Page 18

The bedroom is cast in soft morning light, gold and pale across the floorboards, across the edge of the bed she’s just slipped out of. Her back is to me. Her silhouette moves through the shafts of sun like something from a dream I haven’t been able to shake since last night. One strap of the black silk night dress slides off her shoulder as she reaches for her dress, still draped over the chair from the gala. I let my gaze follow the curve of her spine. The small movements of her hands. The way she lifts her hair without thinking, exposing the pale line of her throat.

The same throat I kissed only hours ago.

The same body I held, touched, claimed—fast and desperate in that hallway, her lips swollen and her breath caught in my name.

I should feel satisfied.

I have her now. Her body. Her time. Her silence. The ring on her finger glints in the light like proof of possession. I took everything that mattered. She let me.

Satisfaction doesn’t come. Instead, I feel restless.

She isn’t mine yet. Not completely. I see it in the way she still pulls herself from my bed like she’s retreating, like every night she gives in is followed by a morning of regret she doesn’t speak out loud. She wears defiance like perfume—light, lingering, and impossible to ignore.

Yet… she doesn’t run. Not this morning. Not after last night.

That small concession alone curls heat low in my chest.

She disappears into the dressing room, and I step back from the cracked door, retreating before she knows I was there. I could walk in. I could demand her attention. She’s mine now, by word and ring and consequence.

I want her to come to me . I want her to crave my gaze, not just tolerate it. I want her loyalty unspoken, burning beneath her skin the way it’s already begun to burn beneath mine.

It’s midafternoon when we make an appearance together.

I bring her to a private luncheon at one of the Bratva’s affiliate properties. Small gathering. Controlled setting. Men with power. Women with secrets. A place where every glance is a test, and every smile a threat.

Elise walks beside me, chin high, gaze sharp. She doesn’t wear the robe now—she wears something new. A navy dress I had sent up this morning. It fits like it was sewn for her, hugging her hips, her waist, high at the collar but slit nearly to her thigh. Conservative in the places that matter. Designed to tease where it counts.

She knows what it does to me.

She doesn’t flinch when I rest a hand on her back. Doesn’t hesitate when I introduce her—once again—as my fiancée.

Her eyes tell me everything.

They flicker when I say the word. A breath caught in her ribs, a muscle twitching at the corner of her jaw.

She doesn’t contradict it, but she doesn’t own it either.

I watch her through the meal. The way she listens without speaking too much. The way she meets other men’s eyes—brief, polite, never lingering. Still, I notice. Every single time. The split second she hesitates before answering a question. The subtle way she shifts away from me when I press my hand to her thigh beneath the table.

It’s all a game. One I’m going to win.

She slips once—laughing too easily at a comment from one of the men seated beside her. He’s nothing. A cousin of a cousin. Small-time. Her head tips back, and I catch the curve of her neck, the way her lips part around the sound.

I snap.

My hand closes around her knee beneath the table. Not hard. Not painful. But firm.

Mine.

Her laughter stops. She glances at me, something unreadable flickering behind her eyes.

Then she lowers her voice. “Jealousy doesn’t suit you,” she murmurs, just loud enough for me to hear.

“I’m not jealous,” I reply smoothly, voice low against her ear. “I’m possessive. Know the difference.”

She says nothing, but she doesn’t pull away.

Later, when the gathering ends and we walk back through the mansion toward the car, I catch her watching me. Not with fear. Not with loathing. But with that same war I’ve come to recognize—the one that plays out behind her green eyes every time I touch her.

I slow as we reach the steps. My fingers brush her lower back. She doesn’t move.

“You surprised me today,” I say casually.

She arches a brow. “That I can fake civility?”

“That you didn’t try to run.”

She exhales a laugh, breathless and dry. “Why would I? You’d just chase me down again.”

I lean in, voice thick with heat. “Maybe I like the chase.”

She looks up at me. Her lips curve—not quite a smile. Not quite defeat.

“I’m not yours,” she says quietly.

“No,” I whisper back.

We both know she’s lying, because the line between pretending and surrender is thinner than she wants to admit.

I intend to cross it. Again and again. Until she stops pretending entirely.

