Page 28

ZOYA

I knew this moment would come eventually.

It honestly surprised me it took this long.

The first few days after being locked in this room, chained to this bed, I slept. Consciousness faded in and out. When I did sleep, it was deep, cold, and dreamless.

But when I was awake, all I could do was think about him.

Roman.

Where was he?

Why wasn’t he here?

The only people who came were the girls who helped me get cleaned up or brought food. The doctor stopped by every few hours in the beginning, but less and less after that.

As far as I could tell, I’d been in this room for a little over a week. No one answered my questions or said anything useful, anything that might give me a sense of how much time had passed or what Roman’s plans were.

No one except the man who stood at the edge of my bed and glared at me.

Gregor fucking Ivanov.

When heavy footsteps echoed down the hall—too loud to be a woman’s, too firm to be the doctor’s—I hoped it was Roman.

I had been waiting for him. Waiting to see what would happen. Waiting for an answer to why he saved me.

My heart pounded in my chest, my mouth went dry, but when the door opened… my hope deflated.

Gregor walked in, moved to the foot of the bed, and just stood there, staring at me like a disappointed father waiting for his child to confess their sins.

It was a mind game; an old one.

He wanted me to speak first, to fill the silence.

Joke was on him. I preferred silence.

My back was against the headboard, wrist still cuffed to it. I shifted slightly, stretching the chain just enough to rest my hand casually on the carved wood of its frame.

My fingers traced the ornate curves as I waited. I would’ve preferred to tap my nails on the table beside me, or my foot against the floor, but that wasn’t an option.

I would take whatever control I could get.

The longer Gregor stood there and stared, the redder his face became.

I took more pleasure than I should have in my petty defiance. Just knowing he came in here to get under my skin and instead I had turned the tables and was getting under his felt good.

Finally, he broke the silence.

One point for me.

“Do you know why you’re here?” he asked.

I recognized his voice. He was the man Roman argued with the day I arrived. He didn’t want me here. Roman had gone toe to toe with the head of his family…for me.

That had to mean something. I just didn’t know what.

“Because you haven’t killed me yet? Wanted to nurse me back to health before torturing me?”

He snorted, the corner of his lip twitching.

“No, but I like the way you think,” he said, face shifting back into its usual stone mask.

There was a table and chairs beside the bed, but he didn’t sit. He wouldn’t lower himself to my level.

In another overused power move, he wanted to loom over me. Use his size to intimidate me.

More mind games.

It was like all Russian bosses read the same outdated 1980s power-and-intimidation playbook. I bet he did power poses in the mirror before walking in here.

I wasn’t about to give up control. Not to him. Not to anyone. I didn’t care how long they stood in front of the mirror with their chests puffed up like Wonder Woman.

“Well, if not to torture me, kill me, or feed me…” I glanced around him pointedly. “Then I have no idea why you’re here.”

“I’m here to give you a choice,” he said.

I doubted that.

Men like Gregor didn’t ask questions they didn’t already know the answers to—and they didn’t offer choices unless they knew what you’d choose.

“Firing squad or guillotine?” I asked, lifting an eyebrow. I wanted him to see I wasn’t afraid.

It was a lie.

I was fucking terrified.

But he didn’t need to know that.

No amusement this time. His face was expressionless.

I couldn’t imagine him married to Samara. She didn’t come every time, but she was here the most. None of the women were unkind, just stand-offish, but she seemed the most empathetic. Something about her just felt…softer. Without Nadia’s timidness.

“You are at a crossroads—” he began.

“Really? Because I thought I was handcuffed to a bed.”

Being a smartass probably wasn’t wise, but it was how I kept control.

It was how I showed him I could handle whatever came next.

“You have two choices,” he repeated, his voice sharp, each syllable deliberate. Daring me to interrupt again. “You return to Russia, under watch. You will never set foot in my territory again.”

“What’s option two?” I asked.

I didn’t want to go back to Russia.

Leaving that place—and the girl my father raised me to be—was the whole reason I came here.

It was why I started my vendetta.

I wanted to rebuild this empire in the United States.

Russia wasn’t my home anymore.

It was the graveyard where the girl I used to be died.

The woman I became was born here, in the States. No longer Egor’s daughter—just me.

I couldn’t rebuild anything in Russia.

In the U.S., women had options. It wasn’t perfect, but it was possible.

In Russia, that success wasn’t even on the table.

And being back there would put me within reach of too many men who wanted me dead—or worse.

Men who’d force my hand, make me marry them, claim my wealth, and erase me.

