Chapter 6
NATALIA
The air is thick with smoke and loud with the calls of men. Thick, muscled men. Men like Aleksandr.
The dock swarms with them, calling, waving, grunting.
The stink of fuel seems to have made them greasy too, as though they’re absorbing the fumes out of the air.
You’d think the sea air would be fresh, but no. The port district is filled with hazy, suffocating fumes.
I didn’t expect the sea to be so murky and impenetrable. I’ve always imagined it to be aqua blue, like a swimming pool.
I roll my window back up and slide down low in the back seat, wanting to melt into thin air but unable to tear my eyes away from the bustling commotion out the window.
The men are speaking Russian but it’s not a form of Russian I’ve ever heard. Half the words are foreign to me, different dialects and slang thrown around. I don’t know what they’re saying but it sounds vulgar.
This is New York, where I’ve lived my whole life, but it might as well be a different continent. Half of me wishes I could go back to the start of this day and not say anything about Anton. Then I could be in a comfortable bed right now, near my family, instead of halfway across the city.
Aleksandr catches my eye with his cold gaze.
The calculating tension on his face makes him seem like an entirely different person.
I wonder how much of that was an act. It’s clear he never planned to let me marry Anton.
Even if I hadn’t used the information he provided, he’d brought men. He would have taken me by force.
He follows my eyes to the men going about their work.
“You’re safe here.”
It’s the only indication he’s given that he’s aware I have emotions.
“You’re safe with me. This is my territory.”
No, it’s not. This is our territory. I roll my eyes instead of saying what I’m thinking.
I know the map of the city, how it divides up along family lines, even if I’ve never seen it for myself. The Zhukov name is nowhere on those lists.
The hubris of this man, that he thinks he has his own territory.
I suppose he will have territory, now. My family’s territory will go to him. Unless my parents make good on their promise to rescue me.
I pray that they do.
Aleksandr parks outside what appears to be a rusted warehouse which could fall into the sea at any moment and nods at me. His mouth twists into a smirk as he sees the look on my face.
He strides silently ahead of me into the warehouse, rolling his shoulders as he enters the door as if he’s shrugging off the day.
He doesn’t hold the door open for me. He rolls his eyes when my stiletto gets stuck in the grate of the metal stairs and grudgingly offers me a hand to help me.
We have to walk up four flights of clanging metal stairs to reach his loft.
With each step, my heart sinks a little further in my stomach. I clutch Dasha’s crate closer to my chest. “Almost there, malyshka,” I promise her as she mewls at the loud, echoing space.
At the door of the loft, Aleksandr pauses and turns to me, as if daring me to complain.
“Not up to your standards, princess?”
I walk inside expecting nothing more than a mattress in the center of an unfurnished room. In fact, it’s not as bad as I expected. I breathe a sigh of relief at the fact that there are multiple rooms. The place doesn’t seem as likely to collapse from the inside.
I force a smile. “It’s…enterprising.”
He arches an eyebrow. “Don’t hold back. I can handle your interior design advice.”
“Well, it could do with some more color. And furniture.”
The warehouse loft is surprisingly spacious, but the opposite of cozy.
The kitchen is luxurious, with granite countertops, but the rest of the space is sparsely furnished and industrial.
There aren’t even drapes on the windows.
Every surface is hard and gleaming, the floors polished concrete.
The black leather sectional couch is the only thing that looks remotely comfortable.
The windows looking over the port are stunning, with a floor-to-ceiling view of the ocean. The view almost makes the precarious walk upstairs worth it.
I let Dasha out and she arches her back. She hisses at Aleksandr before she darts away into the shadows, clearly unhappy with her journey in the crate.
I wince, searching his face for a reaction. “She doesn’t really like men.” His face is unreadable, but at least he doesn’t tell me to take her back to my parents’ home.
He nods his head up the stairs. “I’ll give you the tour.” Presumably he’s going to show me his bedroom, and the air gets a little thicker as I follow him, my throat tightening with nerves.
This is my fifth wedding, but it’s my first wedding night.
Aleksandr must know more than me about what we’re supposed to do, how the mechanics of all this works. A bed is involved, obviously. And we’re naked. I’ve never seen a man naked before.
I feel a rush of anticipation. The heat that I felt when he kissed me flares in my chest again.
This is one of the good parts of marriage that my mother always refers to… Not that she’s ever explained how it works, exactly. What I do know, I’ve gathered from books.
The door clicks shut behind him.
This is it.
My head starts to spin with all that’s about to happen.
I look around at the room, relieved to see some color, even if it is only from my own clothing. Aleksandr’s men delivered them earlier today.
I walk over to a bag and start pulling out clothes, trying to distract myself from Aleksandr’s presence with the familiar fabrics. Still, it’s hard to ignore his looming presence.
He clears his throat, a low rough sound that makes my heart race. I can feel that he’s trying to get my attention but I don’t think I’m ready to look at him.
I run my hand over the black velvet comforter on the bed. The bed is certainly big enough for two people, much wider than my single bed at home. But Aleksandr is huge.
I don’t know a whole lot about what happens on a wedding night, but I know it’s a big deal.
