Chapter 5
Izzy
"I need you to marry me."
The words hang in the air of Sergei's office like a grenade with the pin pulled.
He's sitting behind a sleek desk that doesn't match the rest of the industrial space, all exposed brick and steel beams, the kind of place that screams, I could kill you here and no one would hear you scream.
His security company operates out of a converted warehouse in Brooklyn, far from Manhattan's polished towers and their polished lies.
Those slate-grey eyes pin me in place. He doesn't blink. Doesn't move. The silence stretches until my palms start sweating against my Birkin.
"You're insane," he finally says.
"Probably." I shift in the uncomfortable metal chair across from him, suddenly aware of how stupid this sounds.
How desperate I look, showing up at his office three days after sleeping with him, making demands like I have any right to anything except the memory of his hands on my skin. "But I'm also serious."
He leans back; his arms crossed over that broad chest, I can still feel pressed against me. The memory sends warmth spreading through my ribcage, unwanted and inappropriate. His gaze sharpens like he knows exactly what I'm thinking.
"You need protection, you hire a bodyguard." His voice is controlled, careful, the way bomb squads talk to explosives. "You don't propose marriage."
"I don't need a bodyguard." I pull out the folded copy of Dad's will from my purse, smoothing it on his desk with shaking fingers I can't quite control. "I need a husband. Before my thirtieth birthday. That's in less than two and a half months."
He doesn't look at the paper. "Why me?"
"Because you're dangerous." The words tumble out fast, rehearsed in my head a hundred times during the sleepless nights since he left my bed.
"Because Uncle Matthew and Cal Reznick and everyone circling my inheritance like vultures are scared of you.
Because you can't be bought, bullied or manipulated. "
"And you think you can manipulate me into this?"
"I'm not trying to manipulate you." Liar. I'm absolutely trying to manipulate him, and we both know it. "I'm offering a business arrangement."
Danger flashes across his face. He stands, moving around the desk with that predatory grace that makes my heartbeat stutter.
He's wearing dark jeans and a black henley that stretches across his shoulders, and I have to force myself not to stare at the way his muscles shift under knit fabric like violence wrapped in cotton.
"A business arrangement?" He stops in front of me, near enough that I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. I can see the silver threading through the dark hair at his temples. "Like the other night was business?"
My face burns. "That was different."
"Was it?" He braces his hands on the armrests of my chair, caging me in. The scent of him invades my space, cedar and danger. "Because it felt pretty fucking personal when you were screaming my name against that window."
My lungs forget how to work. "Sergei—"
"You want to buy me." His voice drops lower, rougher, like gravel dragged across skin. "That's what this is. You're offering money for a ring and a signature."
"No." I force myself to hold his gaze, even as my heart slams against my ribs hard enough to bruise. "I'm offering protection. You protect me from my family's schemes, and I give you stability. Credibility."
His jaw clenches. "I don't need credibility."
"You need it for Mila." The words hit their mark. I see it in the way his shoulders go rigid, the flicker of raw pain in his eyes. "Your ex-wife wants full custody. She thinks you're unstable, dangerous. But a married man with a respectable wife from old money? That changes the narrative."
"You've been digging."
"I'm good at research." I stand, forcing him to step back or touch me. My knees feel unsteady, but I lock them, refusing to show weakness in front of a predator. "Elena can't paint you as reckless if you're married to a Davenport. The courts will see stability, commitment, and a family."
Silence stretches between us like a wire pulled taut. I watch emotions war across his face. Anger. Calculation. Interest.
His hand comes up, thumb brushing my jaw, and a jolt rockets down my spine.
"This is a terrible idea," he says.
"I know."
"You're going to regret it."
"Probably." I lean into his touch before I can stop myself, before I remember I'm supposed to be in control here.
"But I'm out of options. My mother wants me to marry that pig Cal Reznick.
My uncle is circling like he's already won.
