Page 12

The engine purrs beneath my hands like a living thing, sleek and obedient.

City lights smear across the windshield in gold and blue, a rhythm of blurred shapes and fading halos as the car glides down the highway, black as a bullet.

The streetlights pass overhead in a steady pattern, each one flickering across the interior like a slow metronome counting down to something inevitable.

My fingers tap against the leather steering wheel, slow and idle. There’s nothing careless in the motion. Nothing distracted. I know this road. I know every turn it takes, every streetlight, every shadow.

I should be thinking about the meeting ahead—the man waiting for me in blood and chains. My thoughts aren’t there.

They’re with her.

Alina. My bride.

She had stood in that dress like she was walking into her own execution. Chin lifted. Mouth tense. Eyes wide—but never broken. The gown wrapped her in light, in purity, in something precious and untouched. That’s the word that echoes loudest now.

Untouched.

I grip the wheel tighter. The memory of her scent clings to my fingertips. That mix of fear and defiance. Warm skin under silk. Her breath catching when I kissed her. The way she didn’t pull away.

It wasn’t just arousal. Not lust, though there’s that too.

It’s possession. Power.

I’ve owned cities. Men. Enemies. I’ve shattered empires with a whisper and watched their kings crawl. Alina Carter? She isn’t a conquest.

She is the undoing I’ve been waiting for.

She’ll sleep beside me, breathe under my rules, live beneath my hand.

Not like a prisoner—though she is one—but like something being transformed.

Carved. Molded. She doesn’t know it yet, but her fear is only the beginning.

When it fades, when confusion sets in and her own body starts to betray her, then the real unraveling will begin.

I’ll let her stew in that tension—let her lie awake in my bed, burning with what she doesn’t understand. Wanting what she thinks she hates. The idea of her begging, asking for it, not with words but with need—that will be worth everything.

The thought alone nearly makes me groan.

I exhale sharply and loosen my grip on the wheel as I turn off the main road.

The city fades behind me, replaced by darkened lots and cold industrial buildings. Security lights blink red across metal siding. A gated fence opens before me without a word.

My focus shifts. The softness—the heat—of Alina begins to retreat into the background.

Ahead, brutality waits. Retribution. The kind I’ve been honing for ten years.

The car rolls to a stop beside the main warehouse, and I step out without haste. My boots strike the wet pavement, the rain falling in a light mist, beading on my jacket. A man nods silently as I pass him, unlocking the side door. No one speaks.

They know better.

Inside, the warehouse is dim. Cold. The only light comes from flickering fluorescent strips high above, casting everything in sterile blue.

I make my way down the iron stairs, each step ringing out into the basement.

The smell hits first. Blood. Sweat. Rot. The scent of time stretching too long inside a room that doesn’t forgive.

It’s familiar. Childhood, in a way. My father had a room like this. Maxim and I used to joke that it smelled like victory. We stopped laughing about it after the third time we couldn’t get someone’s blood off our shoes.

Richard Carter is barely recognizable.

We could have left him to rot in his own home. I was going to, at first, but now I have other plans for him.

He’s tied to a chair, wrists bound, head hanging low. His shirt is soaked with blood and spit and something worse. One eye is swollen shut. His lip is split. His breath comes in shallow pulls.

He’s still conscious, though, which is good. I want him lucid for this.

I walk slowly, letting the sound of my approach fill the space.

He lifts his head at the noise, sluggish. His one good eye strains to focus. It lands on me. And for a moment, the recognition flickers. Not fear. Not yet. Just resignation.

I crouch in front of him. Calm. Steady. Hands resting on my knees.

Then I reach out and tilt his chin upward with two fingers. Gentle. Almost kind. “Tell me,” I say, voice soft. “Why did you do it?”

He wheezes a laugh. Blood dribbles from the corner of his mouth. “Does it matter now?”

“It matters to me.”

He stares. Then shrugs, barely able to lift his shoulders. “Anonymous deal,” he croaks. “Money was good. Too good to refuse.”

His voice is sandpaper.

“I didn’t ask questions,” he continues. “Took the contract. Made the kill. Used the payout to build the first tier of my empire. Turned blood into gold.”

