Page 34 of Royal Bargain (Royals of the Underworld #3)

LIAM

A na stiffens beneath my gaze, her mouth pressed into a tight, stubborn line.

I almost stand up.

Almost walk out—because I’m so goddamn tired of the silence. The lies. The way we circle each other, hoping the truth will just stop needing to be said.

But then,

“I’ve been keeping things from you,” she blurts, voice cracking like a branch under too much weight.

I freeze.

She won’t look at me. “I didn’t mean to. I just didn’t know how to say it. And the longer I waited, the worse it felt. Like maybe saying it would make it all fall apart.”

Anger flares—hot, fast. “Jesus, Ana?—”

“I know.” Her voice is sharp now, cutting through the fog. Her eyes finally meet mine, wet with guilt. “I know, okay? I messed up.”

I don’t answer. Can’t. My heart’s in my throat. I can still feel the fight in my blood, adrenaline not quite spent. But buried beneath it, something else stirs—something softer, quieter.

Because the truth is, I’ve been hiding things too.

Big things.

Dangerous things.

I shift my weight, jaw clenched. Everything inside me feels tight, twisted.

“I’ve been lying too,” I say.

Her head jerks up.

She searches my face like she thinks she heard wrong. Like I’m someone else for even admitting it.

“Why?” she whispers.

And it’s so simple, it almost hurts.

“Because I didn’t want to lose you again.”

She flinches, just barely. A breath caught in her chest. Her arms wrap around herself like she’s holding her ribs in place.

“We keep doing this,” she says, soft. “Hurting each other to protect each other.”

I nod once. “Yeah. And it’s not working.”

Silence again. The kind that rings in your ears.

Then, quiet as a bruise forming,

“So what now?”

I don’t know. God, I wish I did.

I rake a hand through my hair. Pace. Turn back.

“Not telling you…” I pause, words jamming up behind the wall I’ve spent years building. “It’s been eating me alive.”

Her eyes flicker—hurt, confusion, fear.

“I wanted to. So many times. But every time I looked at you…” I exhale hard. “All I could think was—what if it ruins everything? What if I lose this? You. Lily. Us.”

She doesn’t speak. Just clutches her own arms tighter, like she’s bracing for something worse.

I take a step closer. And another.

Until we’re a breath apart.

“I’m tired of the secrets, Ana. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

My voice softens, low and aching. “If I tell you mine… will you tell me yours?”

She meets my eyes. Raw. Guarded.

And we hold there, on the edge—two people weighed down with secrets, waiting to see who will be brave enough to take the first leap.

Ana’s arms are folded tightly across her chest, like she’s holding herself together by force.

“I need to tell you what Miranda really wanted,” she says softly, voice thick with something like shame.

I nod once. I already knew Miranda had helped her disappear, had helped launch her career. What I didn’t know—what’s been gnawing at me for weeks—is why.

Ana draws in a shaky breath. “She didn’t just help me out of the goodness of her heart. She said she wouldn’t do anything for a Volkov unless I proved I wasn’t still loyal to my family.”

My jaw tightens, but I stay quiet, letting her keep going.

“I gave her information. About Harborview. Papa was trying to acquire land there—part of some bigger real estate push. I thought it was nothing. Just a scrap to earn her trust.” Her eyes meet mine, guilt carved deep into every word.

“But then I found out it helped influence the election, and now I don’t know.

I don’t know if I started something I can’t take back. ”

She looks down at the floor. “What if I really was the traitor everyone thought I was? What if I helped her hurt my family without even meaning to?”

My chest tightens. Not with anger, but with the ache of how alone she must’ve felt to make that kind of decision.

She rushes on, voice raw. “Then Sasha reached out. I hadn’t heard from her in so long, and I just—I needed to see her. I needed to believe someone in my family still saw me as more than a liability.”

“That’s where you went tonight?” I ask, even though I already guessed.

