Chapter 3 Nadya
NADYA
He saved me.
I’ve been trying not to think it. But the words keep echoing like a drumbeat under my skin.
He saved me from that man. That animal with the broken nose and the hungry eyes. I would’ve ended up in a locked penthouse or a trunk by sunrise if he hadn’t stepped in. Fifteen million, and everything changed.
Only I don’t know what I’ve been saved for.
What can he possibly want from me?
The room they’ve put me in is gilded but sterile. Big enough to pace in—and I do. Over and over. My heels are gone. My hair is coming undone. I’ve ripped off the heavy earrings and dropped them on a glass table near the couch.
No one’s come in since the auction ended.
There’s no clock. No windows. Just the soft hum of hidden speakers playing low instrumental music, like this is a spa and not a waiting room for the next phase of my life being bought and signed in ink.
I run my fingers through my hair, yanking it out of the tight twist. I can’t think straight with it pinned back like that. I feel raw. Exposed.
The door stays closed.
I don’t sit. I can’t. If I sit, I’ll start crying, and I swore to myself I wouldn’t do that—not for him. Not for Pyotr. Not even for the man who now owns my contract.
Because that’s what this is. A contract. Mafia-approved. Legally binding. My name, his name, stamped under the Buryakov seal. I’m not just a woman anymore. I’m a line in someone’s asset portfolio.
But the moment I saw him—really saw him—standing up there in the shadows like some specter from the past, the memory snapped back with brutal clarity.
Barcelona. Five years ago.
One night. No future. Just heat, a rooftop, and the quiet kind of connection that shouldn’t have existed between two people like us.
I never forgot him.
I just never thought I’d see him again.
And definitely not here—not like this.
I stop pacing and press my hands to the edge of the fireplace. The marble is cool beneath my fingers. My reflection stares back at me from the mirror above—lips still painted, eyes raw, too much woman and not enough armor.
So many nights I wondered if that night had meant something to him. If he remembered the way he kissed me, slow at first, then like he couldn’t help it. If he remembered the cigarette we shared after, him shirtless and unreadable under the moonlight.
If he remembered my name.
Clearly not. Because when I looked up at him tonight from the stage…there wasn’t even a flicker of recognition.
Only calculation.
And yet he bid. Loudly. Final. He bought me.
Why? Does he know?
No.
No, if he knew who I was—if he remembered—I wouldn’t be in this room.
I’d be in trouble.
The door clicks and I spin around, heart leaping into my throat.
And there he is.
Tall. Composed. That same unreadable expression.
Konstantin Buryakov.
Older now, with flecks of silver in his blond hair even though he couldn’t possibly be more than a decade older than me. Like a blade that’s seen war.
He steps inside like he owns the oxygen, like the rest of the world is just waiting for him to make the next move. And in the space between one breath and the next, I feel it all over again.
The past. The heat. The danger I should’ve run from then…and definitely should run from now.
Only now? He owns me.
He closes the door behind him like he has all the time in the world.
I straighten my spine. I will not be the first to speak.
Konstantin’s eyes rake over me—not lewd, not obvious, but measured. Like he’s taking inventory. Like he’s evaluating a weapon before he decides whether to sheath it or use it.
He doesn’t say a word. He just watches.
I hate the silence.
I hate that it reminds me of the last time I saw him—me in his arms, him watching me the same way right before he kissed me like I belonged to him.
I swallow.
He takes a step closer.
I hold my ground.
He lifts his hand—slowly—and brushes his fingers along the curve of my jaw. Just once. His touch is warm and maddeningly soft for someone built like a war machine.
I exhale through my nose, tilting my chin upward. “Inspecting your goods, are you?”
His mouth curves slightly. Not a smile. A warning. “Making sure I got what I paid for.”
“Disappointed?”
“Not yet.”
I bark out a soft laugh. “Give it time. And too bad there’s no refund policy,” I say. “You could’ve saved yourself fifteen million and found someone easier to break.”
His eyes flash. “Who says I want to break you?”
I open my mouth to throw another line—something cutting—but his hand moves again, this time tracing the edge of my collarbone, down to the hollow of my throat. Barely there. Not enough to stop me. Just enough to burn.
There’s no warmth in his eyes. No recognition. Just that cold, unsettling focus I remember from the stage.
Only now, I’m not elevated and blinded by lights.
Now, I’m his.
His mouth curves—barely. Not a smile. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. If I’d wanted a porcelain doll, I’d have bid on someone who didn’t look like she wanted to bite my hand off.”
“Then maybe you should’ve.”
