Chapter Eighteen - Rostya
The news spreads like rot, slipping through locked doors and guarded halls—my wife, my bloodline, exposed for every jackal in the city to sniff at. No matter how I tighten the perimeter, it finds a way out.
At first it’s just a glance, a lingering look in the council chamber, the tightening of a rival’s mouth at a toast. Then the whispers multiply, twisting their way through every business meeting, every corridor, every conversation that halts when I enter the room.
“Congratulations,” they say, the word curdling in the air, heavy with threat. “A family man now, Sharov?” The laughter is never open, but the meaning is. To the Bratva, a child is leverage, a wife is a weak link. To rule by fear is to accept that no one must ever glimpse your underbelly.
Every handshake, every raised glass, tastes of poison. Eyes flick to Karmia, to the line of her jaw, the hint of curve beneath her dress, and I feel the calculations burning behind their faces. A wife. An heir. For the first time in years, I see my enemies daring to hope.
Fury licks at me, steady and cold. In the boardroom, I catch Ivan’s sidelong glance, the flicker of worry even he can’t hide. I nod once, and my orders ripple out like a command to war. I want names. I want every weak tongue, every loose thread, every careless whisper dragged into the light.
My men tear through files and records, cross-referencing calls, watching servants and soldiers alike. Spy or traitor, rumor-monger or simple fool, I don’t care. The truth is less important than the message that will follow.
When Ivan reports back, his face is ashen. “A kitchen boy,” he says, voice trembling under the weight of my gaze. “A girl from the laundry. Maybe more.” The rot is deeper than I thought.
It changes nothing. I set my jaw, lighting a cigarette with hands that never shake. If they want a demonstration, I’ll give them one. Not just punishment, but spectacle. A lesson written in fear that will reach every corner of the city before morning.
***
That night, I watch from the shadows as the guilty are hauled into the courtyard—pale faces, shaking limbs, desperate pleas for mercy. I don’t offer any. The Bratva needs to remember what happens when the Sharov name is spoken without reverence.
The punishment is swift, brutal, final. No one will mistake my silence for weakness again. I watch the blood darken the stones and feel the storm inside me calm, if only for a moment.
Let them whisper now. Let them fear. Vulnerability is a lie I will erase with every drop spilled tonight. The lesson is simple—there is no leverage in my house but the kind I choose to allow.
***
The night is thick with threat. In the cold, unlit clearing beyond the estate walls, we find him—a Volkov scout, maybe, or perhaps just one of my own with loose lips and a weak will. It hardly matters. The message is the same.
He’s on his knees, face bruised, mouth bloodied from Ivan’s questioning.
The men form a ring around us, silent, watching the dance of shadow and torchlight.
I say nothing as Ivan hauls the traitor upright, making him look at me.
There’s no need for speeches, no need for rage or threats.
My calm is the sentence. My gaze, the knife.
“Do you know why?” I ask, softly, the words for the crowd as much as for the condemned. He shakes, stutters, his eyes pleading for a mercy I never offer. I nod to Ivan, and the gun is pressed to his head. I pull the trigger myself, the crack of it shattering the hush, echoing into the woods.
Blood spatters across my hands, a warm mist on my shirt. I hand the gun back, wipe my palm on my trousers, and step over the crumpled body. The men disperse, some pale, some grim, all reminded. Loyalty is not just expected—it is enforced. Rumor and weakness die at my feet.
I walk back to the house alone, the scent of gunpowder clinging to my skin, blood drying in streaks. I pass through the back corridors, not bothering to avoid the staff. Let them see. Let them carry the truth to every corner of this place.
Karmia waits in the main hall, her posture tense, hands twisting at her sides. When she catches sight of me, she startles, steps back, eyes wide and dark as bruises. Her gaze darts from the stains on my shirt to the flecks on my knuckles. The fear is unmistakable.
I move closer, slow but direct, until the space between us shrinks to nothing. She tries to mask her revulsion, but I see it, how she shrinks from the violence, how her breath stutters, how her hands clench around the memory of what I am.
I don’t offer apology or comfort. I tilt her chin with one finger, forcing her to meet my eyes. “No one will ever take you from me,” I say, voice low and level. “No one will touch what’s mine.”
She flinches, the words sliding down her spine like ice. I let my hand fall, stepping back, watching her reaction. I see her confusion, part of her still searching for comfort, part recoiling from the truth. Safety and captivity, all twisted up together.
She looks at my hands, then my face, reading what she can in the hard lines, the blood I haven’t bothered to wash away.
I see her pulse flutter at her throat, the calculation in her gaze.
She wants to ask if I did it for her, or for myself.
She wants to believe in protection, in the idea that brutality can ever be love.
She’s too smart for fairy tales. She knows the cage for what it is.
Her voice, when it comes, is hoarse. “Does it ever end?” she whispers. “The killing. The threats. The blood.”
