Chapter Twenty-Four
KATERINA
I don’t sleep much, even in Scottie’s arms.
Every time I close my eyes, I see my grandmother’s face across that immaculate tea table, hear her saying I will let you know my decision tomorrow in that calm, terrifying way of hers.
Tomorrow is now.
Scottie left early this morning. It’s game day, and he needs to be at the stadium. I’ll see him later tonight, and I hope that we’ll be celebrating at Oakley's with my grandmother’s blessing but I have no idea what today will bring.
My stomach is in knots even before the knock sounds on the penthouse door.
Not just a knock.
It’s a pattern. Two firm taps, a pause, then one more.
The way Popovich security always introduced themselves.
My blood runs cold.
I open the door to find a large man in a black suit and winter coat standing in the hallway. His expression is blank and typical.
“Miss Popovich,” he says in Russian. “Your grandmother requests your presence.”
A lifetime ago, I would have been flanked out of apartments, studios, restaurants by men just like him. I found comfort in the routine back then. Now, it feels like a collar tightening around my neck.
“Of course,” I say, switching back to English as I grab my coat. “Let me get my things.”
He steps aside.
I glance toward the interior of the penthouse, the couch where Scottie and I fall asleep more nights than not, the kitchen island where he lifted me last night, the bedroom door half-open and still messy from the way we tumbled into his sheets.
My chest squeezes.
I whisper to the empty space, “I’ll be back,” like maybe the walls are listening.
The limo is waiting downstairs. The same glossy black car, the same uniformed driver. The interior smells faintly of leather, my grandmother’s expensive perfume, and old power.
My grandmother sits exactly where she did yesterday: centered, composed, gloved hands folded over her purse.
“Sit,” she says.
I do.
The door closes with a soft thud, and the city disappears behind tinted glass.
For a few heartbeats, the only sound is the low hum of the engine.
Then she says, “Dr. Markov had a cancellation.”
My head snaps up, and I can already feel the knowing signs of hope. “What?”
“The nerve trial,” she says. “One of his candidates can’t make the time constraints. There is now a vacant place in the cohort.”
My fingers curl into the seat leather. “And…?”
“And Markov owes me a favor.” She looks at her nails as if this is all very boring. “If I ask, he will offer that spot to your father-in-law.”
My heart slams against my ribs.
“Scottie’s father,” I whisper.
“Yes.” She watches my reaction, sharp and unblinking. “Arnold Easton.”
I can’t breathe for a second.
All I see is Scottie’s face at the kitchen table last night, the way his voice cracked when he said, There’s nothing I can do. The weight on his shoulders. The quiet grief he thought he hid.
“There is… a condition,” my grandmother adds.
Of course there is.
“There always is,” I say softly.
She inclines her head. “If I call in this favor, it will not be simply out of kindness. You know this.”
“Yes.”
“I will secure a place in the trial for Mr. Easton,” she continues. “I will give him what I expect is his last, best chance at walking again. But in return, you will end this marriage and honor your engagement to Maxim.”
The words land like a physical blow.
I flinch. “You want me to… divorce Scottie.” I can barely force his name out.
“Yes,” she says simply, “and marry Maxim, as your father arranged.”
My throat burns. “No.”
She lifts an eyebrow. “Think carefully before you answer, Katerina. This is not the stage. You cannot improvise your way out of this scene.”
“I can’t just walk away from him like he’s nothing.” My voice shakes. “I love him.”
“Love.” She says it like it’s a foreign word, one she understands but does not trust. “If you love him, you will do what is necessary to protect him and his family. This is the offer on the table: call off this… experiment of a marriage, marry Maxim, and I will personally ensure Dr. Markov accepts Mr. Easton into his trial, and I’ll even throw in the cost of it as a show of my good faith and your dedication to our family,” she says as if the cost of it is nothing.
Which for my grandmother, it is nothing.
“Or refuse, and I will respect your decision to stay married to Scottie. I’ll speak to your father.
I will tell him to leave you here in Seattle, with your hockey husband.
I’ll have him remove any financial or legal pressure from you.