***

She’s already halfway up the stairs when I hear the voice.

Soft. Familiar. A sound I haven’t heard in years but would recognize in any room, any city, any lifetime. It snakes through the silence of the foyer, sultry and sharpened like a blade disguised in silk.

“Kolya.”

I freeze. It’s Darya.

I don’t turn. Not immediately. I don’t need to see her to know how she’ll look—poised, polished, wearing that smug expression that always made me want to silence her with something brutal or indulgent, depending on the hour. When I do glance back, I’m not surprised.

She hasn’t changed.

Still beautiful. Dark hair, sharp eyes. She’s dressed like she’s attending a funeral for someone important—tight black dress, sky-high heels, and a necklace that probably costs more than most men make in a year. The same arrogant tilt to her chin. The same effortless ownership of any room she walks into.

Except this one isn’t hers, and I’m not the same man she once played.

“You look the same,” she purrs.

I walk down the final step and stop beside the grand piano, putting space between us.

“Darya.”

“Still so warm.” She smiles with those blood-red lips.

“What do you want?”

“Oh, don’t be cruel.” She circles me like she used to, slow and assessing. “I heard the news. About your fiancée .”

I don’t respond.

Her eyes flick to the staircase, just in time to catch Elise peeking down from the landing. Darya’s grin sharpens, and I feel a coil of tension wind tight through my chest.

She knows exactly what she’s doing.

“Who’s this?” she says, loudly enough to reach her.

I grit my teeth. “That would be the woman in question.”

She arches a brow, clearly delighted. “You always were so protective of your toys.”

There it is. The button she’s always loved to push. I step in closer, low enough that no one but her can hear me. “Don’t test me tonight.”

She just hums. “You never did like being reminded of the past.”

“She’s not part of it,” I growl.

“Clearly,” she replies, tone soft but laced with poison. “Though I wonder if she knows who you really are. The things you’ve done. The way you used to need me.”

I don’t need this. Not tonight. Not in front of Elise.

Especially not now—after the way she kissed me last night, after the way she gasped in my mouth, touched me like she hated it, like she needed it, like she wanted to forget everything but the weight of me pressing her against the wall.

The memory rises like heat under my collar.

I hear the click of heels against marble, and I know she’s coming down. Elise.

Darya turns toward her as she approaches. She takes her in—my girl in a dark blue dress, looking every inch the woman I claimed, the woman who still hasn’t realized how deep I’ve sunk into her.

“Pretty,” Darya says with a sweet smile. “Is that what you go for now?”

Elise’s voice is calm. Cold. “What he goes for is none of your business.”

A flicker of something dangerous flashes behind Darya’s eyes, but she doesn’t lash out. Instead, she steps closer to me again, lips just shy of touching my ear.

“I wonder what she’ll think when she finds out everything,” she whispers. “You can chain her to your side, Kolya, but you can’t keep your secrets forever.”

I don’t react. Not physically, but inside, something shifts.

Then she’s gone, her heels echoing as she crosses the marble, head high, hips swaying like she’s won.

She hasn’t. I watch her go, jaw locked, until the front doors swing shut behind her.

Then I feel it—the absence of Elise’s hand in mine. I look up and she’s already turning away, moving fast up the stairs, back straight, shoulders stiff.

She doesn’t look back.

I stand in the empty foyer and clench my fists, the hollow ache building low in my gut. She doesn’t realize what Darya is to me. What she was . It shouldn’t matter. It doesn’t now .

That flicker of emotion in Elise’s eyes—jealousy or something worse—sticks with me.

She looked like she wanted me to deny everything. Like she needed to hear it, right there in the hall.

I didn’t give it to her, and now I don’t know who I’m more angry at—Darya, Elise, or myself.

Elise turns on me. Her spine is rigid, her hands balled at her sides, and that fire I’ve come to recognize—come to crave —burns bright in her eyes. There’s no hesitation, no caution. Just fury.

“Who was she?” she demands, each word flung like a blade.

I don’t answer. Not because I can’t—but because I want to see what she does next. I want to feel the heat rise.

