Chapter 43
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
FIONA
It’s been a whole day since I walked out of that conference room, and every minute since, I’ve had to act like I’m fine. I’ve been going through the motions at work like my entire life hasn’t been ripped from under me.
I swipe my cell against the doorknob of my new home, the penthouse suite Aleksei arranged for me, with the same two bodyguards following my every move.
Stepping out of my heels, I let them drop with a dull thud beside the door.
My blouse clings uncomfortably to my skin, my slacks creased from hours of holding myself together.
I don’t even bother changing. Phone still in my hand, I move past the untouched minibar and sink onto the edge of the bed, the exhaustion settling in like gravity.
When the screen lights up, I think it’s another text from him, but it isn’t this time. I haven’t bothered responding to his messages begging for my understanding or forgiveness. I don’t have it in me. I’m completely drained from everything. My parents, Aleksei, all of it.
Still, I find myself opening the photo gallery and staring at photos of us. Him standing behind me in the mirror, his hands on my hips, my laughter caught mid-breath as he pressed a kiss to my temple. Another shot of us on his bike.
I scroll slowly, one photo to the next, like tracing a wound I can’t stop picking at. Each image hurts more than the last. When the pain becomes unbearable, I open our messages, reading through some of the old ones he sent me like a masochist.
Aleksei
I missed you this morning. I’ll be home early.
Fiona
Can’t wait.
Then from just a few days ago:
Aleksei
I will burn that red dress you wore to court today. That is, after I fuck you out of it.
Fiona
I’ll have you know my husband paid a lot of money for that dress.
Aleksei
I don’t know what he was thinking. You look too good in it.
I love you.
And he does. I know he does. That’s the part that won’t stop echoing.
But I don’t want this version of love. I want something more than he’s capable of, and that’s what hurts the most. Knowing he’ll never be the man that I deserve.
I close my eyes, but instead of silence, I see his face again. That exact moment in the conference room when he realized I knew. The way the color drained from his skin, how his eyes shattered like glass. That broken look haunts me.
But I remind myself that it shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter how destroyed he looked. Or that he reached for me like I was slipping through his fingers.
Because he let this happen. He signed that contract. He let my parents trade me and never told me what they all did.
How am I supposed to forgive any of them?
How could my own parents do this to me? I understand they were desperate, but when does that stop being an excuse to sell off your own daughter?
My fingers press into the mattress as if I can anchor myself, but it’s useless. I’m floating through a mess I don’t know how to escape.
How did it all fall apart so fast?
How can I ever trust Aleksei again? How can I look at him and not see the lies?
I curl onto my side, hugging a pillow that doesn’t smell like him, and the loss hits hard. I long for him in a way that’s all-consuming.
A sudden knock breaks the silence just as I sink deeper into the mattress.
At first, I don’t bother getting up. It’s probably the guards or housekeeping. I don’t want to see either.
“It’s me. Open up.” Emilia’s voice slips through the room.
Damn it, Konstantin must’ve told her.
But maybe talking to her would be good. I have no one else. Emilia is the only real friend I have left, and she’s the kind of woman who shows up when you need her most, whether you realize it or not.
Dragging myself to the door, I unlock it and step aside. Her eyes widen the moment she sees me.
“Oh,” she breathes dramatically, juggling two overstuffed shopping bags. “It’s worse than I thought.”
“Thanks, asshole,” I mutter, managing a halfhearted smile.
She sets the bags down on the side table, then unzips her boots. “Don’t worry. It’s not nearly as bad as the way Aleksei looks.”
For a second, something sick and twisted winds through my chest. Hope. Satisfaction.
“Is he really that miserable?”
Her brows pop. “Are you kidding? The man looks like he hasn’t slept since you left. I don’t think he’s showered either.” She scrunches her nose with disgust.
A laugh catches in my throat. “Is it bad if that makes me…happy?”
“Uh, no.” She flops down onto the bed, her hair spilling across the pillow. “I’d be concerned if you weren’t at least a little thrilled by his absolute spiral.”
“This is why I love you.” I sink beside her, exhaustion settling beneath my skin like a weighted blanket I can’t shake off.
“I brought reinforcements,” she announces, reaching into the bag like a magician.
First comes the bottle of Baileys. Then a gallon tub of coffee ice cream. My favorite. The sight of it makes something warm crack through the ice around my chest.
“You always know the way to my heart. Is it too late to get you to divorce Konstantin so you can marry me instead?”
She laughs, wiggling her brows. “As much as Konstantin adores you, I think he’s done sharing me.”
I jerk back. “Wait. What does that mean?”
“Never mind.” She waves it off with a lazy flick of her wrist. “We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you and lover boy.”
There’s definitely more there I want to unpack, but I don’t have the energy right now.
