Page 6 of His Contract Queen

What did he offer? What did he threaten? What dirt did he dig up that even Nikolai couldn’t bury?

Why her?

It makes no sense.

I exhale slowly through my nose, forcing the questions down. Realistically, it doesn’t matter. I didn’t call to gossip. I called for information, and I’ve already wasted enough time not getting any of it.

“I see,” I say, voice flat. “If you come across anything pertaining to Borchin, send it my way. We can discuss a price tag then.”

I hang up before he can answer.

Shaking away the disbelief that Sokolov’s paramour has somehow won over our king, I find a new feeling rising.

This unsettles me more than any buried scandal ever could.

If there were at the very leastrumors, then at least there would be some kind of semblance of a pattern. A cause. Something external that pushed him down this path. Corruption I could trace, leverage I could exploit, a moment where the man’s moral compass fractured and never bothered to put himself back together properly.

But… there’s nothing.

No paper trail. No whispered stories. No skeletons rattling in closets that don’t belong to everyone else in his circle. Just a spotless public record and a reputation polished to a dull, blinding shine. If his debts weren’t being held by me personally, I would have never suspected a thing.

That’s what bothers me most.

Ramil Borchin doesn’t look like a man with a gambling addiction.

There’s no sloppiness, no public recklessness, no visible desperation. His life is immaculate, the careful restraint of someone who understands how to curate an image down to the smallest detail. If the numbers weren’t currently sitting on my desk, I would have believed the lie just like everyone else.

Which means this didn’t happen because Ramil Borchin was cornered by circumstance. It happened because he chose it.

There was no single catastrophic failure. No crisis that forced his hand. He simply woke up one day, looked at the balance sheetof what he owed me, and decided that saving himself mattered more than his own child.

With nothing else to uncover and the unease still crawling under my skin, I make the call.

He answers on the third ring. “This is Borchin.”

I don’t waste time dressing any of this up with playful banter. I lean back in my chair, one arm resting along the edge of the desk, and let my tone flatten until it borders on bored. “I’ve considered your offer.”

Silence floods the line.

Under any other circumstance, I would have enjoyed this moment. I’ve always appreciated the sound of powerful men realizing their fate rests in someone else’s hands. That suspended second where everything they’ve built teeters on a single word.

Usually, I savor it.

Today, I don’t.

That pause doesn’t give me satisfaction. It doesn’t make me feel in control. Instead, it tightens something unpleasant in my chest, a pressure I don’t like and don’t fully understand. The longer he stays silent, the more the conversation feels wrong. Like somehowI’vecrossed a line I can’t retreat from.

I shake the thoughts away before they can take root.

Indecision is a luxury I don’t indulge. Whatever unease this situation stirs, it won’t be resolved by hesitation. I straighten slightly in my chair, forcing my voice back into something controlled, something more familiar.

“I’ll take your daughter,” I say flatly. “Have her delivered to me within the week. Once she’s secure, your debts are wiped completely.”

There’s a faint exhale on the other end of the line, gone before he can fully mask it. Relief, pure and unfiltered. It slips through the cracks despite his discipline, and the sound of it leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

He doesn’t ask what conditions I intend to impose. He doesn’t ask where she’ll be kept, how she’ll be treated, or what this arrangement will actually cost her. Not a single question crosses his mind about the daughter he’s just traded away.

Ramil Borchin doesn’t thank me, nor does he acknowledge the gravity of what he’s agreed to. He doesn’t even pretend to wrestle with the decision now that it’s been made. Instead, he responds the way men like him always do when they believe they’ve narrowly escaped disaster.