Guilt crawled under my skin, but I stood, the dossier still clutched in my hands.
“Is this an order?” I asked.
Kliment met my gaze steadily.
“Yes.”
There were a thousand ways to refuse, but all of them ended in fracture, which might cause a civil war within our own house, and Ilana might also be caught in the crossfire. Kliment was already teetering on obsession. If I resisted openly, he would escalate recklessly. But if I complied, I might be able to control the damage. That was the lie I told myself.
“I’ll handle it,” I said.
Kliment nodded once.
“Good.”
I turned and walked out without another word, the hallway feeling too narrow and too bright around me. I didn’t stop until I was inside my car, the engine roaring to life beneath my hands.
Elisse Chernykh.
Elle.
The woman who had kissed me like she meant it and who had laughed when I told her I wanted control.
I drove without conscious direction and somehow ended up near the Chernykh estate even when I didn’t mean to. The gates stood tall, guarded, discreet, but impenetrable. I parked a block away to remain unnoticed and just sat there, staring at nothing. The realization hit me in waves.
She hadn’t told me her real name, but that was something I already knew. It was all for the masquerade and a guise ofanonymity. She had wanted agency, and this was her choice. She’d played the game as well as I had. But she hadn’t been playing war. She’d been playing freedom.
And I—
I’d walked straight into my brother’s strategy.
A humorless laugh left my throat. Of all the women in Miami and all the faces in that ballroom, I had chosen her. Or maybe I hadn’t chosen at all. Maybe it had never been a choice. I rested my head back against the seat, staring up at the night sky through the windshield. Kliment believed breaking the Chernykhs would bring Ilana home and that shame was stronger than love.
He was wrong.
But he wouldn’t see it until something shattered.
The question was—
Would that something be Elisse?
Or me?
I picked up the folder from the passenger seat and opened it again. It was filled with photographs, schedules, and multiple security details. Every interview she had ever given, and every press event she had ever attended, was plastered inside. There was a quote highlighted from an article about her fashion ambitions:“Beauty without meaning is decoration. Beauty with intention is power.”
Of course she’d said that. It sounded exactly like something she believed in. My chest tightened as the gravity of the situation consumed me. I had to somehow weaponize her or seduce her because Kliment wanted to destabilize her.
Blood loyalty demanded obedience.
I closed the folder slowly. There was no visible alternative. If I refused, Kliment would simply assign the task to someone else, and they would see it through without hesitation. However, if I accepted, I could dictate the terms. I could limit the damage. That was the rationalization forming already. I started the car again.
As I drove away from the estate, one truth pressed heavier than the rest:
Elisse Chernykh wasn’t leverage.
She was the only woman who had made me forget my last name and the only woman who had refused to stay even when I had asked her to stay in the morning. She had decided to walk away without telling me a single thing about her, and nothing had been more surprising than that. But now I knew just why she had done that. She had been protecting both of us.
But now I was standing against her. The realization settled with disorienting force.
