Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
Moscow, Russia - A month earlier, June
MILA
It was the middle of June, but the wind cut through the thin fabric of my jacket as I crossed the white gravel driveway to get in the waiting car.
I slid into the back seat while my Aunt Lena trailed behind me, talking rapidly on the phone.
Whenever she was upset about something, she slipped into a dialect so far from standard Russian I could only catch a few words.
From the back seat, I caught sight of the driver’s dark hair. I recognized him as one of the men who worked for my uncle and had on occasion been driven by him before, but I had never once spoken to him.
“What’s your name?” I said slowly in Russian.
He turned his head toward me, showing me an angular jawline and stormy gray eyes fringed with dark lashes. His beauty was rugged and dangerously masculine. “Axel.”
A blast of cool air washed over my legs as my aunt opened the door. She tossed her Hermès bag toward me as she climbed in, before ending the call abruptly. I knew enough of my aunt to know that when she started throwing things around, it was best not to antagonize her.
I watched out of the corner of my eye as she dug through her purse, muttering under her breath, leaking her emotions with each angry movement. I was in for a long evening. My aunt rarely missed a chance to passively ignore me before unleashing all her building grievances.
“Where are we going?” I asked in a neutral tone. Forty minutes earlier, she had told me to get dressed for a business dinner and to be in the car by the hour.
As if she had been waiting for me to speak, she paused dramatically and turned to me. “You’re not going anywhere. I was running late, and I needed to talk to you.”
My aunt did stuff like that all the time. She would demand I get ready for events she never let me attend. I ignored the entitlement of her behavior, because it meant I was exempt from dinner and would have to endure her only for the length of the drive.
I worked to keep my expression neutral. “What do you want to talk about?”
Her cold gaze flicked over me. “I want to talk to you about Canada.”
I avoided her eyes, mentally crossed my fingers and hoped that she was about to tell me that my time in Russia had finally come to an end.
After my parents passed away when I was seventeen, I had moved from Canada to live with my Aunt Lena and Uncle Grisha, on their sprawling estate just outside Moscow.
When I turned nineteen, I started actively campaigning to move back to Canada on my own, but my uncle remained unconvinced.
“How do you plan on supporting yourself over there? You didn’t even finish your education.
You wouldn’t survive a week there on your own. ”
I didn’t speak Russian fluently enough to get a job where we lived, and I didn’t even have a copy of my passport, let alone the money to fly back to Canada.
My uncle and aunt provided me with everything I needed, including clothes, books, makeup, shoes and designer bags, but they were careful never to give me cash.
Once, when I’d offered to babysit a neighbor’s child for a small fee, they’d immediately shut it down.
I had thoughts of going to the police, but I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere without a driver, usually someone grumpy who made it his mission to remain within two feet of me in public.
Lena had also warned me repeatedly that the head of the police force came to our Christmas gala every year with his family.
They were breaking the law by holding me against my will, but none of us said that out loud. We were all playing nice and pretending that I was part of the family.
I didn’t rock the boat. I acted grateful and thanked them when they lavished me with gifts, even though the only thing I wanted was my freedom. I think I was afraid to truly fight the hand that fed me because I wasn’t sure what would happen to me if we all stopped pretending.
“What about Canada?” I prodded lightly, watching her expression.
She eyed me speculatively. “It hasn’t been cheap or easy to keep you. Most of the time I’ve found you quite entitled and demanding.”
My hands remained folded in my lap while I swallowed down my reaction. “I understand.”
“Your uncle and I decided that it’s time you earn your keep. You need to do your part to help out our family.”
“Of course.”
“We need to send someone to Canada to support our business ventures there.”
I swallowed the hope and excitement in my chest, careful not to look excited. “Uncle Grisha has business in Canada?”
I knew my uncle had some nefarious dealings here in Russia.
That was evident from his four family homes, his countless servants and his army of intimidating guards that openly carried weapons.
My uncle was notorious for working through the night and sleeping most of the day.
No one told me what was happening, but I had put enough pieces together to know that most of it probably wasn’t legal.
