Chapter 39
CHAPTER 39
MARINA
I had to get out of here before it was too late.
The girls laughed again as if I had just told the funniest joke they had ever heard.
If someone looked in through the boutique’s large windows, they would see a picture-perfect moment. A beautiful woman in white, surrounded by friends sipping champagne, laughter spilling effortlessly into the air. They would see a bride preparing for the happiest day of her life, glowing with excitement, her friends celebrating with her.
They wouldn’t see the truth.
They wouldn’t see the smothering weight pressing against my ribs, the dread curling in my stomach like a living thing, the way my fingers trembled as I smoothed the skirt of the gown.
I looked like a blushing bride.
Nothing could be further from reality.
"Yeah, the Ivanovs in Moscow are just like our men," Samara laughed, shaking her head at an inside joke I was supposed to understand.
Nadia smirked and handed me another glass. "That might be one reason," she said. "But do you know the others?"
I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing came out.
Because I didn’t know.
I had assumed Kostya’s obsession with marrying me was about power. Control. His possessiveness. But as much as he enjoyed making me submit to him, there was something deeper at play, something I hadn’t quite put together.
Samara filled the silence. "It’s because you’re in danger."
My stomach clenched.
"We don’t know all the specifics," she continued, her voice more serious now. "The men try to keep us out of the loop when it comes to business, but…"
"We hear things," Yelena finished for her, tilting her glass slightly, the champagne swirling inside like shimmering gold. "Solovyov sent a hitman after someone, not sure who, but that was who kidnapped you. It was about the money, or more specifically, the hits that were written on the money."
A chill slithered down my spine.
The money.
The bloodstained bills that had led Kostya straight to me. The reason I had been taken in the first place.
“Oleg,” I said, my throat suddenly dry. "The hitman was Oleg. "
I turned back to the mirrors, my fingers tracing lightly over the beading on the bodice, the delicate crystals that shimmered under the soft boutique lighting. The dress was a masterpiece, something from a dream.
And yet I was living a nightmare.
"Wow," Samara exhaled. "I didn’t know it was Oleg. Gregor has mentioned him before. He is one scary man."
"Was," I corrected flatly. "Kostya put a bullet between his eyes."
Silence.
For the first time since I stepped into this boutique, the laughter stopped.
Nadia set down her glass and rested a hand on my shoulder, her touch warm but heavy.
"Solovyov will want to tie up loose ends," she said. "That includes you. Right now, you’re fair game. Kostya can’t keep you safe without locking you away somewhere. But if you’re his wife…"
She let the implication settle between us.
I swallowed hard. "Then I’m untouchable."
"Exactly."
I scoffed. The sound came out harsh, almost bitter.
"Am I?" I turned, meeting Nadia’s gaze head-on. "My sister wasn’t."
The words hung in the air, cold and sharp as a blade.
For a moment, none of them spoke.
I turned back to the mirror, my reflection staring back at me, a stranger in a wedding gown.
This dress was a cage.
And the wedding wasn’t about love or devotion .
It was about survival.
“She wasn’t seen as his wife,” Samara said, her voice gentle but firm. “Everyone knew what she did. Even here. She didn’t respect the honor of having the Ivanov name, so our enemies didn’t respect the protection it should have offered her.”
“The honor?” I repeated, my voice flat as I stared at Samara like she had lost her mind. “Are you serious? Are you three in some kind of Stockholm syndrome haze? Honor?”
The boutique, with its soft lighting, its delicate lace gowns, and its intoxicating blend of perfume and champagne, suddenly felt overwhelming. The walls pressed in, the mirrors reflecting back a version of myself that I didn’t recognize—a woman being groomed, dressed, prepared for a future she had no say in.
“Marrying Kostya is a prison sentence,” I spat, my voice rising despite my effort to keep calm. “He has taken every choice away from me. I made a life here. I have dreams, goals, aspirations. All of which he is ripping away from me.”
I didn’t really know these women, but I had to get this out. “I want to be my own woman. Instead, I was informed—not asked, informed—that I am going to marry a brutish thug. The same brutish thug who put me in danger in the first place, might I add. And now he’s taking me back to Russia, giving me an allowance, and keeping me in his home so I can give him tons of brutish thug babies.”
The hysteria creeping into my voice scared me, but I couldn’t stop. My heart pounded, my hands clenched into fists against the delicate fabric of my gown.
“He didn’t even ask,” I choked out, blinking against the heat behind my eyes. “He never asked what I wanted. If I wanted to go back to Russia. If I wanted to stay in America. If I wanted to live in his home or build a new one together.” My throat tightened painfully. “What if I don’t want to be a mother?”
