Page 30 of His Contract Queen

Neither of them speaks.

At the main entryway, we separate without ceremony. The cold air bites my lungs as I breathe it in deeply. The sting should be clarifying, burning away the lingering tension knotted betweenmy shoulder blades, and carve through the static still humming beneath my skin. Instead, it only sharpens my thoughts.

Malyshko knows more than he’s saying. He always does. Mentioning Katerina so blatantly in the middle of our meeting was not an offhand observation. Instead of dismissing the others and keeping me behind to address it privately, he chose to call me out in front of them.

Why?

To try to humiliate me?

To remind me of my place?

My mind drifts back to the way his gaze shifted to Sokolov with that quiet reminder of what happens when attachment begins to outweigh our own discipline. Is this his attempt to teach the lesson he never quite managed to finish with Sokolov?

To me, all of this seems like a precursor to prevent me from following in Sokolov’s footsteps. The way he allowed the implication to hang in the room without blatantly addressing the issue like he’s done so many times with other topics is what unsettles me most.

He wanted me to understand that regardless of whatever little game I’m playing with Katerina and Ramil, it needs to be kept contained. If he decides that my attachment toward Katerina compromises the Pact in any way, he will not hesitate in forcing my hand the same way he tried to with Sokolov.

But unlike Sokolov, I doubt I will be granted some miracle the same way he had. There will be no unexpected sacrifice to tilt the scales in my favor, no emotional concession that will getMalyshko to change his mind about killing the woman living under my roof.

My ending would not be as fortunate.

So, it leaves me with only one decision—to concede and give him what he wants, perhaps even returning her to the same man who put her in this position to begin with, or risk defying an explicit order and keep Katerina, no matter the consequences?

8

KATERINA

When I finally pick myself up off the floor, I head back to my room.

I don’t remember the walk back upstairs. I only remember the way the walls seem to close in around me with every step forward. Silence descends immediately the second my door clicks shut behind me.

The room is exactly as I left it—the bed made, curtains drawn to keep the floodlights from coming in after every sweep of the grounds. I pace the length of my room until the carpet beneath my feet is flattened into dull, unforgiving lines. I trace the same path over and over until it feels like I’m carving a trench into the floor.

Every few minutes, I stop and pull the burner phone out from its hiding place under my bed and stare at the screen to prove that my notes made it out. That the information I risked potentially being killed for has made it into the right diplomatic channels and that my father is still alive somewhere beyond these walls moving pieces into place to get me out.

And every time I am sorely disappointed when I’m met with nothing.

No missed calls, no cryptic one-word replies, nothing awaits me by the time the screen finally comes on. My thumb hovers over the screen as I contemplate sending another message anyway. What terrifies me even more than not knowing if my father is okay is not knowing where exactly Aleksandr went tonight.

What if he had gone to meet my father?

My stomach twists violently as the dark possibilities bloom behind my eyes, each one worse than the last. Aleksandr is Bratva, a man who solves problems permanently with violence so long as it benefits him in the long run.

Denying me access to see my father was unsurprising. Expected, even. Men like him don’t grant favors without extracting something meaningful in return. Asking out of the blue right before he left the property with no leverage offered was a foolish hope on my part even if it had a spur of the moment distraction.

Whatever business he had to conduct so late at night, I could rationalize it. Bratva meet with their contacts at ungodly hours all the time. But it doesn’t escape me that I’ve given him more than enough ammunition to hurt me after striking him across the face. What better way for a man like Aleksandr to make a point than to hurt the person I’m most afraid of losing?

My fingers tighten around the burner phone until the edges dig painfully into my skin.

The longer the hours stretch on with no signs of Aleksandr returning, the worse my paranoia creeps in. Every minute that ticks by adds another layer of dread and another grotesquescenario to keep my from slipping into sleep when I finally force myself into bed.

At this point, direct punishment is the best case scenario.

It’s all I can really hope for.

I waketo the weight of eyes on me.

Not the soft brush of dawn light creeping in past the heavy drapes covering my windows like I expect, but with something far more primal pulsating through my veins. The unmistakable threat of being watched.