And I think—" My voice cracks. Fractures. "I think they killed my father."
His eyes sharpen into blades. "Explain."
So I do. The boat explosion that doesn't make sense, the perfect timing of the will clause, Mother's lack of surprise, Uncle Matthew's eagerness to control my inheritance. By the time I finish, Sergei's expression has gone cold and deadly.
"You need real protection," he says. "Not just a husband."
"I need both." I straighten my spine, channeling every ounce of Davenport steel I inherited, along with the blue eyes and the blood money. "I won't let them win. I won't let them take what my father built and twist it into something ugly."
"And you think marrying me solves this?"
"I think marrying you gives me the weapon I need." I meet his gaze head-on, refusing to flinch. "You scare them. That's what I need. Someone they can't predict or control. Someone who'll stand between me and their schemes long enough for me to destroy them myself."
He studies me for a long moment, slate-grey eyes reading my face like he’s doing a threat assessment. Then he moves to the window, staring out at the Brooklyn skyline like it holds answers.
"On one condition," he finally says.
Hope flares in my chest, sharp and dangerous. "Name it."
"You live with me." He turns back, and there's no compromise in his expression, nothing soft or negotiable.
"Mila has a routine. Her school, her friends, her puzzle nights with me.
I won't disrupt that. If we're doing this, you move into my place.
You become part of her life, part of the illusion that we're real. "
The thought of living with him sends panic and heat through my veins simultaneously. Sharing space with Sergei, seeing him every day, sleeping under the same roof where his daughter lives, pretending to be something I'm not.
This is insane.
"Okay," I hear myself say.
His eyebrows rise. "Just like that?"
"Just like that." I cross the space between us, stopping so close, I can feel the heat radiating off him like he's burning from the inside. "I need this, Sergei. And despite what you think, I'm not trying to buy you. I'm trying to survive."
He reaches out, fingers tangling in my black hair, tilting my head back. For a second, I think he's going to kiss me and my lips part automatically, traitorously. But he just studies my face, searching for certainty I don't have.
"You have no idea what you're getting into," he murmurs.
"Then show me."
His grip tightens, just shy of painful. "I'm not a good man, Isabelle."
"Good." I press closer, feeling his heartbeat through our clothes, proof he's not as controlled as he pretends to be. "I don't need good. I need dangerous."
His control breaks. His mouth crashes against mine, hot and demanding, and tasting like a mistake I want to make again.
I melt into him because, apparently, I'm incapable of good decisions.
This kiss is different from the desperate collision at my penthouse.
This one tastes like promises and threats and the beginning of destruction.
It will probably destroy us both.
I'm walking toward it anyway.
When he pulls back, we're both breathing hard, like we've been fighting instead of kissing.
"We marry," he says against my lips, "and then what?"
"Then we figure it out." I trace the scar bisecting his eyebrow, the one I tasted three nights ago. "Or we don't. But at least I'll have my inheritance. At least you'll have ammunition for your custody case."
"And if it gets messy?"
"Everything in my life is already messy." I step back, smoothing my dress, trying to look composed when blood pounds in my ears and my lips are probably swollen, and I can still taste him. "At least this way I'm choosing the chaos."
He watches me for another beat, then moves back to his desk. He pulls out a contract from a drawer, scribbling notes in the margins with decisive strokes.
"My lawyer will draft something official," he says. "Terms, conditions, exit clauses. This stays professional."
"Of course."
"We tell Mila it's real. No confusion, no instability."
"Understood."
"And no one, not your mother, not your uncle, no one, knows this is fake."
"Agreed."
He signs the bottom of his makeshift contract, then slides it across the desk. I sign without reading it, because what's the point? I'm already in free fall.
"Welcome to the family, Mrs. Orlov," he says, and darkness floods his smile, predatory and promising.
What have I done?
But I know the answer.
I've made a deal with The Wolf.
And wolves don't let go once they've tasted blood.