Chapter Thirteen - Janice
I pace the guest room like a caged animal, fury and panic warring for dominance.
Marry him. He wants me to marry him.
The audacity of it makes my blood boil. Four years ago, he threw me away like I was garbage he’d grown tired of. Got me fired, cut me out of his life, told me I was a distraction he’d moved past.
Now he wants to bind me to him legally?
It’s unfair. It’s insane.
It’s exactly what I should have expected from Dimitri Rudenko.
I sink onto the bed, pressing my palms against my eyes until colors burst behind my lids. My entire body still trembles with residual adrenaline from last night: the chase, the crash, the bodies falling with precise gunshots. Blood on my clothes. Terror so absolute it erased everything else.
Dimitri, standing over corpses like death incarnate, then holding me with surprising gentleness while I fell apart.
You’re mine.
The words replay on loop, possessive and absolute. He believes it. Genuinely thinks four years and an exposé and mutual destruction don’t change some fundamental claim he has on me.
He’s delusional. Or I am, for the traitorous part of me that wants to believe it.
I stand abruptly, needing movement, needing action. The room is luxurious—expensive furniture, soft lighting, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. Beautiful in the way cages are beautiful when you can’t see the bars.
When I open the door, the hall is empty.
Surprise flickers through me. I expected him to have someone guarding me so I can’t leave. Instead, there’s just the empty hallway beyond, silent and dim.
Testing me, maybe. Seeing if I’ll try to escape or accept my fate like a good captive.
I’ve never been good at accepting fate.
The penthouse is quiet as I slip into the hallway. My bare feet make no sound against hardwood floors. I move carefully, testing each step, listening for any indication of where Dimitri might be.
Nothing. The place feels empty except for me.
I make it to the living room, past the couch where I slept, past the windows where we stood four years ago and he kissed me like I mattered. The front door is across the space, tantalizingly close.
Locked, probably. Alarmed, definitely. I try it anyway, and it opens.
My heart lurches. This has to be a trap. Has to be another test. Dimitri doesn’t make mistakes, doesn’t leave vulnerabilities.
Unless he wants me to run. Unless this is part of whatever game he’s playing.
I don’t care. I’m not staying here to be his revenge project, his captive bride, his solution to political problems I didn’t create.
I slip through the door, into the hallway beyond. An elevator waits, doors open like an invitation. I step inside, hit the button for the ground floor, and watch the numbers descend.
My pulse hammers so hard I can feel it everywhere. Any second, the elevator will stop. Dimitri will appear. This brief taste of freedom will evaporate.
The doors open on the lobby.
Empty except for a security guard who barely glances up from his phone. I walk past him on shaking legs, expecting him to stop me, to call upstairs, to drag me back.
He doesn’t.
Then I’m outside, night air hitting my face like a slap. The city sprawls around me—noise and light and blessed anonymity. I can disappear here. Can find help, find safety, find a way out of this nightmare.
I flag down a taxi, sliding into the back seat with relief so acute it makes me dizzy.
“Where to?” the driver asks.
“The nearest police station.”
He nods, pulls into traffic. I sink back against the seat, trying to slow my breathing, trying to think past the panic.
The police. I’ll go to the police, tell them everything. About the Volkovs, about Dimitri, about being held against my will. They’ll protect me. They have to protect me.
The thought feels flimsy even as I construct it. Dimitri owns half this city, has connections that run deeper than I can trace. What are the police going to do against that kind of power?
I have to try.
I watch the city slide past the window, trying to orient myself. We should be heading toward Midtown, toward the precinct I looked up once for a story that never materialized.
We’re not.
The streets look unfamiliar. Industrial buildings, empty lots, the kind of area that’s deserted at night.
Just like where the Volkovs cornered me.
“Where are we going?” My voice comes out higher than intended.
“Scenic route,” the driver says. “Traffic’s bad on the main roads.”
It’s past midnight. There is no traffic.
Fear crystallizes sharp and cold. “Let me out.”
“Can’t stop here, miss.”
“I said let me out!”
“Just a few more minutes.”
I grab for the door handle. The child safety is engaged.
This is happening again. The Volkovs found me again, or Dimitri orchestrated this, or I’m about to die in the back of a taxi while the driver calmly navigates toward my execution.
I scream. Pound on the windows. Try to kick out the glass.