I look past her, out the window to the night beyond, where the world is still and silent and cold. “Not for men like me,” I answer, my tone flat, almost gentle in its finality. “Not for anyone who stands at my side.”
She recoils again, arms wrapping around herself as if to hold in the pieces. I watch her turn away, shoulders hunched, the distance between us a wall neither of us can cross. For her, my words are shackles, not comfort. For me, they are the only truth that matters.
I leave her there, trembling, alone with her thoughts, the echo of the gunshot still ringing in the halls. My boots leave bloody prints on the marble as I disappear into the dark, already thinking of the next move, the next betrayal, the next body that will remind the world whose house this is.
Outside, the wind hisses through the trees. Inside, fear settles like dust. Between us, safety and captivity blur together—love as a prison, devotion as a chain—until there’s no longer any line to draw.
***
The next day, new rules descend. I call it security, protection, necessity.
“You don’t leave the compound. Not now. Not until I say so.” I watch her reaction closely, the stubborn set of her mouth, the flash in her eyes. I pretend I’m doing it for her safety, but we both know the truth: it’s a leash, velvet-lined, clamped tight.
She doesn’t shrink from me, not anymore. She stands in the center of my office, fists curled, voice hard as glass.
“You can’t keep me locked up like this. I’m not your prisoner. I’m supposed to be your wife.” Her words land like slaps, each one sharper than the last.
I lean back in my chair, letting her words batter against the walls. I could shout, threaten, break her to heel. I let her vent, let the storm build.
Then I answer, voice even, unmovable. “It isn’t safe beyond these walls. Not for you, not for the child. My word is law in this house. Learn it.”
She laughs, brittle and furious. “Law? You mean chains. You’d rather have me silent and small than risk losing even an ounce of control.” The accusation stings, but I hide it, watching the color bloom in her cheeks, the wild spark in her eyes.
Our arguments have become a daily ritual, a dance of fire and ice.
She rails against the guards posted at every door, against the way her phone calls are monitored, against the endless suffocation of power masquerading as care.
I parry her fury with silence, with reminders, with the cold inevitability of my rule.
With each clash, something in me shifts. Her fear has twisted into open resistance, and instead of crushing it, I find myself feeding on it. Every time she bares her teeth, every time she spits my own cruelty back at me, a dark satisfaction coils in my chest.
I want her like this: unyielding, defiant, alive. I want to watch her burn, to see the fury in her veins. The more she fights, the more I crave her. I don’t want her docile. I want her blazing.
I never tell her this. I let her think her rage is a weapon against me. I let her feel the cage and spit on it. I want the fight. I want to see how long she’ll burn before she realizes the bars don’t weaken her—they temper her, sharpen her into something no one else could ever own.
Even as the tension stretches, even as our war threatens to tear the house apart, I know I won’t let her go. Not now. Not ever. Her fire is mine, as surely as her fear once was. And that, I realize, is the only power I truly trust.
She leaves the office in a storm of curses, heels clicking sharp and angry down the polished hall.
The taste of her defiance lingers in the air, sweeter than any victory I’ve had over men twice as dangerous.
I follow, not running—never running—but closing the distance with each measured step, the thud of my boots echoing her fury.
She spins at the corner, almost colliding with me, her breath ragged, her cheeks flushed with anger that matches my own heat. For a moment neither of us speaks. The air thrums between us, charged with everything left unsaid.
I let my eyes drop to her mouth. Every argument, every insult, always leads me back to this: the memory of her lips, the way they tremble when she’s fighting not to yield, the way her voice breaks in pleasure, in rage, in every twisted note between love and hate.
It’s all I see now. Every bruise and bruise-turned-kiss.
Every time she’s bucked against me in battle or bed.
Her breath catches. She sees the shift in me, the hunger simmering beneath the cold front I try to wear.
She steps back, spine pressed to the wall, but it isn’t fear this time.
It’s anticipation—or maybe dread, or maybe both.
I see her pulse jumping at her throat, the stubborn line of her jaw daring me to move, to claim, to take.
My hands ache for her. My mouth aches for her.
For just a second, I think about tearing down what little space is left, kissing her until the fight turns to fire and then to surrender.
I don’t. Not tonight. Restraint is agony—more than the bruises, more than the blood I’ve spilled. I let her go, watching her brush past me, chin high, a tremor running through her that she can’t quite hide. The sound of her footsteps fades, leaving nothing but the echo of longing behind.
For her, the escape is just a breath, a pause. She knows, as well as I do, that the storm between us is not over. It’s a hunger coiled tight in the darkness, waiting for the next spark.
I stay in the corridor long after she’s gone, fists clenched, fighting the urge to follow. I know what waits for us. The war will break again, and when it does, neither of us will walk away unscathed. The next time we clash, it will be all heat, all teeth, all need.
For now, I let her have her distance. I let the silence do what words cannot—a promise that soon, the storm will return, and this time, neither of us will run.