Page 4

Chapter 4

Queen Without a Crown

Galina

T he third rejection hits my inbox like a bullet—no fanfare, no softness. Just cold, clinical dismissal. Another door slammed. Another nail in the coffin of the life I used to command.

I slam my laptop shut. The crack echoes through the café like a gunshot, slicing through the low hum of conversations and overpriced espresso machines. A few patrons flinch. Good. Let them flinch. Let them feel even a fraction of what it’s like to watch your entire world rot from the inside out.

My bank account is bleeding out, hemorrhaging faster than I can stop it. Rent’s due soon, and the savings I have left wouldn’t cover a decent bottle of wine. Not that it matters. I used to drink Cristal from the bottle. Now I’m nursing my third black coffee like it’s gold.

I reach instinctively for a card that no longer exists—platinum, engraved, limitless. My fingers freeze mid-air. The phantom sting of the memory burns more than the caffeine. The Olenko name once opened velvet ropes, unlocked private elevators, bent entire rooms to my will. Now? It’s dead weight. A curse with a surname.

The waitress brings over my refill, her face painted in fake cheer and soft pity. She can’t be more than twenty. Probably thinks life rewards the determined. Probably thinks I’m just tired. She doesn’t know I used to be the thing people feared behind closed doors. She doesn’t know I could have ruined her life with a single phone call—back when my phone meant something.

Breathe.

In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight.

Fuck you, Mila. Your breathing exercises wouldn’t have helped when I was doped up and restrained in a white room with buzzing lights. They don’t help now, when the only thing I’m choking on is the taste of failure and the heat of my own rage.

One break.

That’s all I need.

Just one. And then I’ll take the rest.

My father’s name lights up my screen like a curse. I stare at it, bile rising in my throat.

Still, I answer. Desperation’s a hell of a motivator.

“Papa.”

“Galina.” He says my name like it offends him. Like it stains his mouth. “Your mother tells me you’ve crawled back.”

“I need work.” My voice is tight, frayed. My fingers clamp around the coffee cup hard enough to crack it. I brace for the storm I know is coming—decades of disappointment wrapped in one man’s voice.

“So,” he drawls, “you’ve finally run out of people to manipulate. Back with your tail tucked like the little failure you are.”

Every word hits like a punch. He doesn’t yell—he never has to. His contempt is clinical and calculated.

“I’ll take anything,” I whisper. “Let me work at the club.”

The words make me sick. Not because I don’t mean them, but because I do. I’d mop the goddamn floors if it meant survival. If it meant even a splinter of power back in my hands.

He laughs.

It’s not amusement. It’s dissection.

“Work? Atmyclub?” His voice strips flesh from bone. “You’re a disgrace. You always have been. I should’ve cut you loose when your brothers were still alive.”

I close my eyes. Breathe in, hold, breathe out. Mila’s voice echoes like a ghost I want to kill.

“Please,” I say, the word crumbling in my mouth. My dignity is already bleeding out on the sidewalk. What’s one more slice?

But his next words stop my heart cold.

“It’s not ours anymore.”

The cup slips from my hand. Coffee erupts across the table, seeping into my laptop bag and dripping onto my jeans. I grab for the napkins, but my hands are trembling too hard.

“What?”

“Your actions have consequences, daughter,” he says with surgical detachment. “The Velvet Echo was forfeited as compensation to the Sokolovs.”

Compensation.

The word lands like a guillotine.

They traded the club—my legacy—like a debt marker. For what? My madness? My shame? The bodies I left behind?

“And who owns it now?” My voice is a rasp. I already know the answer.

“Igor gifted it,” he says slowly, like he wants to savor the humiliation, “to Vasiliy Volkov.”

Of course.

Because it wasn’t enough for him to own my body for a night. Now he owns the last piece of who I was.

The last thing they hadn’t taken.

“Papa—” The word breaks in my throat. I don’t even know what I’m asking anymore. Forgiveness? A second chance? Or just for him to stop hating me long enough to let mebreathe?

“You made your bed, Galina.” His voice turns glacial. “Now lie in it.”

The call disconnects.

The silence that follows is absolute.

I sit there drenched in coffee and humiliation, surrounded by people pretending not to stare, and wonder how much lower I can go before I stop being human.

But even as the shame burns, something else ignites beneath it.

Hate.

Cold.

Clean.

Useful.

New York thrums around me, loud and indifferent, a machine that doesn’t pause for broken things. My life is in flames, and the city doesn’t blink. But beneath the suffocating weight in my chest, something colder begins to form. Not hope. Not rage.

A plan.

I was punished for pride. For thinking I could bend the rules. So, fine, I’ll play the game. I’ll bow, I’ll crawl, I’ll bleed if I have to. But I’ll take it all back. One move at a time.

