Valeria lifted an eyebrow, intrigued.
“That’s what people call him,” I said, keeping my voice calm, even. “You know, the guy who kills without blinking? That guy.”
Ruslan snorted. “I don’t care what people call him. He had no right to manhandle you like that.”
I didn’t answer, too busy thinking about those hands on my hips, that voice—cold and commanding. He could drag me into a dark alley and I’d probably whisper thank you.
“He was just trying to protect me,” I said, keeping it vague.
Ruslan leaned in slightly. “You like him or something? He looks like a fucking ex-con. Covered in tattoos, always looking like he’s already chosen your coffin size.”
I gave him a sickly sweet smile. “Watch your tongue.”
“He’s not a man for you,” Ruslan insisted, tone suddenly serious. “You deserve someone better.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And let me guess—you think that someone is you?”
He smirked. “I’d never throw you over my shoulder like some caveman.”
I barked out a laugh. “Exactly why I’m not interested.”
His eyes gleamed like he knew something I didn’t. “You’ll see, Kira Sokolova. One day, you’ll be my wife.”
I laughed again, louder this time. “That’ll happen the same day hell freezes over.”
Valeria, still slouched against the headboard like some stoned angel, glanced between us. She exhaled a perfect smoke ring and muttered, “You two are exhausting.”
I didn’t answer. My eyes flicked to Ruslan’s hand resting too close to mine then back to the ceiling.
All I could think about was that night. The way he followed me into my room. The way he grabbed my jaw. The way he looked at me like he was going to eat me alive.
I’d never seen him like that before. Not in the weeks since he started working for my father. He’d always been cold, controlled, silent and immovable like a fucking glacier. But that night? That was hunger.
And I wasn’t done. I didn’t care how cold or calculated he tried to be.
I was going to get my way with him.
One way or another.
Iwasn’t high anymore by the time I got back home. The driver dropped me off at the gate, and I slipped inside like the perfect obedient daughter, like I hadn’t spent the afternoon getting high with my bad-influence best friend and the boy every Ukrainian mother warns her daughter about.
I didn’t head to my room right away.Habit—or maybe guilt—pulled me toward the room where my mother still lived, if you could call it that.
That room had become her whole world—and she wasn’t leaving it.Sometimes she came down for dinner, but mostly she floated through the house like a ghost no one dared disturb. I loved her, even though she was barely there. Even though she drifted through life like it was something that happened to other people. She didn’t look at me like I was a product, a pawn. Or maybe she didn’t really look at me at all.
To be honest, I pitied her. I’d tear out my own heart before I ever became her.
She was over twenty years younger than my father and married him young—so young. Younger than I am now. Had me when she was practically a child. Her family was poor, eager to hand her over to the first rich man who smiled their way. My father wasn’t the monster yet. Or maybe he was—just charming enough to hide it. She thought she was lucky. What she got was a golden cage and a lifetime sentence.
I knocked on her door and stepped in. She looked up at me from the armchair by the window, her smile soft and vacant. “My darling girl,” she said, like I was a child coming home from school. Her voice was full of love, but edged with something not-quite-there.
She reached for the small table beside her, picked up a few pills, and swallowed them with a sip of red wine. The glass rested in her right hand—her grip clumsy, the missing fingers turning every gesture into a quiet kind of agony. A constant reminder of what my father’s enemies had done to her. A reminder for her. For me. For anyone who saw her and dared forget.
“Just checking on you,” I said quietly. “Do you want me to bring you anything?”
She didn’t answer. Just stared out the window like I hadn’t spoken.
So I turned around and walked out. This time, I did go to my room.
