Claimed By River (4R Ink #2)
Prologue
Nadia
Two Years Ago
The elevator doors slide open to the top floor of my father’s building, and my stomach sinks before I even step into the hallway. Home is supposed to be where people feel safe. Mine never has been.
I tighten my fingers around my purse strap as I walk toward the massive double doors leading into my father’s apartment. The laughter from dinner with my friends still lingers in the back of my mind, already fading beneath the familiar knot of anxiety that always returns the closer I get to him.
For a few hours, I’d almost forgotten whose daughter I am. Reality has a cruel way of reminding me.
The guard outside the apartment nods once before unlocking the door.
He doesn’t stay here to keep people out.
He’s here to keep tabs on me: where I’m going, who I’m with, how long I’m gone.
Never has there been a boy, never a party without a driver waiting at the curb, never an hour of my life my father hasn’t accounted for.
I thank him quietly and step inside, instinctively keeping my footsteps light across the polished marble floor.
The penthouse is beautiful in the way expensive museums are beautiful.
Every piece of furniture costs more than most people earn in a year.
A Chagall hangs in the entry, a Klimt nearby.
Purchased at an auction, hung where guests would notice them, and never thought of again.
Crystal chandeliers drop from impossibly high ceilings.
Floor-to-ceiling windows overlook the glittering lights of Los Angeles.
Yet despite all the luxury surrounding me, the apartment feels cold—always has. Empty. Like every room is holding its breath. My father likes control more than comfort.
Most people know Damir Aronov as the wealthy owner of a successful construction company.
His name means “giver of peace.” My mother told me that once, and then she laughed in a way that frightened me.
He donates to charities, attends fundraising galas, and shakes hands with politicians while photographers capture every smile.
People see an influential businessman. They never see the man who comes home.
They never hear the threats delivered in a calm voice or witness the fear that follows him from room to room.
They certainly never see the darker business conducted behind the closed doors of his office as the head of the bratva.
I learned a long time ago that survival means staying invisible.
I quietly slip off my shoes and start toward the hallway leading to my bedroom, hoping he’ll already be asleep. My pulse steadies with every silent step until I notice the faint strip of light spilling across the hallway from beneath his office door.
No.
My heart rate immediately spikes. I tell myself that if I move quietly enough, he’ll never know I’m home. Maybe he’s busy with one of his associates. Maybe he’s on the phone. Maybe…
“Nadia.” His voice slices through the silence like a knife.
Despite the years he’s spent in America, his voice still carries Russia in it, and the accent thickens with rage. Every muscle in my body freezes. Slowly, I close my eyes before turning toward the office. I step inside, lowering my gaze automatically.
My father sits behind his enormous mahogany desk, wearing one of his perfectly tailored charcoal suits, despite the late hour. He looks exactly as he always does: impeccably groomed, broad-shouldered, completely composed.
His shaved head gleams beneath the overhead light while his brown eyes remain as cold and unreadable as polished stone. Several folders lie open across his desk.
“You wished to see me?” I ask quietly.
“I did.” He studies me for several long seconds, making me feel like an object being inspected rather than his daughter. “You’ll be joining me for brunch tomorrow morning.”
I blink in surprise. “Brunch?”
“Yes.”
His clipped tone tells me not to question him, but my question slips out anyway.
“Who are we meeting?”
“The Sorokins.”
My stomach tightens. I’ve heard that name countless times over the years. One of my father’s closest business associates. Which means one of the men whose business keeps my father so wealthy.
“In particular,” my father continues, “their son, Ivan.”
The knot in my stomach hardens into something heavier.
Ivan Sorokin. Everyone in our world knows who he is.
He’s almost ten years older than me. Wealthy.
Entitled. Violent. Rumors follow him everywhere—about the girlfriends who stop appearing in photographs, about a temper that never quite makes it into a police report.
I’d always told myself they were only rumors. Lately, I haven’t been so sure.
“I’m not certain why I’d be needed,” I say carefully. “Surely this is a business meeting. I’d only be in the way.”
His expression hardens instantly. “You’ll be exactly where I tell you to be. The brunch is to announce your engagement.”
For a moment, I genuinely think I’ve misunderstood him. “My…engagement?”
“To Ivan.” He lets that sit. “He’s asked for you. By name, and more than once.”
Something in his tone makes my skin crawl. Ivan’s asked for me, not a bride. Me.
The words echo through my head. “No.” The protest escapes before I can stop it. “I’m only seventeen.”
“You’ll be eighteen in three months.”
“I don’t want to marry him.”
The silence stretches. Then his fist crashes onto the desk, making me flinch.
“You will do exactly as you’re told.” His voice remains frighteningly calm. “You will marry Ivan on your eighteenth birthday.”
I shake my head, unable to breathe. “I can’t. I…I don’t even know him.”
“You don’t need to.”
Fear burns behind my eyes. “I don’t want this.”
My father slowly rises from his chair, and somehow that’s even more terrifying than his shouting. He walks around the desk until he’s standing directly in front of me.
“You seem to be under the mistaken impression that your opinion matters.”
I step backward without meaning to.
“You are my daughter.” He closes the distance I just made.
Another step back.
“You are my responsibility.”
Another step.
“And you will be useful.”
I hit the wall behind me with nowhere left to retreat.
His voice lowers almost to a whisper. “If you are not going to benefit this family through an advantageous marriage...”
He doesn’t have to finish the sentence. He doesn’t have to threaten me outright. I understand him perfectly. He dismisses me with nothing more than a flick of his hand.
“Leave.”
I somehow force my legs to move before the tears spilling down my cheeks betray me. I don’t stop moving until I reach my bedroom. The door closes behind me, and I lock it, even though the flimsy lock has never truly protected me from anything.
My knees give out. I collapse onto the floor beside my bed, burying my face in my hands as sobs tear through my chest.
Mama. The thought comes immediately.
I stare at the framed photograph sitting on my nightstand. She’s smiling in it, her dark hair blowing gently across her face while she holds my hand at the beach years before everything became unbearable.
My father always blamed her. One child. A daughter.
Never the son who could have stood at his side, learned the business, carried his name into the next generation.
In his world, a son is an heir. A daughter is only an expense until another man agrees to take her off your hands.
Every year she stays unmarried is a year you’ve wasted feeding her.
He made certain my mother understood that.
I remember the shouting. The bruises she tried to hide beneath long sleeves.
And when she died, everyone believed my father when he announced it was from a brain aneurysm.
I never did.
I was the one who found her. I was also the one who found the empty bottle of sleeping pills under the bed, and I’ve never told anyone.
A fresh wave of tears burns my eyes. If I marry Ivan, my future will become my mother’s past. I’ll spend the rest of my life trapped beneath another cruel man until there’s nothing left of me.
No. I refuse.
For years, I’ve quietly prepared for this possibility. I’d planned to leave after my eighteenth birthday with money I’d secretly saved, fake identification I’d painstakingly obtained, and a destination known only to me.
My father has forced my hand. Three months early. I wipe my face, forcing myself to breathe.
It’s time.