The Velvet Echo might wear Vasiliy Volkov’s name now, but the bones of that place were built with Olenko blood. It remembers me. The walls know my footsteps. The shadows still echo with my voice. And if I have to face the man who broke me to reclaim it?

So be it.

I toss a twenty on the counter for a three-dollar coffee. Old habits, old masks. The waitress stammers a thank you I don’t hear as I walk outside. I blend in with the bodies at the bus stop, invisible in a city that once knew my name.

The bus groans through Brooklyn like it’s dragging my past behind it. Brighton Beach creeps up with every jolt and screech, its streets gritting their teeth beneath my heels. Designer stilettos on public transit—it’s a contradiction I refuse to give up. Let them stare. Let them wonder. I may look like a tragedy, but they don’t know I was once a queen.

Twenty minutes later, I step off onto cracked pavement. Heat rises from the ground in waves, distorting the skyline, the memories, the mistakes. The walk is short, but every step is a knife carving into who I used to be.

Then I see it.

The Velvet Echo, gleaming like polished sin, dares me to come closer. It used to be mine—my inheritance, my fortress, my altar. Now it’s enemy territory, wearing Volkov’s fingerprints like war paint. The man who branded me with his mouth now sits on my throne.

The universe really is a vindictive bitch.

The bus hisses behind me as it pulls away—no escape. No retreat. Just forward, into the fire. I pull my coat tighter, let the wind tangle my hair. Vulnerability becomes a shield. Submission, a weapon.

Let him think I’m here to kneel.

Let him forget dragons know how to play dead before they burn everything down.

Flashes of memory slice through me—whispers in the hallways, blood rinsed from marble, names whispered like curses, then crossed off the ledger for good. The Velvet Echo isn’t just a club. It’s a sanctum for the damned.

And I was born in it.

The sun glints off the blacked-out windows like a warning. Inside, the rhythm has changed, but the violence hasn’t. I can smell it—new management, same rot.

Perfect.

I square my shoulders, lifting my chin as I step toward the door.

Volkov might think he’s inherited power.

He’s about to find out he inherited me.

Raffe stands at the entrance like a ghost dredged from the past. His face is unreadable. But his hesitation? That says everything.

He remembers. They all will.

“Miss Olenko.” Raffe’s voice is careful, too neutral. Like he’s handling a live grenade.

I give him a smile—cold, pretty, and sharp enough to scar. “Is Mr. Volkov receiving visitors?”

His gaze narrows. He knows I remember the rhythm of this place. Knows I shouldn’t be standing here unless something’s cracked. “He might be.”

“Tell him Galina Olenko needs a word.” Sweet as cyanide. “He’ll want to see me.”

As he steps away to make the call, I drink in the club’s new skin. Cameras now tilt like sentries, sweeping across every corner with military discipline. Guards posted in positions I recognize—strategic, deliberate. Not for show. For control. This is no longer just a strip club.

This is a fortress.

A Bratva stronghold wearing stilettos and perfume.

And yet Raffe’s still here, which tells me everything. Volkov kept him because he knows—some stains can’t be scrubbed clean. Some ghosts are useful.

“This way,” he says.

My heels crack against the marble like warning shots. Every head turns. Recognition sparks in a few pairs of eyes.

Good.

Let them remember.

Let them wonder if I came back to beg or burn it all down.

The Velvet Echo hasn’t changed much inside—still draped in decadent sin, all crimson velvet and gleaming gold, a temple built for secrets. Rebeka lounges like she owns the place, draped across a sofa, lacquered nails glinting like claws. She glances at me without warmth, and I give her the same. Helena’s nearby, all angles and calculation, her scowl sharpening the moment she clocks me. A new waitress hovers on the fringe, caught in the crossfire of past and present, loyalty and fear.

“This is my club,” I murmur, the lie sour on my tongue.

Raffe guides me deeper, through the bones of my past—rooms that still reek of sex, secrets, and old power. Rooms where I once whispered commands, where men begged and bled beneath chandeliers.

The hallway to the office feels longer than I remember. More dangerous.

Because it isn’t my father’s office anymore.

It’s his.

Vasiliy’s scent hits before the door opens—something dark, expensive, and edged like a blade.

Raffe knocks twice. A voice growls, “Come in.”

And then he’s there.

Vasiliy rises with predatory grace, lethal calm and simmering threat. He’s broader than I remember, colder than before, and somehow more beautiful in that way monsters sometimes are—fascinating in their ability to destroy.

Those gray eyes slice through me.

“Galina,” he says, voice curling like smoke. “To what do I owe this…intrusion?”

I lift my chin, armor clinking into place. “I hear you’re hiring.”

My voice doesn’t waver. Not once. But inside, my pulse is all gunfire and recklessness.

Because I know exactly what I’m doing.

I’m walking back into the lion’s den.

And this time, I’m not sure I want to make it out alive.