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I was sixteen. Still under my father’s control when he finalized the deal to sell me. I didn’t know the full details at the time—only that the man who came to inspect his “purchase” was twenty years my senior, his face etched with the kind of raw cruelty that made my skin crawl. I tried to fight him when he put his hands on me. He laughed and told me I’d be broken in soon enough…

I circle the brand with my thumb.

“Then why did you do it?”

“Because my family’s been absolute shit toward the Kopolovs. I wanted to prove my allegiance.”

“Do they all have this?” He shakes his head. “No, it’s more of an old-fashioned tradition. I was the one who, you might say, brought it back.”

I want one.

I blink. What the actual fuck?

I kiss his brand. The mutilated flesh is softer than I expected. Turning, he cradles me in his arms and kisses me. The memory of the night I was attacked fades to white.

His phone buzzes.

"I have to take that."

He steps out of the closet, already answering the call, his voice dropping into something lower, more clipped. I don’t hear the words, but I hear the rise and fall of his tone. The sharp curse.

When he comes back, his face is a mask. I wonder if this is what it will always be like with him—these moments of intensity, interrupted by things I’ll never be privy to.

"If you decide to run the moment we step foot out of this house…"

I smirk. "I know, I know. You’ll come and catch me."

But for the first time in a long time, I don’t want to run. Not from him, anyway. From the Kopolovs? That’s another story.

The Cottage is quaint in name but not in reality. It’s ostentatious in the way that only men with something to prove build their homes. Old money—cold, quiet, powerful—but beautiful. So beautiful. It stands against the darkening sky like a beacon, flanked by sprawling grounds, roses still in bloom.

I wonder, for the briefest moment, what it would have been like if I had lived here.

I almost did.

I would’ve been the new matriarch of the family.

That’s why I ran, of course.

O’Rourke was the one who warned me. Told me what the Kopolovs were really like and what to expect. What Rafail was like—cold, merciless, commanding, the undeniable patriarch.

Argh.

The late afternoon air is cool on my skin as I step out of the car, but it does nothing to ease the nerves curling low in my belly. I am not the kind of woman who gets nervous. I’ve been in rooms with killers before, in spaces where every breath was measured, every word weighted.

But this?

The knowledge that I was supposed to marry this man—the knowledge that he replaced me with my own sister—makes me uneasy in a way I can’t shake.

Matvei parks. We are the only ones outside.

He walks over to open my door, takes my hand, and meets my eyes.

"You don’t belong to Rafail," he says, and I don’t know if he’s convincing me or himself.

"I don’t belong toanyone," I counter.

Hello.