been on your own since eighteen.” I shrugged, the movement tight. “Aged out of the system. Happens.” What I didn’t say: my parents’ lives had ended in debt and despair when I was still a baby, and that kind of beginning has a way of writing the rest of your story for you. He leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees. “Tell me about your work.” “Barista. Evening shift.” “You prefer evenings?” “Fewer people. Fewer eyes.” “And the panic attacks what do they feel like?” “Like dying,” I answered before I could soften it. “Heart hammering. Lungs closing. Mind screaming at me to run, but from what, I never know.” “And after?” “Drained. Ashamed. Weak.” “Not weakness,” he said, shaking his head. “More like a smoke alarm that screams when the toast is just warm.” It startled a laugh out of me, and the smile he gave in return was… unfair. It shifted him from simply handsome to dangerous. “How long?” he asked. “As long as I can remember. Worse after…” My voice trailed off. “After?” “My last foster home.” He didn’t push. “First sessions are about trust. We can leave that door closed for now.” He sat back. “What would you like to get from this?” “To function,” I said. “Keep my job. Pay my rent. Not break down in front of strangers.” “Reasonable.” He tilted his head. “But maybe we aim for more than functioning. You deserve more than just survival.” I didn’t look at him. I didn’t believe that. “We’ll start with twice a week,” he said, glancing at the clock. “Tuesdays and Fridays morning. That work for you?” “Yes.” He stood, walking me to the door, close enough that his height made me tilt my head back. “Until Tuesday,” he said, opening the door. His hand brushed mine, and heat shot up my arm like a spark catching. “Until Tuesday,” I echoed, stepping back into the waiting room. The receptionist watched me. But it was the weight of Dr. Volkov’s gaze that followed me all the way out. If I’d known then what I was stepping into, I might’ve run. If I’d known he would become both my shelter and my ruin, I might’ve slammed the door behind me. If I’d known he’d already decided I was his, I might’ve understood why it felt like he was letting me go… just so he could come after me.