CHAPTER 12
Rehearsing Death, Perfecting Control
The first strike lands across my shoulder blade, and I bite down on the inside of my cheek to keep from crying out.
"Wrong." Ilya's voice is clinical, detached—the voice of a man teaching methodology rather than inflicting pain. "You need to scream. Loud enough that it echoes. Loud enough that anyone listening believes you're dying."
I straighten my spine and nod. "Again."
He hesitates. Just a fraction of a second, barely perceptible, but I've spent weeks learning to read the micro-expressions that betray his carefully constructed control. The hesitation tells me everything I need to know about how much this is costing him.
"Ilya." I turn to face him, meeting his eyes without flinching. "Again."
The second strike is harder. It catches me across the ribs, and this time I let the sound escape—a sharp cry that tears from my throat before I can shape it into something theatrical.
"Better." His jaw is tight, the muscle jumping beneath his skin. "But you're still holding back. The Armenians have watched executions. They know what real agony sounds like."
"Then show me what real agony sounds like."
His hand trembles. Just slightly, just enough that I notice the way his fingers curl around the leather strap he's using for practice. The real tools—the ones waiting in the warehouse—will be worse. Metal instead of leather. Blades instead of blunt force.
"We should take a break." He sets the strap down on the coffee table, his movements precise and controlled. "You need water. Food. Something to—"
"We don't have time for breaks." I cross the distance between us and grip his wrists, forcing him to look at me.
"The execution is in six hours. Six hours to make sure you can hurt me convincingly without losing yourself in the process.
Six hours to teach me how to scream like I'm dying while trusting that you'll stop before I actually am. "
"I know the timeline."
"Then stop treating me like I'm fragile." I release his wrists and step back, spreading my arms wide. "Hit me like you mean it. Hit me like the Armenians are watching. Hit me like my father's ghost is standing in the corner, waiting to see if you have the stomach to finish what he started."
Something shifts in his expression. The careful control cracks, and beneath it I see the man I first met in that club—the predator who looked at me like I was already dead, like my survival was an inconvenience he would eventually correct.
"You want to see what real looks like?" His voice drops to a register that makes my skin prickle. "Fine."
The third strike catches me across the thigh, and the pain is immediate and blinding.
I stumble, catching myself on the arm of the couch, and the scream that rips from my throat is nothing like the practiced sounds I've been producing.
It's raw. Primal. The sound of a woman who has just learned what it feels like to be prey.
"That's what real sounds like." Ilya's voice is rough, strained. "That's what I'm going to do to you in that warehouse. Over and over, until everyone watching believes you're dying. Until *you* believe you're dying."
I force myself to straighten, ignoring the throbbing heat spreading across my thigh. "Good. Now do it again."
"Nadia—"
"*Again.*"
We continue for another hour. Strike after strike, scream after scream, until my throat is raw and my body is a map of carefully placed pain.
Ilya teaches me the difference between theatrical agony and genuine suffering, shows me how to arch my back and twist my face in ways that read as authentic from a distance.
He teaches me how to go limp at the right moment, how to let my eyes roll back without losing consciousness, how to time my breathing so it looks like I've stopped even when I haven't.
And through it all, I watch him fight the war inside himself.
Every strike costs him something. I see it in the way his hands shake after each blow, the way he has to pause and breathe before continuing.
The violence is encoded in his reflexes—years of training, years of eliminating threats, years of being the monster his father needed him to become.
But hurting me goes against something deeper than training.
Something that looks like love wearing the mask of restraint.
"One more." I position myself against the wall, arms braced, presenting my back as a target. "The final blow. The one that's supposed to kill me."
"That's not—" He stops himself, jaw working. "The final blow won't be practice. It can't be. If I rehearse killing you, I might—"
"Might what?" I turn to face him. "Might actually do it?"
His silence is answer enough.
"That's what I'm afraid of too." I close the distance between us and press my palm against his chest, feeling his heart hammer beneath my fingers.
"Not that you'll hurt me. That you'll hurt me and not be able to stop.
That the violence will take over and the man I love will disappear into the monster his father created. "
"Then why are you asking me to practice?"
"Because I need to know." I grip his shirt, pulling him closer.
"I need to know that you can bring yourself to the edge without going over.
I need to trust that when you raise that blade in the warehouse, you'll be thinking about the life we're going to build instead of the death you're pretending to deliver. "
He cups my face in his hands, his thumbs tracing the tear tracks I didn't realize were there. "What if I can't? What if the moment comes and I lose myself?"
"Then I forgive you."
His expression cracks. "Don't say that."
"I mean it." I cover his hands with mine, holding him in place. "If you fail—if you can't stop—I forgive you. Because I know you'll spend the rest of your life destroying yourself over it, and I won't let my death become the thing that breaks you."
"Your forgiveness is worse than your fear." His voice is barely a whisper. "Because it means you've already accepted that I might kill you."
"I've accepted that loving you comes with risks." I press my forehead against his. "I accepted that the moment I chose to stay instead of running. The moment I realized that a life without you wasn't worth living, even if a life with you might be shorter than I hoped."
He kisses me then—desperate and fierce, his hands tangling in my hair as he pulls me against him. I taste salt on his lips and realize we're both crying, both grieving the innocence we lost somewhere between captivity and choice.
The penthouse door opens.
We break apart to find Dmitri standing in the entrance, his expression grim. He's wearing tactical gear, and there's blood on his sleeve that he hasn't bothered to clean.
"We have a problem."
Ilya's posture shifts instantly—spine straightening, shoulders squaring, the vulnerable man disappearing behind the mask of the soldier. "What kind of problem?"
