Chapter 1 #2
I turn off the engine and sit there for a long moment, my hands still gripping the wheel. Maybe if I just stay in the car and don’t get out, this conversation won’t have to happen.
But he's already walking toward me and pulling open my car door.
Fuck. Goddammit.
“Where the hell were you?”
He’s not yelling, which is even worse.
I consider lying and saying I was at the library or a friend’s house, anywhere but where I actually was, but the veil is still on my head, and I’m wearing all black in the middle of August, and my eyes are red-rimmed from holding back tears.
He already knows. Of course he knows. He’s just waiting for me to say it.
“The funeral,” I whisper, forcing the words out. “I went to the funeral.”
For a moment, he doesn’t move or speak. Then he grabs my arm—not hard enough to hurt, but firm enough that I know I’m not getting away—and pulls me out of the car.
“Get inside now, Vera.”
He doesn’t let go of my arm until we’re in his study, the heavy oak door shut firmly behind us. Then he releases me and paces to the window, running both hands through his hair in a gesture I’ve never seen from him before. My father doesn’t get flustered or lose his composure.
He looks horrified, which scares me more than I want to admit.
“What the hell were you thinking?” He spins to face me, and I flinch at the raw fear in his eyes. “Showing your face there? At a Volkov funeral? Do you have any idea what could have happened if someone recognized you?”
“I wore a veil,” I protest, pulling it off me, my damp hair sticking to my head. “I stayed in the back. No one—”
“You don’t understand.” He cuts me off, his voice cracking.
“The Volkovs are planning retaliation. Dimitri Volkov is—” He stops and swallows hard.
I can see his Adam’s apple bobbing. “He’s going to start a war, Vera.
An actual war. And if he’d seen you there, if he had any suspicion that you were there to—to what? Gloat?”
“I wasn’t gloating,” I say quietly, my stomach roiling. Whether it’s from the baby or from what I’m about to admit, I don’t know. “I was saying goodbye.”
The words hang in the air between us. My father stares at me, and I watch horror, disbelief, and anger dawn slowly across his face.
“No,” he breathes, his lips going bloodless. “No. Vera, tell me you didn’t—”
“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” I say, and the tears I’ve been holding back finally spill over. “I didn’t mean to fall for him.”
My father sinks into his leather chair, his legs giving out on him. He suddenly looks older, every one of his fifty-three years showing in the lines of his face.
“How long?” His voice is barely a whisper.
I swallow, my mouth dry. “Eight months.”
“Eight!” He springs up and starts pacing again. “For eight months, you’ve been seeing Alexei Volkov? While our families were—Jesus Christ, Vera. What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that I loved him!” The words burst out of me, raw and broken. “I loved him, and now he’s dead, and I can never tell him…”
I collapse into one of the chairs, burying my face in my hands. My whole body shakes with sobs I can’t control anymore. I can’t tell my father I’m also pregnant with Alexei's baby. He already looks like he’s ready to keel over from the news I just gave him.
I feel my father’s hand on my shoulder, heavy and uncertain.
“I’m sorry,” he says finally. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart, but we have bigger problems now.”
I look up at him through my tears. “What do you mean?”
“There’s a way to prevent the war,” he says slowly. “Konstantin Volkov—Alexei’s uncle—approached me two days ago with a proposal.”
My blood runs cold. “W–What kind of proposal?”
“A marriage,” he says, and the floor drops out from under me. “Between our families. To create peace.”
“Who?” But I already know. I can see it in his face. “Dad, who?”
“You,” he says quietly. “You and Dimitri Volkov.”
The room spins. I grip the arms of the chair, my knuckles white, and I almost forget how to breathe.
“No,” I gasp. “No, you can’t!”
“You’re my oldest daughter. You’re the only offering they’ll accept.
” He kneels in front of me, taking my hands in his.
They’re shaking. “I know what I’m asking.
I know it’s—” He turns his head away, his shoulders trembling.
Normally, I would be stunned to see my father show such emotion, but I don’t even think I know my name at this point.
“God, Vera, I know. But if you don’t do this, everyone dies. ”
He turns back to look at me, his eyes full of pain. “Your mother. Natasha and Lydia. Everyone who works for us. Everyone we’re responsible for. The Volkovs will come for all of us, and they won’t stop until there's nothing left.”
“Y–You’re selling me to them.” The words taste like ash. “You’re selling me to Alexei’s brother.”
“I’m saving us,” he says, and there's real, genuine pain in his voice. “All of us. This is the only way.”
My mind goes to my mother. Sweet, gentle Elena Ashford, who has never harmed a soul. Then to my twelve-year-old sisters, Natasha and Lydia, still innocent, still unaware of the darker truths beneath our family’s polished surface.
I picture Mrs. Garcia, our housekeeper who has been with us since the day I was born, and Joe, our driver, who taught me how to parallel park. All the people who depend on us, who trust us to keep their world safe.
And I think of the baby. My hand ghosts over stomach again, pressing against the secret I’m carrying. If I refuse this marriage, if I let the Volkovs start their war, this baby dies too. The last piece of Alexei, gone before it ever had a chance to live.
“How long do I have?” My voice sounds hollow and distant, as if it’s coming from someone else.
“A week from Saturday,” my father says heavily, regret clear in his brown eyes. “The wedding is in ten days.”
Ten days. Ten days until I marry a man I’ve never met. Ten days until I become the wife of Dimitri Volkov—the man whose brother I loved, whose brother’s baby I’m carrying, whose cold gray eyes promise nothing but ice and hatred.
Ten days until my life ends.
Hours later, I climb the stairs to my childhood bedroom and lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling.
The room is exactly as I left it this morning. Pale blue walls covered with photographs and memories. My old teddy bear is on the shelf. The window seat where I read, a book still on the sill. Everything familiar. Everything safe.
Everything that’s about to be taken away.
I place both hands on my stomach, spreading my fingers over the place where our baby is growing. So small. So impossibly small, but already changing everything.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper into the darkness. “I’m so sorry, little one.”
Sorry that your father is dead. Sorry that you’ll never know him. Sorry that the man I’m about to marry will never love you the way Alexei would have. Sorry that I have to make this choice.
Sorry that I couldn’t save us.
The tears come again, silent and endless. I cry for Alexei, for the future we’ll never have. I cry for this baby who will grow up in a loveless marriage, in a house full of hatred and blame. I cry for myself, for the girl I was this morning who still had hopes and dreams.
And somewhere in the darkness, I think of Dimitri Volkov, the man I’ll be bound to in ten days.
The man who doesn’t know I’m carrying his dead brother’s child.
God help me.