You will be free to pursue this life, though you will be disinherited. ”
Hope lances through me so sharply it almost hurts. I don’t care about the money. I just want Scottie—I want this life with him. “You would really do that?”
“Yes,” she says. “If you refuse this offer, this is my promise: I will not drag you back to Russia. Your father’s leverage over you will end.”
My heart jumps.
Free.
Fully free to stay with Scottie. To dance in Seattle. To be part of his family. To build something real.
It’s everything I’ve wanted since the moment I stepped off that plane and realized there was another path.
“But.” Her voice turns colder. “If you refuse, I will not speak to Markov. I will not attempt to influence his list. From what I understand, he has no intention of adding Mr. Easton. The injury is old. The waiting list is long. The odds are not favorable.”
My stomach twists.
“So,” she says gently, like she’s offering me another cup of tea and not a moral guillotine. “Do you want freedom… or do you want to save the man you love from watching his father’s body fail him?”
“That isn’t fair,” I choke out.
“Life is rarely fair, milaya moya.” My dear. “I am giving you something most people never get: a choice.”
A choice that is not a choice at all.
Images flood my mind too fast to process.
Scottie, laughing in the kitchen with sauce on his cheek.
Scottie, carrying me over the threshold.
Scottie, in Whitefish, spinning his cousins’ kids around.
Scottie, whispering I love you against my mouth as he moved inside me, gentle and confident.
Scottie, staring out at the lake, talking about his father’s accident with that quiet, raw ache in his voice.
“If I say yes,” I say hoarsely, “if I agree to divorce Scottie and marry Maxim… you’ll get his father into the trial?”
“Yes.” No hesitation. “I will call Markov personally. His assistant is already arranging it and waiting for my call but if I don’t call by tonight, they will send the last spot to the first choice on the waitlist, and it won’t be him.”
“And if I say no… you’ll tell Papa to leave me alone.”
“Yes. But you must pick one, and you must pick it now, or else the doctor’s offer goes away.”
It’s ruthless the way only honesty can be.
I stare out the window. Seattle slides past––steel, glass, rain-streaked sky.
I think of the Eastons’ kitchen, the smell of cinnamon rolls, the way Hillary wiped her hands on a dish towel and hugged me like her own. The way Arnold joked, calling my husband their golden boy with so much pride it nearly split my chest.
I think of Scottie rubbing my feet after a long night of dancing, of the theater he rented for me, of telling me that he would have agreed to marry me if Luka had just been honest from the start.
He would never take a deal that sends me back to Russia.
He would stay. Fight. Refuse to give me up even if it cost him everything.
I know that as surely as I know the positions in a barre exercise.
Which means… if this is going to happen, it has to be me.
I have to be the one who walks away.
My eyes sting.
“I’ll do it,” I whisper.
Silence.
Then my grandmother says, “You will end the marriage.”
“Yes.”
“And you will return to Moscow to marry Maxim.”
My stomach lurches. “Do I have a—timeline?” The word almost chokes me. “I have a contract, the season—”
“You will be allowed a week for them to prepare your replacement,” she says, merciful in her way. “We must manage appearances. But I will expect your cooperation. No more marriage scandals. No more disappearing acts.” Her gaze pins mine. “You will get back in line, Katerina.”
I nod slowly. I feel like I’m signing something in blood.
“And Scottie?” I ask, my voice scraping raw. “He won’t… agree. If he finds out I’m divorcing him for his father’s sake, he’ll refuse. He’ll fight. He’ll never sign.”
“Then you must not tell him the real reason,” she says calmly.
“You’re a trained performer. You understand the importance of playing your part, yes?
” She watches me flinch. “He cannot know that Markov is part of the deal. I will simply ask them to tell Mr. Easton that a sponsored spot opened up. If you tell him, if he refuses, the offer is withdrawn. The trial spot vanishes. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Good.” She adjusts her gloves, like we’ve just completed a business transaction.
“A penthouse has been prepared for you at a property I own. Your belongings will be transferred. You’ll have security.
A driver. Your whereabouts will be known again, as they were before you refused your father’s help years ago.
