Page 62 of His Stolen Bride

“Yes.”

“And you’re going to give him a meeting,” Mikhail says, already knowing the answer.

I don’t soften it. “I’m going to him.”

Enzo reacts first. “No.”

Mikhail doesn’t raise his voice, but his tone cuts. “Quiet.”

Enzo shuts his mouth.

Mikhail’s gaze stays on me. “Say it again.”

“I’m going to him,” I repeat. “Not as bait, and not as a hostage. I’m going as the one person he thinks he can control, then I’m going to use that.”

Mikhail steps closer to the desk. “You don’t walk into his hands.”

“I already live inside his plan,” I say. “I’ve lived there since my father wrote my name onto paper and thought that made me property.”

Mikhail’s face tightens. “You’re not property.”

“I know,” I say. “That’s the point. He doesn’t.”

Mikhail leans forward, palms on the desk, eyes intense. “You leave this house to meet him, and he doesn’t let you walk away.”

“He will,” I say. “He needs me to walk away. He needs the appearance that I chose. He needs to tell himself I came willingly. That’s his weakness.”

Enzo looks between us. “This is insane.”

“It’s inevitable,” I say, and I don’t glance at him. “If I don’t step into it, he keeps circling. If I do, we control the timing and the location and the exit.”

Mikhail’s voice goes low. “He’ll demand the child.”

“He won’t,” I answer. “Not first. He’s not stupid. He knows if he touches Oisin, he triggers war so loud that Vienna can’t pretend it’s business. He wants you isolated. He wants me isolated. He wants the boy later.”

Mikhail’s nostrils flare. “Later.”

“Yes,” I say. “When he thinks the boy is old enough to hurt you.”

Mikhail goes still. “He’d kill him.”

“He’d use him,” I correct. “Then he’d kill him.”

Enzo’s hands curl into fists.

Mikhail’s eyes don’t leave my face. “You’re calm.”

“I’ve had six years of practice,” I say, and my voice stays steady even when my chest tightens. “I’ve been waiting for the day he stopped circling and started speaking.”

Mikhail’s jaw clenches. “I don’t agree.”

“I’m not asking for permission,” I say, and I watch his expression change at the familiar structure of the words, the leadership language, the dominance he lives by. “I’m telling you what I’m going to do, and I’m telling you how it keeps our son alive.”

His eyes flash at that. “Don’t use him like that.”

“I’m not using him,” I shoot back. “I’m protecting him.”

Enzo mutters something in Russian I don’t bother catching.