“Where is she?”
My mom’s glistening blue eyes drift to the open bathroom door. Her eyes aren’t just misty; they’re free. Free from turmoil. Free from pain.Free from him.
My father passed a little over three months ago, meaning she’s not just working through the stages of grief every widow experiences, she’s finding herself again. She was barely a woman when she was forced to marry a man double her age. She had no clue who she wanted to be or how she’d achieve it. She was simply told what to do and trained how to do it. Not anymore. Those days are now over. The world is now her oyster. I’ve given her a full pardon.
Her wings are no longer clipped, yet here she stands in the very compound that swiped the earth from beneath her feet without a smidge of remorse. I know why she’s here. She’s ensuring the promises she and Ari made during their transition from purchased whores to monarchs of two of the greatest Russian cartels in history are being followed to the letter.
That’s why she initially kept quiet about Zariah’s sale. She was wary it would be more harmful to our relationship than positive. She was wrong. Nothing could change how I feel for Zariah. I’ve always craved a strong-willed, hotheaded woman to stand at my side.
Zariah is that woman.
Over the past seven months, my mother has helped Zariah strengthen the backbone her family’s deceit wilted while showing her that even in the most male-dominated industry, women have a place. My mother’s is anywhere she sees fit. Zariah’s is at my side—although I doubt that would have been the case if Vaughn had his way.
Vaughn saw in Dominique exactly what I did. She was the spitting image of his sister—the woman his father had bequeathed the entire Volkov family legacy to.
Stepanov is the ultimate gangster. His kill count is as high as my father’s, and he ruled his entity with an iron fist, but nothing—not a single fucking thing—could compete with the love he had for his wife. When she gave him a baby girl instead of the firstborn son every man in this industry craves, he rewrote the rulebook. It didn’t matter to him that Zariah was a girl; she was his first descendant, meaning she would not only inherit his fortune when he passed, but she would become the queen of the Volkov monarchy.
Before his death, Vaughn failed to realize it is impossible to duplicate someone’s style and class. He was convinced he could train Dominique to be Zariah, and that they’d rule the Volkov entity together once they tied up loose ends—AKA killing their father while keeping Zariah permanently locked away.
He had no clue looks weren’t the only way Dominique matched Zariah. She was just as strong-willed, too. When she went against Vaughn’s plans, he introduced her to Bear, hoping he could convince her otherwise. She didn’t survive their first meeting. Bear’s nickname wasn’t just because of his size; he was as brutal as a real-life grizzly bear.
With a new woman in his sights, Vaughn redesigned his ruse: he needed to kill both Zariah and their father. He couldn’t kill Zariah, but he was convinced it wouldn’t take long for the man who bought her to. Weak, insolent men can’t see past Zariah’s stubbornness to discover the gem beneath.
Thank fuck my mother is a force to be reckoned with. She altered the paperwork from Zariah’s sale to make it appear as though I bought Zariah, and, as they say, the rest is history.
Speaking of my mother—she’s still lingering like a bad smell.
“Go. We’ll be out in a minute.”
I nudge my head to my bedroom door that’s still missing the lock I drilled out in anger. Its large circular hole forces a ghost of a smile onto my lips. Seven months ago, I thought I was making Zariah my prisoner. Little did I know the only captive in this room would be me.
With a cheeky grin, my mom presses her red-painted lips to my cheek before sauntering out of my room. Her steps are springier than usual; she can finally express herself without fear of prosecution.
Once my door clicks shut, I pace to the bathroom. I prop my shoulder on the wooden doorjamb, happy to take a few moments to drink in a sight for sore eyes. Zariah is leaning over the sink, her hair swept up in a fancy ‘do, and she is applying some inky black shit to her eyes she doesn’t need to turn heads. I’d walk straight up and snatch it out of her hand if the curve of her back hadn’t revealed something more noteworthy.
My meek, shy Little Mouse isn’t wearing any panties. The high rise of her silky negligee leaves no doubt of this, much less the way the satin material clings to the generous curves of her ass. She is without a panty line. . . and any hope of leaving this bathroom without my fingers weaving through her hair first.
Zariah’s eyeliner freezes midair when I murmur, “Where’s Eda? I thought she was supposed to help you get ready?”
Her throat works hard to swallow before she voices the lie I can spot without even hearing it. “She was here most of the day. She just left.”
Her protectiveness of Eda pisses me off, but I also understand it. Eda has been enslaved at the Yury compound so long, I’ve forgotten why she was sentenced to begin with. Although annoyed it would make me appear weak, I had considered giving Eda a pardon. She has served more time than some men get for murder. But after speaking with my mother, I realized that may do Eda more harm than good.
Just like my mother, she doesn’t know life outside of this compound. The whereabouts of her family are unknown, her true heritage taken to the grave along with my father. She may still be “the help,” but she has a roof over her head, food in her stomach, and with both my mother and Zariah on her side, she’ll never be harmed as she was when she was a girl.
Zariah’s eyes stray to mine when I step into the bathroom. “What are the consequences when you lie to me, Zariah? A punishment that’s both fair to you and me?”
The axis of my world tilts when she grins a revealing smile. I just walked straight into her trap. She isn’t scared of me in the physical sense. She’s scared about how I make her feel, how I own her as much as she owns me, and how the world could come between us, but we’ll always find a way back to one another.
She also wants to be punished, but only by me.
She melts into my tuxedo-covered body when I band my hand around her waist and draw her back so she can feel how hard her defiance has made me. “If only we didn’t have all those people waiting for us, then I could devour you for hours like your body demands. I should send them away, tell them we’re busy, then make them come back whenI’mready for them.”
My tone is arrogant but laced with honesty. I am the king of my realm. I make the rules, and fools try to break them, but no one but Zariah survives their infantile stupidity.
Zariah’s needy gaze skewers my ego. She wants me to follow through on my threat nearly as much as she wants this event over so we can move on to the next stage of life—a stage that equally terrifies and excites me.
My heart rate triples when my hand drops a couple of inches lower. The satin of Zariah’s negligee is as smooth as the stretched skin on her stomach. That’s not surprising. I rub lotion into her stomach every night before we rest. Our son still has three months until he enters the world, but his lessons on treating his mother right started weeks before we discovered he was indeed ahe.