“Why did you look different around her?” she presses, voice tightening. “What was she to you?”

I take my time turning toward her, slowly, letting her frustration build. Then I smirk—because I see it now, clear as blood in snow.

Jealousy.

“You seemed very occupied last night, ptichka ,” I say smoothly. “Or did you think I was the only one losing control?”

She stiffens, that pretty mouth tightening. Her eyes flick away—briefly—before snapping back to mine with more venom than before.

“You didn’t answer the question,” she bites out.

“I didn’t think I needed to.” I step closer, savoring the way her breath catches even as her jaw hardens. “You’ve had your hands all over me. You kissed me first. You looked up at me like you wanted to be owned.”

“That’s not what this is,” she snaps.

“Isn’t it?” My tone drops. “Then why are you so angry?”

She falters. It’s small—but it’s there. A shift in her stance. The truth, surfacing in the crack between fury and something else she won’t name.

“I’m angry because you treat me like a possession,” she hisses. “Then expect gratitude.”

I let that settle. Let the silence breathe, thick and weighted.

Then, “You are mine. Whether you thank me for it or not.”

The slap doesn’t come—but I see the urge behind her eyes. She’s trembling now, from emotion or restraint, I can’t tell.

She’s burning.

Before either of us can think—before the tension can rot into words neither of us means—our mouths collide.

It’s not gentle. It’s not careful.

She pushes. I push back. Her fists press against my chest, nails scraping through my shirt. My hand finds her waist, dragging her hard against me, the other gripping her face with barely restrained force.

She kisses like she fights—wild, desperate, unapologetic. I take and take, our breaths tangled, teeth clashing, tongues slick with fury and something much darker.

Her back slams into the wall, but she doesn’t flinch.

Her hands tangle in my hair, pulling until I groan into her mouth. I trail kisses down her jaw, her throat, biting just enough to feel her gasp.

“Elise,” I growl, half crazed. “You belong to me.”

Her reply is a gasp, a hiss, a whimper.

She arches into me, her hips grinding without thought, her hands sliding under my jacket. The lines between pain and pleasure, hate and hunger, blur so completely I couldn’t find the difference if I tried.

She’s soft and sharp all at once—fragile, but not weak.

I want to destroy her. I want to worship her.

I press my forehead against hers, trying to catch a breath that won’t come.

“This isn’t about Darya,” I mutter. “It never was; I don’t care about her.”

“Then what is it about?” she breathes.

“You.” That’s all I say; that’s all there is.

She stares at me like she wants to tear me apart—and maybe she will. Maybe I’ll let her.

I kiss her again. Slower. Deeper. She lets me.

She stares at me, lips parted, chest still heaving from the kiss. Her wrists are still in my grip, pinned lightly above her head. I could let go. I should.

Her silence burns hotter than her words ever could.

“Say it,” I murmur.

Her brows twitch. “Say what?”

“That you felt it.”

She scoffs, but the sound lacks its usual venom. “You want me to admit I enjoyed being manhandled in a hallway like some kind of—”

“Like my fiancée?” I cut in, leaning closer. “Because that’s what you are.”

Her eyes narrow. “By force.”

“By necessity,” I correct. “By design .”

She finally tugs her arms free. I let her.

“I didn’t ask for any of this,” she says, stepping back. “You dragged me into your world, and now you want me to thank you for it?”

“No.” I follow her retreat, slow and deliberate. “I want you to stop pretending it hasn’t changed you.”

Her mouth twists. “You think a kiss changes everything?”

I smirk. “No. You do.”

That makes her flinch, just slightly. And that’s all it takes. I see it. The crack. The part of her she keeps sealed behind fire and pride. She wants this—us—but she hates herself for it.

She turns away, but I’m already there, catching her wrist again—gentler this time.

“You’re still mine, Elise,” I say softly. “Whether you scream it or whisper it or deny it.”

Her voice is quiet when it comes. “You terrify me.”

I nod once. “Good.”

Then—then I reach out and brush a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

“I won’t let anyone else touch you,” I whisper. “Not while you wear my name. Not while you breathe.”

She shudders at that, but she doesn’t walk away.