"The Armenians moved the timeline." Dmitri's voice is flat, controlled. "They're not waiting until 4 PM. They want the execution at 2."
I do the math in my head. Two hours. We have two hours instead of six.
"That's not enough time." Ilya's voice is sharp. "We're not ready. The preparation—"
"Is irrelevant now." Dmitri steps closer, his eyes moving between us with an assessment that makes my skin crawl. "Viktor anticipated this possibility. He's had contingencies in place since the moment he offered the staged execution."
"What contingencies?"
Dmitri reaches into his jacket and pulls out a sealed envelope, extending it toward Ilya. "His orders. In case the performance fails."
Ilya takes the envelope but doesn't open it. His jaw is tight, the muscle jumping beneath his skin. "Tell me what it says."
"If the staged execution fails to convince—" Dmitri's gaze locks onto mine, and I see something that might be regret beneath the cold professionalism. "I have authorization to execute Nadia for real. On site. No second chances."
The words land like physical blows. I feel Ilya's hand tighten on mine, his grip almost painful.
"That wasn't the agreement." His voice has gone deadly quiet. "Viktor promised—"
"Viktor promised nothing." Dmitri's tone is matter-of-fact. "He offered an opportunity. A chance to save her if you could make the performance convincing enough. But he never promised to let her live if you failed."
"And you agreed to this?" I hear the accusation in Ilya's voice, the betrayal. "You agreed to kill her if I couldn't—"
"I agreed to protect the family." Dmitri's expression doesn't change. "The same thing you agreed to when you took your oath. The same thing our father has spent his entire life building. One woman's survival doesn't outweigh four generations of empire."
"She's not just one woman."
"No." Dmitri's eyes move to me, and I see something complicated in his gaze. "She's the woman you chose over everything else. And now you have two hours to prove that choice wasn't a mistake."
The silence stretches between us, heavy with implications.
I step forward, placing myself between the brothers. "Then we don't fail."
Dmitri's eyebrow rises. "You sound confident for a woman who was just learning how to scream convincingly."
"I sound confident because I don't have another option.
" I meet his gaze without flinching. "You're going to watch your brother torture me in that warehouse.
You're going to see me bleed and scream and beg for death.
And when it's over, you're going to tell the Armenians that Nadia Petrova died exactly the way her father did—in agony, in that warehouse, at the hands of a Morozov. "
"And if I don't believe the performance?"
"Then you'll kill me." I let the words hang in the air, let him see that I understand exactly what's at stake.
"But you'll have to look Ilya in the eye while you do it.
You'll have to watch him watch you murder the woman he loves.
And you'll spend the rest of your life knowing that you destroyed your brother to protect an empire that was already crumbling. "
Dmitri stares at me for a long moment. Then, unexpectedly, he laughs—a short, sharp sound that holds no humor.
"I see why he chose you." He turns to Ilya. "The car is waiting. Viktor's men are already at the warehouse, preparing the space. You have ninety minutes to finish whatever preparation you need."
He leaves without another word, the door closing behind him with a soft click.
Ilya pulls me into his arms, holding me so tightly I can barely breathe. "I won't let him kill you."
"I know."
"If the performance fails—if they don't believe—I'll fight. I'll kill every Armenian in that warehouse before I let Dmitri touch you."
"I know." I press my face against his chest, breathing in the scent of him. "But it won't come to that. Because we're going to give them the performance of our lives."
"How can you be so certain?"
I pull back just enough to meet his eyes. "Because I trust you. Because I love you. And because I refuse to let fear steal the future we're fighting for."
He kisses me one more time—soft and desperate, a prayer pressed against my lips.
Then we gather what we need and walk toward the car that will take us to the warehouse where I'm supposed to die.
The drive is silent. Ilya holds my hand the entire way, his thumb tracing patterns across my knuckles.
I watch the city pass through the tinted windows and think about all the versions of myself I've been: the daughter, the dancer, the ghost, the captive.
The woman who learned to love a monster because she recognized the monster in herself.
"Ilya." My voice is barely a whisper.
"Yes?"
"If you fail—if you can't stop—I need you to know something."
His hand tightens on mine. "Don't."
"I need you to know that loving you was the first real choice I ever made.
" I turn to face him, memorizing the lines of his face in the dim light.
"Everything before you was survival. Running.
Hiding. Becoming whatever I needed to become to stay alive.
But choosing you—staying with you—that was the first time I chose something because I wanted it, not because I needed it to survive. "
"Nadia—"
"Let me finish." I reach up and cup his face in my hands.
"If this is the end—if everything goes wrong and I don't walk out of that warehouse—I want you to remember that you gave me something no one else ever did.
You gave me a reason to stop running. A reason to fight for a future instead of just fighting to survive. "
His eyes are bright with tears he's refusing to let fall. "I'm going to save you."
"I know you'll try."
"I'm going to save you," he repeats, his voice fierce. "And then I'm going to spend the rest of my life making sure you never have to be afraid again."
I kiss him—soft and desperate, tasting the salt of tears and the bitter edge of impossible choices.
The car stops.
Through the window, I see the warehouse looming against the gray sky. The place where my father died. The place where I'm supposed to die.
The place where I'm going to trust the man I love to hurt me just enough to save us both.
Ilya opens the door and helps me out, his hand steady on my elbow. I look up at the warehouse and feel something shift inside me—fear transforming into resolve, doubt crystallizing into certainty.
"Together," I say.
"Together," he echoes.
And we walk into the darkness, hand in hand, ready to perform the most dangerous act of our lives.