Chapter 1
Chapter one
Catarina
Two Weeks Later
“I need to speak with my father,” I demand for the hundredth time, spinning around to face the maid, who stands in the threshold of my fucking prison cell of a bedroom.
In a freaking Santa hat.
Her dark eyes widen. “Miss Petrov,” she begins, her breakfast tray trembling in her hands. “I told you, your father wants you to remain in the protection of the Volkov—”
“Why?!” My voice grows shrill as I throw a hand into the air, my black satin robe slipping down around my elbow.
“I believe my father’s enforcers are more than capable of keeping me safe.
My husband died, and instead of getting to grieve like a widow should, I was shoved into a fucking SUV and brought here. You might as well have killed me, too!”
The maid winces with every crack in my voice. “Again… I don’t have the answers… I’m sure they will meet with you when there’s a breakthrough…”
I shake my head, knowing that I’m scaring the poor innocent woman—especially as I catch sight of myself in the full-length mirror. I look like a ghost, with pale skin, racoon eyes from smeared mascara, and messy hair that I haven’t brushed in days.
Papa would be ashamed of me.
And probably commit me to an insane asylum.
My eyes drift to the window as the maid sets down my breakfast on the small end table, and I gaze over the backyard of the estate as she mutters in Italian—a language I’m not well-versed in.
This place is beautiful, with perfectly trimmed hedges and a fountain in which the water is frozen in the winter cold.
In the distance, I see an adjacent estate decorated for Christmas. Bright white and rainbow lights reflect on the surface of the water, and if I close my eyes and listen, I swear I can hear “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” playing somewhere.
I should be celebrating my first Christmas with Mikhail.
I rip my attention from the window and shiver against the cold, hating the way I feel like I’m drowning in never-ending grief. My future was taken from me in a matter of seconds, the love of my life was killed—and for what reason?
I guess that is the question. And more than likely, the reason I’m stuck here. I’m no stranger to this world. I was raised in it.
The bedroom door clicks closed, and I breathe out a heavy sigh, already knowing it’s locked. And as angry as I am…
There’s nothing I can do.
“Because jumping from a third story window is a death wish,” I mutter under my breath as I pick up a grape from the fruit tray and pop it into my mouth. I plop down onto the bed and force myself to swallow.
I haven’t eaten much in the last fourteen days.
I should be coming back from my honeymoon. I should be wearing the sexy red Christmas lingerie. I should’ve finally lost my virginity.
But nope. Instead, I lost the one man who was going to get me out from under my father’s thumb. And it wasn’t just business like some. It was real.
I loved him.
“Loved,” I whisper, feeling the tears well up in my eyes. Loved. Past tense.
Mikhail and I meeting and falling in love was too good to be true—and I can’t stop spinning that fact in my head. He’s a Volkov, a sworn enemy, someone I’ve been told to watch out for all my life. Even thinking about how we met now seems as impossible as us making it out unscathed.
He was following me for surveillance, and I caught on pretty quickly as Mikhail wasn’t subtle about it. I led him to a diner, and when he was waiting in his car, I knocked on the window and asked him to have coffee with me.
To this day, I can’t explain why I did it. Maybe I thought it would be funny, rebellious even. But when he sat down across from me and we had our first real conversation, I just knew he was different.
And, indeed, he was. So much so, he’s fucking dead now.
That’s what happens to weak men. I hear my late grandfather’s voice in my head.
“Fuck,” I murmur, glancing down at my now-chipped nails. Guilt squeezes my chest in a way that almost leaves me breathless.
Maybe it’s all my fault.
I bat the tears from my eyes, and try to steady myself. There hasn't been a moment since his death that I've felt at peace. Especially not here. Especially not since I didn’t even get the chance to say goodbye. I was dragged away to safety.
But I’d have thrown away all my safety to just kiss his face once more.
Two knocks on the bedroom door pull me out of my own head momentarily, but I don't say anything. There’s no point. They choose who comes in and out, and more than likely, it’s just the terrorized maid coming back for the breakfast I’m not going to eat.
However, as the door swings in, I’m met with the devil himself.
Matysh Volkov.
“Catarina,” he grunts, filling the doorway in an impenetrably intimidating sort of way. He’s got at least three inches on his younger brother, and his eyes are at least three times more dead, too.
“I already made it clear that I would like to speak with my father,” I say, keeping my voice even and quickly swallowing the lump in my throat. If there’s one thing I’ve learned growing up in this world, it’s that showing weakness is never an option.
“You haven’t made shit clear to me.” He steps further into the room, looming over me in a way that causes my heart to skip a beat. “If it weren’t for my brother’s dying wish, I’d have left you there to burn to the ashes with the rest.”
I scoff. “That might have been much kinder than playing prison warden.”
He meets my gaze, his jaw ticking twice—but that’s the only sense of emotion there. “Your father would beg to differ. He’d like his precious daughter to be safe.”
“He’d like to control me like the rest of his affairs,” I blurt out a truth that I probably shouldn’t. But it’s no secret. My father loves his family, but he loves his addiction to power more.
That’s the only reason he approved of my marriage to Mikhail.
He ignores my comment, and really me for that matter. He leans against the doorframe, and seems to glare through me, rather than at me.
“Do you know of anyone who would object to your wedding?” Matysh asks, his voice clipped and brusque.
I grit my teeth and take a deep breath. This isn’t the first time someone has asked me this question. I was given two days to mourn in silence, and then I was sporadically asked by his men over the course of the last ten or so days.
