Page 13 of Marrying the Savage

“No.”

“Friends?”

“None confirmed.”

That bothers me more than it should. A twenty-four-year-old woman with no confirmed friends, raised behind Sergei Antonov’s walls, now being handed to Dmitri Sokolov like a signed contract.

I tell myself the discomfort is strategic. A trapped bride can become leverage. A resentful one can become a crack in an alliance. If Sofia Antonova hates this marriage as much as her face suggests, she may be useful.

That is all. Useful.

Mikhail watches me carefully. “You think she matters.”

“She is the marriage.”

“Yes, but you think she matters beyond that.”

I turn my head. He lowers his gaze slightly, but not in apology. Mikhail doesn’t apologize for being observant. Another reason he remains valuable.

“What I think,” I say, “is that Sergei Antonov has hidden Pavel’s daughter for years, and now he’s placing her in Sokolov’s hands two weeks after secret invitations begin moving through the city. That is not family sentiment. That is a transaction.”

“And if she agreed?”

I remember Sofia’s smile over the rim of her glass, bright enough to be mistaken for sweetness by a fool and edged enough to cut anyone paying attention.

“She didn’t.”

“You are sure?”

“No woman who agrees to marry Dmitri Sokolov looks that entertained by his humiliation.”

Mikhail gives a quiet huff. “Fair.”

I think of the sound she tried to smother when I insulted Sokolov. Not quite laughter. Close enough. The kind of reaction that will cost her later if Dmitri has already decided he owns her.

He will not hit her before the wedding. Not where marks can show. Men like him begin smaller. Corrections. Warnings. Fingers too tight around an elbow. A comment about gratitude. A reminder that resistance embarrasses everyone.

After the wedding, he will call cruelty discipline. I’ve seen the pattern often enough to know its first steps.

The thought should mean nothing to me. Sofia Antonova is Pavel’s daughter. Sergei’s niece. Sokolov’s bride. Her family’s choices carved scars through mine, and if she has inherited anything from them, perhaps she deserves whatever consequences come with the name. And I will make sure she gets it.

4

SOFIA

Sleep refuses to come.

It doesn’t even pretend to try.

I lie in the center of my enormous bed, staring up at the pale canopy above me while the house settles into its midnight silence around me. The curtains are drawn. The lights are off. The hallway outside my room is quiet except for the occasional low murmur of a guard speaking into his phone, his voice too soft for me to catch the words.

Not that it matters. The men in this house never say anything interesting where I can hear it.

My room is beautiful in the way expensive prisons are beautiful. Cream walls. French windows. Antique dressing table. A wardrobe full of dresses chosen by women who think beige is a personality trait. There are fresh white roses on the table near the fireplace, though I didn’t ask for them.

My uncle likes flowers. Not because he’s sentimental, but because flowers look good beside a woman being prepared for sacrifice.

I turn onto my side and punch the pillow into a new shape. It does nothing. My body remains restless, too aware of the sheets against my skin, too warm beneath the silk nightdress I changed into hours ago and immediately regretted. Everything touches too much. The straps against my shoulders. The hem around my thighs. The cool weight of the blanket near my hip.