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“What good name?” I spit.
Before the words are even fully out of my mouth, Alexander’s hand cracks across my face.
“Watch how you talk to me, Cordelia. I don’t stand for disrespect.”
He shakes out his hand like it stings a bit. I want to ask if my face hurt his hand, but I don’t feel like getting slapped twice before I’ve even had a sip of coffee.
“I’ve done well for myself while you were away,” he says. “In some ways, you leaving helped. I talked to everyone imaginable trying to find you and it put me in touch with all kinds of people: lawyers, doctors, politicians. I have info on everyone. And information sells.”
“If that’s true, you wouldn’t need to sell me,” I mumble.
He narrows his eyes in warning. “Well, there’s a limit to who I can sellthatkind of thing to. People like Konstantin Sokolov aren’t going to trust just anyone. They like to keep things in the family. So creating a foothold there would be helpful. Plus, youwerepromised to Mikhail, Cordelia. What good am I if I don’t prove myself to be a man of my word?”
“So all of this—tracking me down, holding me prisoner, marrying me off to Mikhail—this is all so you can be a professional gossip?”
“Fixer,” he corrects icily. “I’m a political fixer. It’s a whole lot more than gossip. I clean up messes. I take care of problems.”
I feel his eyes on me. He doesn’t need to say I am a problem he will take care of in order for me to understand that is exactly what he means.
“The job is underworld-adjacent, given the somewhat questionable favors I have to pull from time to time. But I don’t want to work near the Sokolovs; I want to workwiththem. I’m seeking a promotion.”
I snort. “Entering into a life of crime is a real step up. Congratulations.”
He leans back, relaxed now. Slapping me must have consumed some of the rage he’d been carrying. “You have no vision, Cordelia.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Stop living in a fantasy,” he bites back. “Your name is Cordelia. You’re marrying Mikhail Sokolov. These are the realities of your life and the sooner you come to terms with them, the better off you’ll be.”
I stand tall and proud. “I’m going to escape and live free again. The sooneryoucome to terms with that, the better off you’ll be.”
Alexander arches a graying brow. “Are you still waiting for Ivan to come and save you?”
“No.”
Yes.
I wish I didn’t, though. I want to cut that useless hope out of me, but I don’t know how. Some part of me will always be waiting for him, I think. Some part of me will always believe.
“You’re a terrible liar, Cordelia. I can see it in your eyes. You think Ivan Pushkin is going to rescue you.” He shrugs lazily. “Maybe he’ll try. He’s put forward more of an effort than I thought he would. He bartered on your behalf.”
I frown. “He has?”
The crack in my facade allows a flood of baseless hopes to come rushing in.Maybe his relationship with Francia is all part of some deal. Maybe everything he has done is to keep me safe.
“Ivan is as good aspakhanin the Pushkin Bratva now,” Alexander says, ignoring my question. “The fact that you have a connection to him is useful for me. It gives me some leverage there.”
“No one has leverage over Ivan. He’ll destroy you.”
He turns to me, eyes narrowed. “Then why are you here with me instead of there with him?”
Alexander thinks he has made a good point. I can tell by the smug expression on his face that he thinks he has won.
But the only reason I’m not with Ivan right now is because Ichoseto leave.
I found out about Katerina going missing and I doubted him. I threw away everything I’d learned about Ivan in a second and fled from him and his house—right into the arms of the people I ran from in the first place.
This is all my fault.