Whatever he did, it created a mountain of wealth that had my aunt swimming in designer clothing and attending an endless swirl of galas and formal events. But it had never occurred to me that their business dealings would extend so far.
“What we do or don’t do in Canada is none of your concern. But we need to get Sergei moved to Canada as quickly as possible.”
Sergei. He was a fixer who worked closely with my uncle, and although I had never talked to him, I often saw him coming and going, at all times of the night, for hushed meetings with my uncle.
He exuded more danger than most of my uncle’s men but possessed none of the charm.
He was short and stocky with thick, ugly hands and thin hair.
The worst was his cold, unblinking stare.
His face was flat, unreadable, and there was no amusement in his eyes, no flicker of warmth, no sign of curiosity or desire.
Just a big vacant void, like whatever part of him that was supposed to feel things had been switched off a long time ago.
“What does that have to do with me?” I asked, dreading her answer. Anything to do with Sergei wasn’t going to be good for me.
“In order to get him to permanent residency, which will keep him immune from suspicion, we want you to sponsor him through the spousal sponsorship program.”
I blinked, hearing but not processing her words. “Spousal? As in marriage?”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s in name only, and it’s the least you could do for us.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but instead the most unhinged laughter spilled out of me.
I covered my mouth with my hand and managed to stop, but the second I thought about trying to speak, the laughter rumbled up again.
The harder I tried to suppress it, the more impossible it was to stop.
I knew I sounded like a lunatic, but even with my hands covering my mouth, my entire body shook.
I gasped for air, trying to contain it, but awkward snorts escaped me while my eyes streamed with tears.
My aunt swung her Hermès bag and hit my chest. “Oh, for god’s sake.”
That only made me laugh harder. I literally had to tuck my head and wrap my arms around my body just to control myself.
“You’re a disgrace,” my aunt hissed.
“Please… don’t… talk,” I managed to gasp, before breaking into more shaking, tearful laughter. At this point I wasn’t even sure why I was laughing, but my body was doing its own thing while my mind refused to even consider the words she had spoken to me.
My stomach hurt. I was sure my makeup was running wild down my cheeks. Still I held myself on the razor’s edge of losing it again completely. I tried to clear my mind, ignore the tickle in my gut, ignore Lena’s indignant anger beside me, but I could feel another wave of hysterics coming over me.
At the next red light, I caught sight of the driver’s gray eyes studying me in the rearview mirror.
His gaze sobered me up like nothing else.
All the tension, emotion and laughter that I had tried to contain suddenly released, and my body deflated. It’s not that I saw sympathy or amusement or any kind of judgement. No, it was much worse than that.
For some reason, his focus felt like a silent witness.
I didn’t even know in that moment why I had started laughing, but it didn’t matter anymore.
Without breaking eye contact with him, I spoke in a tone that was so cold I didn’t recognize my own voice. “I won’t marry him.”
“We’ll see about that,” she huffed beside me, as the car pulled in front of the restaurant.
I don’t know what possessed me, but I picked up her Hermès bag and threw it back onto her lap. Hard. “It’ll never happen.”
Her eyes widened, but she didn’t speak.
The doorman opened the door, and then she was gone with a slam.
I stared in silence out the back passenger window as we pulled into traffic and began the drive home.
I felt shaky and chilled in the aftermath of my near hysteria.
A wave of shame washed over me. Not because of my reaction, but because I was nearly twenty-two and still living like a teenager with a strict curfew, abiding by the rules of people who didn’t care about me.
I needed to escape this madness. They couldn’t make me marry someone against my will, could they? My mind raced at the boldness of Lena’s demands. How could I possibly escape?
The silence in the car was deafening, and when I lifted my eyes to the rearview mirror, I was again startled to see the intensity of the driver’s gaze as he watched me back.
I lifted my chin and spoke to him in Russian. “Is there something you’d like to say?” I knew my tone was just this side of hostile, but I didn’t care.
He stared at me in the mirror a few seconds longer before shaking his head. He replied in almost perfect English. “Not particularly.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You speak English.”
He briefly glanced back at me again, but he didn’t respond.