When I finally look at him, his expression gives nothing away. There’s a slight frown in the center of his dark brow as he looks around the half-unpacked room like he doesn’t approve of my clothing choices.
There’s something unforgiving about the lines of his face, just like the overwhelming size of him. When he frowns, his eyes are unreadable.
Brooding.
That’s how he looks right now, like there are thoughts swirling through his head that he’ll never share with anyone else.
When he slides his gaze back to me, it’s like he’s surprised to see me. I meet his eyes for only a second before I drop my eyes back to the comforter.
A jolt of shock runs through me.
This is the man who killed my brothers. He’s dangerous. My parents couldn’t protect me from him, so I have to protect myself.
The deep midnight blue of his gaze is right on the edge between blue and black. Appropriately dark, given the death that he has caused.
I stroke the soft velvet of the comforter repeatedly, unable to look at him again. I focus on the paintings I was cataloging earlier today, running through the details to try and calm my racing heart.
I don’t want to anger him by showing my fear. Delaying the inevitable will only make it worse. Someone needs to defuse the heavy tension in this room.
I take a deep breath and say it, forcing myself to lift my chin and look at him, even if I’m focusing on his forehead instead of meeting his eyes.
“It’s okay. You can… You can touch me.”
His frown deepens.
I’d expected Aleksandr to pounce on me.
Instead, there’s a long pause. I feel awkward in the silence, like I’ve said something wrong. Is this not what happens on a wedding night? I twist my hands in the comforter.
“Touch you?” My face burns at the hint of dry amusement in his voice, like I’ve made a ridiculous suggestion. “What makes you assume that I want to touch you, Natalia?”
“I thought—”
Maybe I’ve read this all wrong. I’d thought, before our wedding, that he was…flirting with me. Or teasing me, at least.
“Look at me.”
I do, though I’m scared what I might see. He’s cold, calm, restrained.
“You know the reason I married you, Natalia. It’s your last name. Nothing more. Don’t forget that.”
I instinctively drop my eyes to the floor. I’m getting this all wrong.
“This is your room. I sleep on the other side of the apartment.”
He’s not raising his voice, but I can sense his anger. I know how this goes. He’s a violent man. The cruel words start first. The blows follow later.
When I look up, Aleksandr is gone from the room. I don’t see him again that night, which I suppose should come as a relief.
Instead, I just feel very alone.
The squeal of relief that my mother lets out gives me hearing damage. Aleksandr can probably hear it on his side of the apartment.
“Maksim! Maksim!” I hear her calling my father over to the phone. “Natalia is still pure. They did not consummate the marriage.”
“Malyshka, you did well. Whatever you said to keep that monster away from you, well done.”
I fiddle with the velvet comforter, not telling her that I didn’t do anything to keep Aleksandr away from me.
I’d had an overwhelming day, and I wasn’t thinking rationally. I don’t want a man like that to come near me.
I’m waiting for someone better than all the fiancés my parents have shoved in my face — and Aleksandr Zhukov is certainly not that.
Now that I look around me, I see all the reasons I could never be with a brute like him. I won’t invite him anywhere near me again.
In the light of day, things are worse than I thought. Dasha comes to complain at me for breakfast and I scoop her onto my lap, needing some reassurance that my old life did exist.
That places more beautiful than converted warehouses in the port district do exist.
I feel utterly small in this cavernous, cold room with half of my old things in an entirely unfamiliar environment.
“Mama, things are ugly here. The walls are steel. There are no drapes over the windows. And my sheets, Mama… please, you have to send me some sheets from home. These ones are awful.”
I never knew sheets could be so scratchy. I’ve never been good at sleeping, at the best of times, but in these sheets it was utterly impossible. Maybe Aleksandr has his own normal sheets and he’s given me these specifically to torture me.
My mother tuts her tongue on the other end of the line.
“I knew that man didn’t have the resources to keep you the way you deserve.
I don’t know what your father was thinking when he agreed to this marriage.
Living in a place like that, with a man like that, will ruin you.
And that’s not to mention how it will ruin us, as a family. ”
Everything happened in such a rush yesterday that I hadn’t had time to consider what might be at stake for Papa.
Aleksandr is his sons’ killer. If my family’s nightmares center on one thing, it’s Aleksandr Zhukov.
And yet in the time it took me to unlace my corset and celebrate the continuation of my single life with one mouthful of champagne, Aleksandr was able to convince my father that he was the right suitor for me.
Huh.
I hear my mother murmuring to my father in the background of the call.
“You do want us to get you out of there, don’t you?”
“More than anything,” I reply.
“We need—” My mother stops talking abruptly and I hear my father take the phone from her.
“Malyshka, I’m working on a plan. It’s too dangerous to discuss on the phone. If you can get that brute to allow you to visit us, we can start putting it into action.”
The call ends with an abrupt click. I stare at the empty phone screen, wondering how on earth I’m going to get Aleksandr Zhukov to let me visit his mortal enemy.
Dasha kneads at my lap and I kiss her between the ears. “Mama and Papa will get us home,” I tell her. “Don’t worry about a thing.”