“You can’t tell me what I can and can’t do any more than you can tell me who I’m going to marry,” I tell him, my fingers biting into the arms of my chair.
He rests his elbows on the polished surface of his desk and gives me a dispassionate look. “You will do this, Katya.”
My chest goes tight. He’s deadly serious. He’s also dangerous. It doesn’t matter that I’m his sister. I’m useful to him. A pawn, nothing more. He won’t hesitate to kill me if I don’t go through with this. I can see it in his eyes.
But I don’t care. I can’t marry Scorpion Andriani. I just can’t sacrifice myself, my whole life, for the kingdom of greed and death Misha’s trying to build.
“No,” I tell him. “I won’t go through with it.”
“You misunderstand. Refusing isn’t an option.”
“I’m not going to marry him.”
Misha sighs, then leans back in his chair, drumming his inked fingers on the desk, the skulls and snakes swirling over his skin like they’ve been brought to life. “Svetlana.”
A cold fist of dread wraps around my heart and squeezes.
Not her. Not Svetlana.
“You wouldn’t,” I bite out.
But Misha smiles, a cold, feral killer’s smile, and I know he would. Hewill. He would murder Svetlana without hesitation, because he doesn’t have a conscience or a soul.
“If you won’t marry Andriani, she dies.”
“She loves you too, Misha,” I say quietly.
Quieter than I feel. Inside, I’m screaming. But I know better than to let my brother scent blood.
Svetlana is like a mother to me. I was a kid when Mama was gunned down. Misha was older. He had memories with Mama that I didn’t. Svetlana had always been good to him, but Misha had been angry. He hadn’t wanted her caring or concern. He had wanted bitterness and fury. Nothing has changed since then.
Misha calmly gets up from his chair and walks to the window behind him, signaling he’s dismissing me.
“The choice is yours, Ekaterina,” he says calmly. “Decide. Either you marry Andriani, or I’ll put a bullet in her skull.”
The fight seeps out of me as I think about Svetlana, everything she’s done for me. She sacrificed her life for me, pushed me to become the woman I am. I can’t betray her like that. I think of her elegant face, her silver-streaked hair, covered in blood.
It’s no choice at all. Not really.
I stare past Misha’s broad shoulders, unseeing, out to the view of the city skyline.
“I’ll do it,” I whisper.
Scorpion
I lookup from the marriage contract Priest has pushed across his desk to me. I knew this meeting he called was going to lead to bullshit. I should have known better than to show up, but he’s my don and I have to pay him respect, even if his head is up his ass and he thinks I’m going to walk down the aisle to a feral Russian hellcat who moonlights as a ballerina.
“I’m not fucking doing it,” I tell him, shoving the contract toward him without even reading a single word.
“We’ve been over this.” Priest crosses his arms over his chest and leans back in his chair, looking like he just stepped in a puddle of cold dog piss on the floor. “This isn’t optional.”
Anger shoots through me.
“The fuck it isn’t.”
I want to hit something. Or someone.
“This is your fault,fratello mio,” he says.