The girls exchanged another look. That same silent conversation they’d been having since this entire ordeal began, communicating in a language I didn’t understand.
Nadia reached into her clutch and handed me a tissue, her expression softer now, her eyes laced with something almost like sympathy.
“Do you want to be a mother?” someone asked.
I swallowed hard. “I don’t know,” I admitted, my voice quieter now, raw around the edges. “But I’d at least like to be involved in making that decision.”
The silence stretched, thick and heavy.
I tilted my head back, staring up at the boutique’s gilded ceiling, trying to will away the tears threatening to spill.
“This life isn’t so bad,” Samara said finally, her voice softer. “Kostya is doing what he needs to do to save your life. Without his protection, the chances of you having a life to live are slim to none.”
I pushed my rising panic down.
“Ivanov men always get what they want,” Yelena added. “That doesn’t mean you can’t make them see reason.” Her voice turned speculative, sharp with an edge of something knowing. “If this was just about keeping you safe, he would have shipped you off somewhere. Maybe even used you as bait.”
“Nobody needs to hear that right now,” Nadia snapped, shooting her a glare.
“What?” Yelena shrugged, unbothered. “You know I love Damien, but let’s be real. We know what business they’re in. We may see the civilized side of them, but none of us are na?ve enough to think our men don’t operate in the gray. And sometimes, the pitch black.”
Her words just added to my growing dread.
“They won’t do anything horrible without reason,” she added. “But let’s not pretend any of us are married to saints.”
Nadia clenched her jaw, but didn’t argue.
Samara only smirked.
And I stood there in a wedding dress that wasn’t mine, staring at three women who had already made peace with the lives they were living, realizing with a deep, bone-chilling certainty…
This wasn’t just about my safety.
Kostya wanted me.
And he would not let me go.
"Look, what I’m saying is that Kostya must love you," Yelena said, her voice steady, as if she were explaining something simple, something obvious. "He wouldn’t marry you without loving you, especially not after how his first marriage turned out. When we learned Veronika died, no one here mourned her."
I stiffened, my fingers crushing the delicate lace of the dress.
"I’m sorry," she added quickly. "I know she was your sister. But for us, it gave Kostya his freedom back. He wouldn’t give that up again so easily unless he wanted to."
My stomach twisted. "So because he’s willing to be shackled to me, I should be grateful that he’s forcing me into this?"
"No." Yelena shook her head. "What I’m saying is that you should understand that the way Kostya treats everyone else is not the way he’s going to treat you. You have a voice. Once this is settled and your life is no longer in danger, he can be reasoned with."
She held my eyes in the mirror, her expression softer now, almost pleading. "He’s not going to want to keep you locked away in some tower like a fairy-tale princess. He’s a man that adores you, not a dragon holding you against your will."
I let out a sharp, humorless laugh. "But this is against my will," I shot back. "I’m not getting married. Why won’t anybody listen to me? Why is everyone acting like this is perfectly normal?"
Samara’s gaze was steady, unflinching. "Because in our world, it is," she said simply.
Then, as if I had already surrendered, as if the fight had already left me, she lifted a delicate bridal crown from Nadia’s hands and placed it onto my head.
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to tear the crown off, rip the veil from my hair, throw the entire display of lace and silk to the floor and run.
But I didn’t.
Because I knew—deep in my bones—I wouldn’t make it past the door .
They wouldn’t listen.
They wouldn’t understand.
Their world, the world they had chosen, revolved around men who took what they wanted. And they loved them for it.
I had seen it in their eyes when they spoke about their husbands, in the soft, adoring way their lips curled when they reminisced about their courtships—if you could even call them that. They had surrendered to this life, and they were happy.
And deep down, I knew that was how I wanted to look at Kostya.
But that didn’t mean I was okay with having my life decided for me.
Maybe if he had asked.
Maybe if he had explained why he wanted to marry me, if he had told me what this marriage was meant to be—real or not. Hell, if he had just asked me where I wanted to live, I would probably be more open to all of this.
But he hadn’t.
Because my wants, my choices, my future were not mine to decide.
Veronika had told me once, and I hadn’t understood then.
But I did now.
A gilded cage was still a cage.
"You look beautiful," Nadia murmured, stepping beside me.
I blinked back the still-threatening tears.
A delicate veil had been pinned behind the crown, cascading down my back in waves of sheer ivory. My reflection looked back at me, a vision of the perfect bride.
Elegant.
Demure.
Flawless.
It was a shame.
Because I had no intention of going through with the wedding.