I’ll expect you back in Russia after your last performance next week. Are we understood?”
I nod. No words will come out.
The cage slams shut with a velvet-lined click.
The limo pulls to the curb outside The Commons.
“Pack what you need,” she says. “My man will oversee the move. Tell him tonight, Katerina. I expect you back in my penthouse with your belongings before the Hawkeyes game ends tonight.”
“Yes, Grandmother.”
My legs feel numb as I climb out of the car.
Rain mists against my face.
I walk into the lobby on autopilot.
Packing is… brutal.
I start with the practical things: dance bag, rehearsal clothes, my warm-up sweaters. Toiletries. Makeup. Everything I packed over a month ago when my brother moved me here to marry Scottie.
Then I moved to his bedroom to pack the necklace Maxim gave me.
His t-shirt is still on the floor beside the bed where he dropped it last night when we made love like it might be our last, but he swore to me that it wouldn’t be, and I wanted to believe him. I wanted so badly to believe that we were going to find a way to be together.
My throat tightens.
I pick it up and press it to my face, breathing in his scent.
I add it to my bag. I know I shouldn’t take it, but it’s the only thing I’ll take with me.
Just something to remember that he happened…
that we happened. That’s the one thing that my grandmother, my father, and Maxim can’t take from me… that Scottie happened.
I drop my ring on top of his dresser.
I leave it. I can’t bear the idea of taking it. It hurts too much to know I’ll never get to wear it again.
In the living room, the pictures Juliet insisted on printing from our wedding day sit on a console table—one of us laughing mid-spin on the dance floor. More candid shots that, looking back now, I think we both already knew.
I take one.
Just one.
I tuck it into my carry-on with care, wrapping it in his shirt.
I’m zipping the last suitcase when the knock comes again.
The same bodyguard. The same blank face.
“We dropped off your grandmother at her hotel. The car is ready,” he says.
I look around the penthouse one last time. My vision blurs, but I won’t cry. I could have chosen to stay, but I chose to protect him instead.
“This wasn’t supposed to be real,” I whisper to no one. “It was just supposed to be a bet and a visa and a clean escape.”
Now it’s my whole heart.
I press my palm to the doorframe for one last second.
Then I pull the door closed behind me.
It clicks shut like an ending.
I loThen,ad my bags into the limo trunk with the help of security. My new “home”—some anonymous penthouse owned by my grandmother—is waiting, but I can’t make myself go there yet.
I have one more performance to get through.
“Where to, Miss Popovich?” the driver asks.
“To the arena,” I say. “The Hawkeyes game.”
He nods.
As the city blurs by, I stare down at my hands resting in my lap. The ring missing for the first time since he slipped it on my finger.
It feels like a betrayal.
Just like the promise I’m about to break.
I make it down past the VIP section, where they know me as, the wife of a player and let me pass.
I knock on the locker room door; and the security guard eyes me since I should be in my seat by now. The game is about to begin.
Luka opens the door, and I wasn’t prepared for that.
“Kat? What’s wrong?” he asks.
“Nothing. I just need to speak with Scottie. It will only take a minute.”
“We’re about to go on the ice. Can’t it wait?”
“I just spoke with grandmother, and I need to speak with him.”
“Is everything okay?”
“It will be,” I lie, because deep down, I hope my words are true.
He nods, and then the door closes for a brief moment.
I wait, knowing that soon Scottie will walk through those doors. He’ll smile when he sees me. And I’m going to have to look into those eyes and lie to him.
Tell him that my grandmother has blessed our marriage and that we can divorce quietly. I’ll remind him that this was always the plan.
I suck in a breath. For one last moment, I let myself lean back against the wall and close my eyes, feeling everything.
His hands on my waist. His laugh in my ear. His voice saying, For better or worse, remember? His body wrapped around mine last night, holding me like I was something precious.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, to no one and to him and to the universe. “I’m so I’m about to break your heart, and you’ll never know I did it all for you.”
Footsteps thud near the door, and I know they are his. I open my eyes.
And wait for the man I love to walk toward me, so I can break us both into pieces.