Somehow, I get him upstairs, through a bath with borrowed toiletries, and into a borrowed soft t-shirt that hangs to his knees. The mundane routine is an anchor.
Theo sees the bed and launches himself onto it face first and announces that it’s the softest thing he’s ever felt in his life and he’s never leaving. I stand in the doorway and look at my son bouncing slightly on an expensive mattress and I think about the fact that there is a room somewhere in this compound currently being decorated for him. That his father lives here. That in some number of days I will be married to Razvan Volkov and this will be my life.
I almost cry again. I swallow it.
“Come on, young man, time to sleep.”
I tuck him into the large bed in the guest room, sitting beside him until his excited chatter about superheroes slows and his eyelids droop. I watch him sleep, my hand on his small chest, feeling it rise and fall. The relief is so profound it’s painful. He’s here. He’s safe.
For now.
The door opens softly. Razvan stands there, a silent command. “My study. Now.”
My stomach tightens. I kiss Theo’s forehead and follow him out, closing the door with a soft click.
The study is a dark room, leather and wood and books that look read rather than decorative, and he’s behind the desk when I come in. He doesn’t offer me a seat. I don’t take one.
“The marriage,” he says, without preamble, “it will happen in three days.”
The finality of it steals the oxygen from the room. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am always serious.”
“I could just…walk away.” I step closer to the desk, my voice shaking with a sudden, frantic hope. “I could take him and disappear. Abandon the contract.”
He tilts his head, watching me with the detached interest of a predator considering a bird in a glass box. “Do you think I would ever let you escape me again? You? Andmy son?”
The way he saysmy son—with a possessive, territorial ferocity—makes the hair on my arms stand up.
“You’d track us,” I whisper.
“I would find you before you reached the city limits,” he says, his tone as matter-of-fact as if he were discussing the weather. “And this time, Lena, there would be no guest wing. There would be a leash. For you, and for him, to ensure your compliance.”
He leans forward, his palms flat on the dark wood of the desk. “But that is not your only concern, is it,zayka? You have himback, but you do not know who took him. Or why. They saw you. They know your face. You need what I have. Walls. Guards. Power. You need my protection, whether you wish to suck on that bitter truth or not.”
He’s right. That’s the most agonizing part. It’s a perfect trap, and I walked into it with my eyes wide open. My shoulders slump, the weight of the five years finally crushing me. “I hate you for this.”
“Your hatred is of no consequence to me.”
I feel the rage spark then—a hot, white-blaze that cuts through the exhaustion. I step right up to the desk, leaning in until I’m in his space.
“You think forcing me to marry you will give you what you want? It won’t. You’ll never have it. You want love? Affection? A real family?” I let my gaze rake over him with pure, unadulterated venom. “You want me to spread my legs and pretend I want yourlundinside me? You will never get those things from me, Razvan. I will be your wife in name, but I will be your ghost in reality. I will make you regret this marriage every single day for the rest of your life.”
His eyes go dark, not with anger, but with something far more dangerous. He looks at me like I’ve just handed him a challenge he’s been waiting for his entire life.
“Love? Affection?” He chuckles, a low, dry sound that sets my teeth on edge. “I don’t need your simpering emotions, Lena. My life is built on cold steel and colder logic. As for family dynamics…you will act your role perfectly. In front of my men, in front of the council, in front of anyone of importance, you will be the dutiful, contented wife of the Pakhan. If you do not, I willmake your existence a living hell and the boy’s along with it. Do you understand?”
The threat is a bucket of icy water down my spine. I think of Theo sleeping upstairs and I nod once, my jaw clenched so tight it feels like it might crack.
“And as for the rest…” He pushes away from the desk and begins to circle around toward me, his movements slow and predatory. “You are mistaken if you think sex will be a problem between us.”
My heart kicks against my ribs. “It’s a lie. I don’t want you. I’ll never want you again.”
“You are a terrible liar,zayka.” He’s in front of me now, his presence so overwhelming it feels like the air has been sucked out of the room. “Your body is an open book, and I have already read the first chapter. Let me show you the next page.”
His hands clamp on my waist, big and hot even through my clothes, and he lifts me as if I weigh nothing. I gasp as my ass lands on the hard edge of his massive oak desk, papers scattering.
I open my mouth to tell him to get his hands off me, but he steps between my legs, using his own body to force them apart, spreading me open for him. I’m sitting on his desk with him between my knees and my heart is hammering so hard I feel it in my throat.