Ana nods. “She told me it’s not Papa who’s after me. It’s Dariy. He’s the one pulling the strings.”

My hands ball into fists at my sides, but I don’t interrupt.

“And between that, and trying to take care of Lily, and chasing this career that’s slipping further out of my control—I just…

” Her voice breaks. “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.

Ingrid’s pushing harder every day. The sponsorships, the image, the constant schedule.

It’s like I traded one cage for another. ”

I step forward and pull her into my arms.

She exhales shakily, clinging to me like she might fall apart if she lets go.

“You’re not stuck,” I whisper, pressing a kiss to her hair. “You’re not alone. Not in this. Not ever.”

We stand there in the quiet, her body pressed close to mine, but I can feel the tension still coiled tight in my chest.

I smooth my hand over her back, then pull away just enough to look her in the eye.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” I say quietly. “And I should’ve told you before.”

Ana tenses. “What is it?”

I take a breath. “The day of the trial… Anatoly asked to meet.”

Her eyes widen instantly.

“I went,” I say, quickly, before she can spiral. “Not to negotiate. Not to talk things out. I went to send a message.”

Ana stares at me, silent.

“I told him to leave you alone. I told him if he came near you or Lily again, I’d bury him myself. That if he made one wrong move, we’d go to war.”

Her lips part, but she doesn’t say anything.

“But that’s when he said something I didn’t understand at the time,” I continue, the memory cold and clear in my mind. “He told me he wasn’t the one coming after you. That the threat wasn’t from him.”

I pause. “Now I know he was warning me about Dariy.”

Ana’s face crumples—shock, frustration, guilt, grief—all swirling behind her eyes. “He tried to warn you?”

I nod. “He didn’t say the name. But he didn’t have to.”

She takes a step back, looking down like the floor might open up beneath her. “So even Papa knew.”

“He might still want you under his thumb,” I say gently. “But he’s not the one pulling the trigger. Dariy is. Your sister was right.”

Ana closes her eyes, arms tightening around herself again. “I don’t know what scares me more. That it’s Dariy—or that I trusted him once.”

She sighs. “Sasha tried to warn me too. I didn’t want to believe it but it makes sense. Dariy has been unhappy with Papa’s decisions for a while now.”

I trace a pattern over her hand with my thumb. “I’m sorry you got dragged into their mess. I just wish you’d have told me you went to see your sister.”

Ana exhales and sinks onto the edge of the couch, dragging a hand through her hair. “We’re terrible at this.”

I blink. “At what?”

“Talking. Trusting. Communicating like actual functional adults.” Her lips twist into a tired, self-deprecating smile. “We keep trying to protect each other by keeping things inside, and all we do is make it worse.”

I sit down beside her, shoulder brushing hers. “Yeah. We suck.”

She laughs softly, just once. Then her voice lowers. “You were right, you know. I do have this… stupid tendency to trust people too easily. I want to believe that if someone offers help, it’s genuine. That if someone smiles, it means they won’t stab me in the back.”

She shakes her head, gaze distant. “But this isn’t that kind of world, is it?”

I look at her for a long moment. “You were raised in a world full of monsters. It’s not stupid that you want to believe some people might be better. It makes you human.”

Her eyes flick up to mine, soft and vulnerable.

I take a breath. “And I haven’t exactly been leading the charge on communication either.”

She arches a brow.

“I got in over my head with Burns,” I admit. “At first, it felt like a way to do something real. Clean things up from the inside. But the deeper I get, the more I realize it’s not just politics.”

Ana’s brow furrows. “What do you mean?”

“I think there’s more going on. Backdoor deals. Power plays. Connections that don’t make sense unless someone else is pulling strings behind the scenes. And he’s too careful. Too polished. He says the right things, but something’s off.”

I shake my head. “I wanted to believe in the guy. But now I’m not sure if I’m working for a reformer or just another villain in a nicer suit.”

Ana leans her head against my shoulder. “So we’ve both been played.”