Groaning, I tip my head back against the headboard. “I don’t even know who I’m angrier at: him or my parents. I want to scream at both of them. Or maybe just crawl into a hole and never come out.”
“It’s not a competition. You’re allowed to be mad at all of them. Frankly, I’m mad at them too.”
I stare at the ceiling. “What would you do?”
“Punch something,” she says without hesitation.
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.” Her grin widens. “Trust me, it helps.”
Of course she’d say that. Emilia’s obsessed with jiujitsu, with turning pain into power. I envy that. I’ve always carried mine until it rots me from the inside out.
“I don’t know what to say to any of them,” I whisper. “To my parents. To Aleksei. What am I supposed to do, pretend it’s fine? Tell them I forgive them?”
“No,” she says softly. “And no one expects you to. Least of all me.”
A ragged sigh slips out. “I understand why they did it. I really do. They were desperate, scared. They thought they had no way out.”
“But you’re their daughter,” she finishes for me.
I nod. “And Aleksei… I don’t even know what to do with all these feelings. I hate what he did. I hate that he didn’t tell me. But I miss him so much it physically hurts.”
Emilia wraps an arm around my shoulders, pulling me in. “You don’t have to figure it all out tonight. Or tomorrow. Take all the time you need. But, Fiona, he does love you, and you know I would never say that lightly.”
“I know.” The words break loose on a trembling exhale. “And that makes everything hurt even more.”
ALEKSEI
It’s been four fucking days.
Four days since she walked out. Four days since she touched me, looked at me, breathed the same air.
And somehow I’m still walking around like I’m alive when everything in me is dead.
I have returned to watching her on cameras, and I hate it now. I want her here. With me.
The house mocks me without her. Every hallway reeks of her perfume. Every room holds some ghost of her laughter or the sound of her footsteps. I’ve walked into our bedroom ten times only to turn around and march right back out, unable to stand one more reminder of what I’ve lost.
I haven’t slept. I barely eat. I don’t remember the last time I shaved, and judging by the state of my shirt, I haven’t changed it in days.
What for? Nothing matters without her.
Today, I finally put something clean on because I had to. Konstantin called a meeting, and my presence is mandatory.
When I walk into his study, they’re already there. Konstantin nods in greeting, seated behind his desk. Anton stands by the window like a hollow ghost, while Kirill is sprawled across the couch, foot bouncing.
Kirill looks up and mutters, “You look like shit.”
I grunt and drop into a chair.
“Worse than shit, actually,” he continues.
“Leave him,” Konstantin cuts in. “We have bigger problems.” He opens the folder on the desk. “We need to arrange a sit-down with the Italians and create an alliance. A marriage arrangement between us and them. It is the best avenue for lasting peace.”
“No.”
They all turn to me.
“Not after what that family did. They should be thanking us for not torching every last one of them.”
Konstantin’s eyes narrow. “We will handle that, Aleksei, but there is a bigger picture here.”
“I don’t give a shit about that.” My hands fist against my thighs, the fury shaking loose through me. “And as far as the Volkovs, we need to kill them all, then take care of that Italian svolich before one of them tries something. I will not let that happen.”
Blood roars in my ears as I get to my feet, untamed rage simmering in my veins. “If you don’t want to start a war right now, fine. I will do it myself.”
“Aleksei,” Konstantin warns, but I keep going.
“They came into our city, threatened our blood, touched my wife. I will not let that stand. I’ll take every last one of them apart with my bare hands if I have to.”
Silence cuts through the room, then Konstantin leans forward.
“We will fight,” he says. “In one week’s time.”
I stop pacing.
“That’s why I called you all here,” he continues. “To plan it. We need to be smart. I want every Volkov dead by the end of the month. We are not just going to retaliate. We are going to erase them.”
A hard chill settles in my chest. “That’s not soon enough.”
Konstantin’s mouth twitches. “Maybe you should go take a shower. Sleep. Eat. You’ll need the strength.”
Kirill snorts. “He will not unless she’s the one feeding him.”
He’s not wrong. None of it matters without her. Not the power or the money, not if I’m doing it alone.
I settle back onto the chair and drag a hand down my face again, slower this time. “She won’t even talk to me.”
“Then you try harder,” Konstantin says.
“I need to fix this. How do I fix it?”
“You start by telling her everything,” he continues. “Even the things you think she will never forgive.”
My jaw grinds. “And if she doesn’t forgive me?”
He leans back, that faint ghost of a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. “Then you make her.”
Kirill lets out a sharp bark of laughter, the sound cutting through the tension. “That’s right.”
Anton, though, says nothing, just watches us from his place by the window.
For a minute, I don’t know if I envy him for not feeling this kind of pain or pity him for never knowing what it means to love someone so much it destroys you.