Page 71

Across from me, my mother sits, perfectly composed, her cold, regal presence as suffocating as ever.
Ekaterina Ivanova is not a woman who forgives.
She taps her manicured fingers against the armrest of her chair, watching me closely, as if measuring just how far I’ve fallen.
“You look tired, Mikhail,” she says smoothly, her Russian accent thick and sharp. “Still mourning the little traitor?”
I don’t respond immediately. Instead, I roll the glass between my fingers, watching the way the amber liquid catches the light.
She takes my silence as confirmation and scoffs, shaking her head. “I raised you better than this. A woman betrays you, and you allow her to simply disappear?”
My jaw clenches. “She didn’t disappear. She was taken from me.”
My mother arches a delicate brow. “Was she? Or did she run the moment you were weak?”
A muscle ticks in my jaw.
Because we both know the truth.
Lila ran.
She saw her opportunity and she took it.
And the worst part? I don’t know if it was fear that made her leave—or something worse.
Regret.
Disgust.
Maybe she never wanted me at all.
The thought turns my blood to ice. I exhale through my nose, setting the glass down with a soft clink on the mahogany desk. “I will find her.”
My mother studies me, her lips curving into something like amusement. “And then what? Welcome her back with open arms? Let her crawl into your bed like nothing happened?”
The heat of my anger surges.
“No,” I say, voice like steel.
The room falls silent.
I don’t have to elaborate. She understands.
When I find Lila, she won’t get a choice this time.
She will never be able to run from me again.
My mother leans forward, her expression darkening. “Then do what needs to be done,synok.”
My throat tightens at the old term.
She only calls me that when she’s trying to remind me of who I am. Of what I am.
She stands gracefully, smoothing down the folds of her deep emerald dress, always impeccable, always in control. “I would have had her killed the moment she ran,” she says casually, as if she’s discussing the weather. “You know that, don’t you?”
My hands tighten into fists. “I won’t kill her,” I say flatly.
My mother scoffs, unimpressed. “Shame. A dead wife is far less humiliating than a runaway one.”