He steps in closer. Not touching. Just enough to crowd my space.
“You’re not afraid of me.”
It’s not a question. It’s an observation.
I meet his gaze. “You want me to be?”
“No,” he says softly.
I cross my arms, keeping my back straight even though my skin is buzzing. I hate that my pulse reacts. I hate that he’s close enough for me to feel his breath on my cheek.
Because he doesn’t remember me.
Not the rooftop. Not the kiss. Not the night we tangled in cotton sheets with the city lights pouring in from the window.
And I can’t remind him. He thinks I’m untouched. Untouched and his. And if he finds out otherwise…
I don’t know what he’ll do.
So I swallow it. Bury it. Tuck it into the same box where I keep all the other truths no one’s allowed to see.
I tilt my head up, letting my eyes go cool. “You going to stare at me all night,” I murmur, “or are you planning to issue commands?”
His lips twitch again. “Not yet.”
“Waiting for what?”
He leans in, so close I can smell the clean hint of spice on his skin. His eyes flick to my mouth before he steps back. “Change into something comfortable, I’m sure you can’t breathe in that. We have a long way to go home.”
Then he turns and walks away—just like that.
And I hate that my knees don’t stop shaking until the door clicks shut behind him.
When he’s gone, I exhale for the first time in what feels like hours.
I wait a beat, listening to the silence.
Then I cross the room to get the small suitcase I packed to take with me.
Not gowns. Not lingerie. Actual options.
Black jeans. A loose white blouse. A pair of flats.
I had hoped against hope that I would be taking it back home with me, but hope is a cruel thing.
I choose quickly, moving on instinct, tugging the heavy silk dress over my head and leaving it pooled on the floor like a shed skin I never asked to wear.
I feel better with the denim tight against my legs, the cotton soft and breathable against my arms. Less like an ornament. More like myself. Whoever that still is.
My reflection in the tall mirror is strange—tired eyes, flushed cheeks, lipstick faded into a smudge.
I’m brushing my hair out when the door swings open without a knock.
Of course.
“What the hell are you wearing?”
Pyotr’s voice grates on my nerves, like I’ve broken some unspoken code of presentation for the man who bought me.
I don’t turn around right away. I take my time. When I do, my arms are folded, my expression blank. “For your information,” I say coolly, “Konstantin asked me to change.”
He flinches like I struck him. “Don’t call him by his name.”
“Would you prefer I call him master?”
“Don’t be clever,” he snaps. “You don’t know what kind of man he is.”
“No,” I say. “You don’t know what you’ve sold me into.”
He shuts the door behind him, too hard. “You think this is a game, walking around like this is some hotel stay? He’s the bastard son of Dmitry Buryakov.
” Pyotr’s voice is low, as if even in this room, that name might carry too far.
“You think the Bratva handed him his power? No. He carved it out of the dirt with his bare hands. Dmitry wouldn’t even look at him for the first ten years of his life.
Treated him like a stain on his legacy. You know what that does to a man? ”
I don’t answer.
Because I do know. I’ve seen it in Konstantin’s eyes.
Pyotr steps closer, lowering his voice. “He’s the most dangerous kind of man. Not just because he’s powerful, but because he was never supposed to be. He was made to be hungry. Ruthless. Determined to take everything his father denied him. And now you’re part of that. Congratulations.”
I keep my chin high. “You sold me, remember?”
“Don’t act like a martyr. You agreed.”
“I agreed,” I say, stepping toward him now, “because you threatened my son’s life with every choice you ever made.”
That silences him.
For a beat, we stare at each other, and I wonder how much longer I’ll have to carry his sins like they’re my own.
“Get out,” I say, voice calm.
He doesn’t move.
“I said get out.”
He scoffs, turning toward the door.
Then he pauses, his back still to me.
When he speaks again, his voice is lower. Controlled.
“There’s one more thing,” he says. I don’t move. “You don’t tell him about the children.”
My spine goes rigid.
He turns, watching me.
“You already told me not to, remember?”
“You breathe a word about them,” he says, ignoring my words, “and everything you’ve done—everything you’ve sacrificed—will be for nothing. You hear me?”
“I hear you.”
“Good,” he says. “Because whatever you think Konstantin is, he’s worse. And if he finds out he’s been lied to—about something like that?”
He doesn’t finish the sentence.
He just leaves.
The silence after my father leaves feels like static in my chest.
I’m still standing in the middle of the room, staring at nothing, when there’s another knock—softer this time. Polite, even.
The door opens before I can answer, and a man steps inside.