And my consistent answer is never enough, but I repeat it anyway.
I stare at my hands, fighting to hold back the weight of guilt. “I don’t know. Probably a lot of people would’ve objected to it.”
“Look at me when I'm speaking to you,” Matysh commands, moving closer and forcibly turning my face to stare up at him. His fingers are strong, harsh, and dig into the soft flesh of my face so much that it aches.
And yet, my thighs clench unwantedly.
Fucking disgusting, Cat. This man is a monster.
But I guess that’s what happens when you’ve been a princess locked in a tower your whole life. The moment a man touches you, you react.
“I need names,” he clamps down tighter, and a whimper slips from my lips, betraying me.
Something flickers in Matysh’s dark irises, and it only takes a moment to recognize the sadism there.
He hates me. He is everything Mikhail was not.
Both may have shared the same olive skin, tall build, and broad shoulders, but Matysh is undeniably harder than Mikhail had been, his face cold, as if he had never smiled in his entire life.
Lines around his eyes and mouth, etched from frowning and concentrating, speak of a burden similar to my own father’s, hinting at the unforgiving weight of being a Pakhan.
And like the reputation that precedes him, he looks like the devil.
“Aside from you, I don't know any names of those who’d object,” I spit at him, challenging the monster in his eyes. He might be the devil, but I’m not scared of him.
If you have nothing to lose, there’s nothing to fear.
He releases my face, and then runs his fingers through his short black hair, tousling some slicked back strands. He has a few gray specks around the corners. Mikhail was nearly ten years younger, and it shows.
“You think I would kill my own brother?” Matysh asks, his voice low and gruff as he leans away from me, though his gaze is still trained on my face.
“I think you’re no different than the rest,” I say simply, shrugging my shoulders. “You take what you want, and you’ll whack whoever gets in your way.” The accusation sits between us, and Matysh seems to visibly grow tenser, as if he might explode on me right then and there.
“While you're living in my house, I would advise you to watch your mouth,” he warns through gritted teeth. “I think it would be wise of you to learn that lesson before I’m forced to teach it to you.”
I laugh, which only makes his jaw clench tighter. “Would that include a lecture? And would it allow for me to leave this godforsaken room—”
“Enough!” Matysh shouts, his voice jarring me where I’m seated on the bed. “I swear to God, Catarina, if it were not for my loyalty to my brother, I would fucking shut that pretty mouth of yours permanently.”
I open my mouth to spit back a response, but then stop. I don’t have my father’s men here to fight my battle if I start one, and Matysh is a dangerous man—one of the most dangerous in the city.
I’m not that stupid. Maybe stupid enough to push, but smart enough to stop.
“Did Mikhail express any fears? Was anyone putting pressure on him to back out?” Matysh lets out a heavy breath in annoyance, as if he’s having to speak to a subordinate.
And that only serves to annoy me all over again. “I've already answered. I don't know. Can you leave now? Or better yet, can I leave now?” I fold my arms across my chest, and straighten my shoulders. “This is fucking torture.”
He cocks a brow at me. “If you think sitting in a room and sulking by a window is torture, you don't know what torture really is.” A hint of a smirk forms at the corner of his lip, and it almost morphs his entire face. It makes my stomach curdle.
“I know enough. If you think holding me here in this cage is going to fix anything or protect me, you're wrong. People are going to be looking for me eventually.” I take a breath and meet his eyes once again. “When my father finds out you’re holding me against my will, he’s going to come for you, and all truces will be lost.”
Matysh laughs, a sick, deep chuckle that makes my heart race. “Oh, your father knows. He knows it very well. And he approves. I think he was looking forward to passing on the burden.”
His words sting more than I want to admit, and it takes everything I have not to show it. “You’re a huylo (dickhead).”
Something in Matysh’s face shifts with some sort of emotion, but too briefly for me to make any sort of sense of it.
“You can call me whatever it is you choose, but it will not get you out of this room.” He folds his arms in front of him, cold blue eyes still beaming down on my face. “I'll ask you one last time, who do you know that would have objected to the wedding?”
I glare up at him, knowing immediately what he's getting at—and I realize maybe I am stupid enough to push him to the edge. I stand up and level up to him, nearly toe-to-toe.
“I know you surround yourself with a bunch of sycophants looking to climb the ranks in your little brigade,” I taunt him, my voice low.
“But if you think you’re going to find a reason to murder me and sink me to the bottom of the bay to fulfill your sick power trip, you’re wrong.
You will end up there before I do, huylo (dickhead). Don’t forget I’m a Petrov.”
His eyes darken, his hands flying up to my throat and then stopping before they wrap around it—as if he has some sort of sick self-control.
“Mne khochetsya sledit' za toboy s nozom u shei, no bratovskaya klyatva derzhit menya.
Nikto iz moikh ne smeyet prikosnut'sya k tebe (I want to watch you with a knife at your throat, but the brotherly oath holds me back. None of my people dare touch you).”
A shiver rolls through my spine as he steps back, leaving me trembling beneath my satin robe. He turns his back, and then heads for the door.
As he turns the knob, I can’t help myself. “I didn’t ask for your protection,” I call out.
He scoffs, muttering something under his breath as he exits the room, and slams the door behind him. I hear the locks being turned back into place, and I collapse onto the bed in defeat.
I thought living with my controlling, overbearing father was hell, but this is much worse…
And I think it’s only the beginning.