The driver doesn’t react. Just keeps driving with mechanical precision.
Then the scenery changes. We’re climbing now, winding up roads I recognize with sinking dread.
We’ve looped back around to the penthouse.
The taxi pulls us into the parking lot, past security that waves us in, into the underground garage I left twenty minutes ago.
Understanding crashes over me like ice water.
This was allowed. All of it. The unlocked door, the unmonitored elevator, the taxi that just happened to be waiting.
Dimitri let me run, knowing I’d be brought right back.
The car stops. My door opens, and Dimitri stands there, expression unreadable.
“Finished?” he asks.
I want to scream at him. Want to claw at his face, make him hurt the way I’m hurting.
Instead, exhaustion overwhelms me. The adrenaline that’s been sustaining me evaporates all at once, leaving nothing but bone-deep fatigue.
I can’t do this anymore. Can’t keep fighting, can’t keep running. Can’t maintain the fiction that I have any control over what happens next.
“I hate you,” I whisper.
“I know.”
Strong arms lift me from the car. I should fight. Should maintain some dignity.
I don’t have any left.
Dimitri carries me back to the penthouse, back to the guest room, lays me on the bed with surprising gentleness.
“Sleep,” he says. “We have a long day tomorrow.”
Darkness pulls at the edges of my vision, shock and exhaustion and defeat conspiring to drag me under.
I let it.
***
I wake to soft voices and unfamiliar hands.
My eyes open slowly, confusion and residual fear making everything fuzzy. The room is brighter than before, morning light streaming through windows I don’t remember being uncovered.
Women move around me—three of them, speaking quietly in Russian. They notice me stirring and switch to accented English.
“Good morning, Mrs. Rudenko. Time to prepare.”
Mrs. Rudenko. The words don’t process immediately.
Then I look down. I’m wearing white.
Not the soft pants and sweater from last night. A wedding dress, simple, elegant, expensive. It fits perfectly, hugging my curves in ways that suggest it was tailored specifically for my body.
Panic explodes fresh and immediate. I try to sit up, but hands press gently on my shoulders.
“Please, Mrs. Rudenko. We must do your hair.”
“I didn’t agree to this.”
“Mr. Rudenko said you would be confused. That the stress of recent events might make you forgetful.” The woman’s smile is kind but firm. “Everything is arranged. The ceremony begins in one hour.”
“No. No, this is insane. I’m not marrying him. I need to talk to him now.”
“He will see you at the ceremony. Now please, we must finish.”
I’m too weak to fight them. Too exhausted from last night’s failed escape, too overwhelmed by waking up in a wedding dress I don’t remember putting on.
Did they drug me? Is that how I ended up dressed like this without waking?
The women work efficiently fixing my hair, applying makeup I don’t want, adjusting the dress until it sits perfectly. I watch in the mirror like I’m observing someone else’s life.
This isn’t happening. It can’t be happening.
Except it is.
One hour later, I’m standing outside a set of double doors I recognize as leading to Dimitri’s formal dining room. The women who prepared me have disappeared, leaving me alone with my reflection in the polished wood.
I look like a bride. Beautiful, composed, willing.
I’m none of those things.
The doors open.
The dining room has been transformed. Chairs arranged in rows, flowers I didn’t notice being delivered, an officiant waiting at the front.
There are people—so many people. Men in expensive suits, watching with expressions that range from curiosity to calculation.
The Bratva.
Dimitri’s family, his associates, his world laid bare.
At the front, Dimitri himself. Wearing a suit that probably costs more than I used to make in a month, expression unreadable, watching me like I’m the only person in the room.
If I can’t escape this, I’ll survive it. And if I survive it, I’ll find a way to make him regret ever pulling me back into his orbit.
I walk down the aisle.
There’s no one to give me away. Just me and the future I didn’t choose, approaching the man who orchestrated all of it.
Dimitri’s eyes track every step.
The ceremony is quick. Efficient. The officiant speaks in Russian, words I don’t understand but can guess at. Binding. Legal. Permanent.
When he prompts for responses, Dimitri answers in English.
“I do.”
Then it’s my turn. Everyone waits. Watches.
I could still refuse. Could make a scene, embarrass him in front of his entire organization.
The Volkovs would probably find me before nightfall.
“I do,” I say. My voice doesn’t shake.
The officiant pronounces us married.