There’s a trace of bitterness in his voice now. Not regret. Not guilt. Just the grim weight of consequence.

I nod slowly. “You took the money. Killed my brother. Buried the truth beneath your wealth.”

He doesn’t deny it.

I lean in closer, my tone almost conversational. “And now,” I murmur, “I’m taking everything from you. Starting with your daughter.”

The words hang between us, sharp and final.

Richard Carter’s body reacts before his voice does. His shoulders jerk back, his breath catching on a dry gasp. His mouth opens, but for a moment, nothing comes. Just the slow, staggered rise of his chest as he tries to process it—truly process it.

“No,” he rasps. “First you marry her, now what?”

I tilt my head, not with sympathy, but with curiosity. “Well, we’ll do what married couples do. Obviously.”

“Monster.”

“She wears my name now,” I say. “She stood beside me, swore herself to me. She belongs to me in ways you can’t undo.”

Richard flinches like I struck him. “You’re using her. You’re using her to punish me.”

“Yes,” I say simply. “I have to say, I’m enjoying it.”

He tries to rise, to fight against the restraints, but the zip ties bite deep, and he chokes on a groan of pain.

“She’ll never forgive you,” he spits, and there’s blood on his teeth now. “You think you can twist her, but she’s stronger than you know.”

I lower my voice, crouching again until my face is inches from his.

“I don’t want her forgiveness,” I whisper. “I want her devotion.”

He goes still.

That’s the final blow. Not the bruises. Not the broken ribs. But the truth of it. The cold inevitability that Alina—his daughter, his heir, his symbol of legacy—will be mine in every way that matters. Not just in name, but in loyalty. In trust. In obedience.

I rise to my feet, brushing a smear of blood from my coat like it’s dust.

Richard slumps in the chair, the last of his fight bleeding out of him.

I’ve waited a decade for this moment, and it is every bit as satisfying as I imagined.

When I turn to leave, I don’t look back.

The air at the top of the warehouse stairs is cooler, crisper—less humid.

. I pause at the final step, looking back once toward the darkness behind me.

Richard Carter slumps in the chair below like a crumbled monument, wreckage left to rot in the shadows.

His silence is louder than any scream he could’ve given me.

I don’t need more from him. He’s already given me what I came for.

Dima waits up top, arms crossed, face blank. He steps aside wordlessly as I emerge, falling in behind me as we move down the dim walkway.

“He give you what you needed?” he asks.

I glance at him. “No, but he will.”

Dima nods once, no surprise there. “Does the girl know where you are?”

I stop at the edge of the corridor, fingers adjusting the cuffs of my sleeves, blood long dried along the inner fold. My voice is low, but certain. “She’s not a girl anymore.”

The weight of the words hangs between us for a breath, then Dima simply nods again and turns away, already disappearing down another corridor to handle the rest. I walk alone to the car.

Rain slicks the pavement as I step out, the mist now heavier, catching the glow of the headlights as I slide into the driver’s seat. The engine rumbles to life beneath my hands like a sleeping animal stirred from slumber, eager to obey.

I drive with no destination, just let the city curl around me again.

Familiar streets blur past the windshield, their colors softer now in the rain—streetlights bleeding into puddles, neon signs warping in reflection.

The silence in the car is thick, broken only by the low growl of the engine and the occasional thump of water beneath the tires.

The city feels different tonight. Not because of the power I hold, or the blood I’ve spilled, but because the final piece has shifted into place.

Alina.

I see her in my mind like a vision drawn in fire and shadow—standing in white, trembling but unyielding, her lips parted beneath my kiss.

She was afraid. She still is. But there’s something more now, tucked behind the fear.

Something she doesn’t even see in herself yet.

Submission waiting to turn into surrender. Innocence beginning to rot into need.

I think of the way she looked at me when I told her I’d return to her bed.

She didn’t scream. Didn’t beg.

She asked.

She wanted to understand. She wanted me to explain.

Every hour she spends under my roof, wearing my name, breathing my air, living at the mercy of my touch—she becomes more Sharov.