A wife they hadn’t killed yet.

I wouldn’t do it.

Whatever the second option was, it had to be better than this one.

Gregor’s lip curled with disgust as he looked me over. “If you don’t want to return to Russia, then you will marry Roman.”

What?

My stomach twisted at how casually he said it, like my future was a business transaction, an inconvenience to be managed.

Still, I’d be lying if I said my heart didn’t jump. If I didn’t, for a split second, want to say yes.

But I couldn’t.

It was too easy.

There had to be a catch.

Marry a gorgeous man who could cook, who was gentle when he wanted to be, who touched me like I was the only woman in the world?

No.

There was a catch.

Nothing in this life came without strings.

“That’s it?” I asked, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“No. If you stay, you’ll sign over every cent of your remaining wealth to your husband’s control.”

Gregor’s words were calm, but each one was a noose tightening around my throat.

“You’ll own nothing. No assets. No influence. No leverage.”

“Really? Is that all?” I asked, sarcasm biting sharper than it should’ve.

“No. When your father dies, all his holdings will go to Roman. You won’t live like a twenty-first-century American wife. You’ll live like an eighteenth-century Russian one. No decisions. No freedom. No leaving without an escort. You will be watched at all times.”

This wasn’t a proposal.

It wasn’t even a contract.

It was a prison sentence.

It didn’t matter what I felt for Roman.

It didn’t matter what he felt for me.

All that mattered was that Gregor regarded me as a threat.

A woman with money, with connections, with knowledge—and one he couldn’t control.

I had proven I was smarter than him. That I could outmaneuver him.

And for that, I was to be caged.

Not a partner. Not a woman.

A pet.

A thing.

My breath hitched, rage burning sharp and hot through my chest.

I had worked too hard for this. Given up too much. Fought too long to earn the right to choose my life.

And Gregor wanted to take it all away because I dared to be intelligent and resourceful.

He even had the audacity to act like he was doing me a favor in offering me exile or imprisonment.

If I went back to Russia, I’d be dead within the year.

So those were my choices.

Death or captivity.

I’d never go back to being the daughter. The wife.

Never again would I live on someone else’s terms.

Even if it ended in bloodshed. Even if it ended in my death.

My hands clenched into fists as I stared Gregor down, hate boiling in my veins.

“So that’s what this is. You don’t just want to dictate my life. You want to strip me of everything that’s mine.”

I already knew the answer, but I wanted to hear him say it.

“You were never entitled to keep any of it,” he scoffed.

“Your husband’s fortune was never yours.

You never consummated the marriage before you killed him.

And the rest? You stole it from your father, who’s still alive.

If he’s still breathing, that proves you’re not fit to lead. Not worthy of what you have.”

I laughed bitterly. “Is it that he’s still breathing… or that the one Ivanov I captured under your nose is?”

Gregor said nothing, but I caught the flicker in his eyes. His jaw twitched.

Bullseye.

“The place where my father’s being held is worse than death,” I said coldly. “He didn’t deserve the peace of dying. And where my money came from is none of your business.”

“I don’t care where it came from. But if you stay, I know exactly where it’s going.”

Another sharp laugh escaped my throat. The bitterness stung.

“What about Roman? What does he think about your little offer? Does he know you’re selling him for my fortune?”

Gregor’s face gave nothing away, but his next words cut deep.

“Roman agreed to the marriage.”

Something inside me cracked.

Something I didn’t even want to admit existed.

Roman agreed.

Of course he did.

That was why he took me.

Why he fed me.

Why he touched me.

It wasn’t about me.

It was about the money.

My heart slammed against my ribs, emotions crashing inside me: rage, disbelief… and something else. Something I couldn’t name.

Wouldn’t name.

Not now.

Not ever.

I lifted my chin and stared Gregor down.

“Russia,” I said. The word clanged like a hammer against steel in the quiet room.

Gregor stilled. His jaw flexed.

But there was something like satisfaction in his gaze.

He could enjoy his victory all he wanted.

He wasn’t going to win.

“You’re sure?” he asked.

I swallowed past the lump in my throat, past the part of me still waiting—hoping—for Roman to show up. To stop this.

I pushed that naive part of me aside.

The girl who wanted fairy tales. The girl who hadn’t been left behind in Russia after all.

I let her die, right here in this room.

I lifted my chin, steady even as hopes and dreams I didn’t admit to shattered.

Control. I needed to find my control.

“Yes, I’m sure,” I said. “Send me…home.”

Home. The corrupt word left an acidic burn on my tongue.