“Yeah,” I murmur, resting my cheek against the top of her head. “But at least now we know.”

Her fingers thread through mine again, tighter this time. “No more lies?”

“No more lies,” I promise. “From here on out, we do this together.”

We sit there in the hush of the room, her head still on my shoulder, my fingers curled around hers.

Then, softly, she says, “I didn’t think you took us seriously. Back then.”

I freeze—not because I’m surprised, but because… yeah. I get it.

She keeps going, her voice small but steady. “I thought you liked me. Maybe you even loved me. But you were always late. Always distracted. Always somewhere else. And when I needed you the most…”

“I wasn’t there,” I finish for her, guilt twisting in my chest.

She lifts her head to look at me. “I thought it meant I didn’t matter to you.”

I shake my head, throat tightening. “It wasn’t that. It was never that.”

She nods slowly. “I know that now. I didn’t before. But I see it clearer tonight. With everything you’ve had on your shoulders—your family, your duties, your ADHD—it must’ve been overwhelming. And I never gave you enough credit for how hard you were trying, in your own way.”

I let out a breath, that kind of breath that feels like it’s been trapped in my lungs for months.

“I could’ve done better,” I admit. “I should have done better. I let the chaos run my life instead of carving out space for what actually mattered. For you. For us.”

My voice cracks just a little, and I don’t bother hiding it. “Tonight scared the shit out of me. I thought I lost you. And that’s when it hit me—how much I’d been taking for granted.”

She stares at me, wide-eyed.

I cup her face gently. “You matter to me. You always did. And I’m sorry it took this long for me to show it the right way. I want to be better. I will be better.”

We break apart slowly from the kiss, her forehead resting against mine, our breath mingling in the quiet.

Then I ask the question that’s been haunting me since the moment I saw Lily’s eyes.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Ana stiffens a little, but she doesn’t pull away.

“I was scared,” she whispers. “Scared that once you knew, you’d try to take her from me. That your family would try to… fix everything by removing me from the equation.”

I flinch, because the worst part is—she’s not wrong to think that. There was a time I might’ve listened if Rory or Kellan had said exactly that.

“I didn’t trust you to separate me from them,” she adds quietly. “From the family you hate.”

I exhale slowly. “I don’t hate you, Ana.”

“I know that now,” she says. “But back then? It didn’t feel safe to believe it.”

Silence stretches again, heavy but honest. And then I say something I wouldn’t have imagined even a few weeks ago.

“Not all of your family is bad.”

She blinks, surprised.

“Aleksey…” I shake my head, giving a bitter little laugh. “If the roles were reversed, if you were my boss’s daughter, and I was the one who was there for you… I would’ve done the same things he did. Protected you. Fought for you. Lied for you.”

Ana doesn’t say anything, but her eyes shine with something fragile and grateful.

“And Sasha…” I continue. “I’m glad she looked out for you. I’m glad she was there when I wasn’t.”

Her lips tremble slightly. I reach out, brushing my thumb across her knuckles.

“And even Anatoly,” I add, the words tasting strange but true. “As twisted as he is… he does care about you. It’s just the only way he knows how.”

Ana’s eyes well with tears, and for once, she doesn’t fight them. She leans into me, and I wrap my arms around her again, holding her close.

We sit there for a moment, just breathing, wrapped in something that finally feels solid between us.

And then Ana’s phone buzzes.

She pulls it from the nightstand, brows pinching together as she glances at the screen.

Her face goes pale.

“What is it?” I ask, already feeling the dread creeping in.

She turns the phone toward me, the headline glowing back at us like a warning flare.

brEAKING: Anatoly Volkov Released from Federal Custody Effective Immediately

My stomach sinks.

Our eyes lock—no words, just the same ripple of fear rolling through both of us.

What does this mean for Ana? Would he come after me now? What does it mean for us—for Lily?

And just like that, the fragile peace between us cracks under the weight of what’s coming.