Page 25 of His Contract Queen

Without another glance, he turns and walks out toward the front doors and pulls them open. A gust of cold air sweeps through the foyer, pulling a harsh shiver out of me. His coat ripples behind him as he steps outside, both of his lieutenants following him out silently. The doors close with a heavy, closing-of-a-coffin finality that makes my knees nearly buckle.

The second I’m alone again, fear crashes over me.

What have I done?

Aleksandr Volkov isn’t a man the world whispers about. Tales of disappearances, of brutal retribution carried out without hesitation or remorse. A man who answers defiance with obliteration.

People don’t cross him.

People don’tsurvivecrossing him.

I press the heel of my stinging hand against my mouth, trying to keep the nausea down.

“Oh, God,” I whisper into my palm. “I’m so dead.”

My father will never know what happened to me. He’ll keep waiting for messages that never come. Or worse, he’ll be told I betrayed him. That I chose to run away and never come back. That I disappeared because I wanted to and left him to clean up the mess we both started.

He’ll never know the truth.

That thought guts me.

My legs give out and I slide down to the floor, landing hard on my knees. I lean forward, bracing my palms against the cold marble to steady myself as bile crawls, thick and acidic, up my throat.

Breathe,I tell myself.Think. Plan. Move.

But I can’t. Every time I try to summon the version of me that’s supposed to be clever—the version my father trained, the girl he molded and sharpened into for this exact type of situation—she slips through my fingers like smoke. All I can see is the look in Aleksandr’s eyes right before he walked out that door.

A patient, quiet interest that told me he was already planning what to do with me and how much he would enjoy the process.

He could kill me tonight. He could make me wait days or weeks, letting the fear hollow me out, letting paranoia gnaw at me until I break myself before he kills me.

Or… he could hurt my father. He could punishhimfor my insolence.

A choked sound escapes my throat.

“Fuck,” I breathe. I’m so screwed.

Completely.

Utterly.

Irrevocablyscrewed.

7

ALEKSANDR

The sting from her hand fades quickly, though the echo of it doesn’t.

By the time I’m halfway down the drive with the engine purring beneath me like a satisfied animal, I finally register how tightly my jaw is locked. Not from pain. Pain is a familiar friend. This is something else. Something far more unfamiliar that sits low in my gut, burning slowly, spreading outward in controlled, simmering waves.

My cheek throbs in a dull, incessant rhythm where her palm connected, the faint pulse of heat radiating every time I flex my jaw. The metallic tang of blood still lingers at the corner of my mouth, a subtle reminder every time my tongue brushes the cut her nail had left behind.

She hit me.

Not one of my men. Not some desperate enforcer with nothing to lose. Not even an enemy who spent years maneuvering themselves into a similar position to land the blow when I least expected it.

Katerina Borchin—the woman I’ve kept locked inside for weeks now whom I’ve been studying, prodding, testing without her knowing. The woman whose defiance has been a daily amusement and something I’ve unexpectedly looked forward to…