Page 96 of Hate You Most

But this—this was excessive.

And then the pieces tumbled into each other. The image being controlled was not just for the public's viewing. It was something that could not be controlled through ordinary means. The crashes and the memory loss.

There were many ways to control how a person was outwardly perceived. Pressure, contracts and even threats. But if ordinary means weren't working, then removing something entirely—something the person knew or something they could say—was more effective.

Viktoriya leaned back slowly, her eyes unfocused for a moment as the implication settled into her bones.

This was no longer just about the accidents. This was about erasure. And before she could stop it—The memory returned all at once, sharp enough to leave her breath caught in her throat. The apartment dissolved into a deep haze around her.

2015.

The cameras had always been there.

Long before she ever stepped into the limelight and long before she learned how to exist within it, she had understood, in an almost instinctive way, that her life would never fully belong to her. That her life would always be observed and interpreted by strangers. She was expected to meet expectations she’d never agreed to but had nevertheless absorbed so completely that they'd become instinctual.

Even now, as the black car slowed to a stop, she felt it—that shift in the atmosphere, the way the air tightened around her.

Her fingers rested lightly against the door handle, but she didn’t move immediately. She didn’t need to look to know they were there. Because they were always there.

The car door was opened for her, and the twilight fractured into blinding light.

She stepped onto the red carpeted sidewalk. Sharp and relentless flashes turned the world into a stuttering sequence of frozen moments. Voices overlapped and melted into each other as her name was shouted with a harsh intensity. All with different intentions, none of them personal.

And then his hand settled firmly around her arm with a practiced confidence. They both knew exactly what would be seen and how it would be read. Nothing was left to chance.

She didn’t flinch and he didn’t hesitate.

She stepped forward, aligning herself with him as naturally as she could. As if they had always moved this way, as if there had never been a version of her that didn’t know how to exist in relation to him.

He was already smiling, of course he was. This was his night and she was his talking accessory.

It was effortless in appearance but deliberate in execution—the slight curve of his mouth, the relaxed confidence in his expression. It was the kind of smile that made people believe in something, even if there was nothing there to believe in.

This was his night, the premiere of the film that had taken him from rising star to a household name. By the early morning, it wouldn’t just belong to Moscow, or even to Russia—it would be everywhere, splashed across headlines and screens in places she had never been, in languages she didn’t speak. And somewhere among them, she knew with certainty that Dakota would see it too.

He leaned closer as they walked, just close enough that it could be interpreted as intimacy. His body was angled toward hers. It implied more than it confirmed. It left room for speculation and for headlines and for the carefully controlled narrative they created together.

Viktoriya mirrored him perfectly.

Her head tilted slightly toward him, her expression softening. It could so easily be mistaken for fondness or love or a deep rooted affection.

She wondered, distantly, when she had learned to do this so well. No one had sat her down and explained what to do. But she had always known what was expected and what would be approved. What would keep everything exactly as it needed to be.

Her father had made sure of that through careful orchestration of her life. It wasn't approval she strived for with her father, it was the absence of disapproval. And this—this arrangement, this image—it fit seamlessly into that design. It was safe and it was correct and it was what was expected of her, so it was what she did.

The cameras adored them.

They reached the doors in a blur of light and sound. The noise circled around her, followed them inside the building. And then the doors closed.

The silence that followed was immediate and absolute, pressing around her ears. They were away from the cameras. His hand dropped from her arm, she had served her purpose and was no longer required.

Her skin lost its warmth quickly and the space between them grew as he created distance.

Viktoriya knew why her father had picked Lev Mironov. He was perfect on paper and in public and in every way that mattered. But Lev wasn't careful when they were alone. He'd disappear late at night for hours at a time and there were things he never quite let her see—it wasn’t hard to piece together, even without concrete proof. She suspected there was someone else. Not another girl, but someone, and maybe that was the whole point. Two people who didn’t fit the roles they’d been given and stood side by side until they did. With Lev, nothing would be questioned and the image they created together would be accepted.

Exactly what her father wanted.

Lev exhaled sharply, already moving away from her, one hand pushing back his dark hair as the last traces of his public smile disappeared from his lips.