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ANASTASIA

Freedom tastes like expensive champagne and smells like Parisian night air—crisp with promise and sweet with possibility.

Unlike the stale, vodka-soaked atmosphere of Moscow's elite gatherings.

I've spent twenty-three years imagining this moment—standing alone on a hotel balcony, no bodyguards shadowing my movements, none of my father's operatives reporting my every word, no Bratva politics dictating my choices. Just me, Anastasia, without the leaden weight of "Markov" hanging from my name like a designer ball and chain.

The Paris night embraces me with gentle fingers, so different from Moscow's harsh grip. Here, the breeze carries laughter and music rather than whispered threats and cold, calculated silence. The lights shimmer like scattered diamonds. Here I can almost forget the watchful illumination of security cameras and posted guards.

I read somewhere that you can never truly know the shape of your cage until you step outside it. Basking in my freedom in Paris, I understand what that means. My cage wasn't just Moscow, wasn't just my father's mansion with its bulletproof windows and security protocols—the constant scent of gun oil and expensive cologne, the heaviness of unsaid rules hanging in the air. The cage has been built inside me all along—the constant, silent fear, the learned obedience, the reflexive calculation before every word and gesture.

Who might be watching? Who might report back? How will this affect Father's business? Will this displease him?

These thoughts circle my mind like faithful sentinels, even three thousand kilometers from Moscow, even when no one is watching.

Almost no one.

I lift the champagne to my lips, savoring the bright effervescence on my tongue, the delicate bubbles a counterpoint to the heavy Russian vodka that flows like water in my father's house. One week. That's what Father granted me—his grand benevolence, allowing his perfect, obedient daughter a single week of supervised freedom before... before whatever comes next. Before "the important matters we must discuss upon your return."

I know what those important matters will be. I've seen how he watches me lately, assessing, calculating. I'm twenty-three. Well past the age when most Bratva princesses are married off to cement alliances or expand territories.

He's been waiting. Waiting for the perfect bargaining chip, the perfect power play so my body, my name, my bloodline will yield the highest return.

The crystal flute trembles in my hand, and I set it down before I shatter it against the elegant iron railing. I won't think about Moscow tonight. Tonight belongs to me.

My phone buzzes against the glass tabletop—Father's name illuminating the screen like a warning flare. For three rings, I watch it vibrate, each buzz a small rebellion. No one makes Mikhail Markov wait. No one except, perhaps, his daughter, for these few stolen seconds.

On the fourth ring, I answer.

"Father." My voice shifts automatically into the perfect daughter's cadence—soft, respectful, controlled.

"Nastya." Static crackles between us, or perhaps it's just the sound of three thousand kilometers failing to dilute his authority. "You've arrived safely, I assume."

Not a question. A demand for confirmation.

"Yes, Father." I swirl the champagne, watching moonlight fragment through crystal and liquid. "The hotel is beautiful. Thank you for arranging it."

The lie comes easily. I booked this hotel myself, using one of the offshore accounts he doesn't know I know about. A meaningless rebellion, but mine, nonetheless.

"Good. Remember, this is a brief vacation only." His tone sharpens like a blade being honed. "You have responsibilities here. Important matters we must discuss upon your return."

The familiar weight settles back onto my shoulders, the yoke I've carried since my mother's death left me as his only family. The lonely heiress with a destiny she cannot escape.

Always duty. Always responsibilities. Always the suffocating burden of being a Markov. In Moscow, even the air feels heavier with it—laden with expectation, with history, with the metallic tang of power won through blood.

"Of course, Father. Just a week, as we agreed." Another lie. I’ve decided that I'll stay as long as I please. "Is there something specific we need to discuss?"

A pause. Ice clinks against crystal—his ever-present tumbler of vodka, no doubt. The sound triggers an involuntary shiver, a Pavlovian response to the countless nights I've heard that same clink before he delivered some new edict, some new restriction on my already limited freedom.

"Nothing that can't wait until you return. Enjoy Paris, Nastya. But remember who you are."

Markov. Bratva royalty. Your property.

The unspoken words hang between us, crossing borders and oceans.

"I won't forget, Father." That, at least, is true. I can never forget, even when I desperately want to.