Chapter 9 VICTORIA
VICTORIA
My room is suffocating.
Cream silk drapes filter morning light into something soft and golden, expensive sheets whisper against my skin, and the faint hum of river traffic drifts through double-paned glass designed to muffle the world outside.
It's too still. Too quiet. Too perfectly orchestrated. A cage lined with cashmere and good intentions.
The walls press in despite the generous square footage.
High ceilings do nothing to ease the claustrophobia tightening around my ribs.
This room was designed to pamper, to impress, to keep a wife comfortable in her gilded prison while her husband conducts business she's not meant to understand.
Every surface deliberately chosen. The pale wood nightstands, the plush rug underfoot, the abstract art that means nothing.
I pace to the window, phone pressed to my ear, voice low. Controlled. The mask firmly in place even though no one can see me.
"I'm doing everything I can, Jelena. But I can't just walk out of here without raising suspicions."
On the other end, Jelena sighs in frustration wrapped in understanding. We've worked together long enough that she knows when I'm cornered, when the walls are closing in despite my best efforts to appear unaffected.
"Our little furies are getting antsy," she says. "They need action, Victoria. Purpose. Sitting idle makes them restless, and restless makes them reckless."
"Keep them training with Katarina." My voice drops into the register I use when giving orders. Efficient, low, the commander beneath the socialite. "Tell them I'll be back soon. Tell them to stay sharp. This is temporary."
"And the cargo at the safe house?" Jelena's voice drops lower, more careful. We both know phone lines are never truly secure, that even encrypted calls can be intercepted if someone is motivated enough. "We're managing for now, but decisions need to be made. Soon."
The cargo. Documentation takes time. Money. Connections I can't access while I'm under constant surveillance in this fortress masquerading as a home.
"Eryan Nis will handle it when it's safe," I say, letting steel coat my words. "Not before. We don't move until I'm certain we won't be traced. Tell them to be patient. Tell them we've never lost anyone yet, and we're not starting now."
"Understood." A pause, weighted with concern that makes my chest tighten. "Be careful, Victoria. You're playing a dangerous game."
The call ends, and I'm left standing in my gilded prison, feeling more trapped than before I picked up the phone.
Four days.
Four days since the wedding, and I haven't left this house.
Four days of being Mrs. Maksim Severyn. A title that sits wrong on my shoulders, like clothing tailored for someone else's body.
Four days of performing chaos: rearranging furniture, asking inane questions, insulting Maksim's perfectly tailored suits just to see if I can crack that icy composure.
Four days of pretending to be the spoiled socialite they expect while my real life waits in the shadows, unreachable and urgent.
The strategy made sense when I conceived it. Be so obnoxious, so high-maintenance, so utterly insufferable that living with me becomes more trouble than it's worth. Make them want distance. Make them avoid me. Make them regret ever thinking this marriage served their interests.
But it's not working the way I planned.
Maksim gets that amused glint in his eyes when I provoke him, like he's starting to enjoy the sparring. Zakhar watches me with an intensity that makes my skin prickle with unwelcome awareness. And Alexei treats my insults like foreplay, grinning wider with each cutting remark, asking for more.
They're not breaking. I am.
Because that's not the only reason I'm restless, pacing my room like a caged animal testing the bars.
The truth I don't want to examine: I act differently around them. All three of them.
I'm used to weaponizing my beauty. Used to watching men's eyes glaze over with lust while I pull their strings like a puppeteer, making them dance to whatever tune serves my purposes. It's a skill I honed deliberately, a defense mechanism born from trauma and necessity.
Flirt. Tease. Watch them become stupid with want, then use that stupidity to get what I need.
It's worked for years.
But with Maksim, Zakhar, and Alexei, that weapon misfires.
The self-preservation instinct that usually makes me recoil doesn't trigger.
The disgust that coats my skin when men touch me, the visceral rejection that rises sharp and immediate, none of it materializes.
Instead, there's this pull. This dangerous, unwelcome attraction that makes my pulse race and my thoughts scatter.
Safe. Protected. Desired.
All the things I can't afford to feel.
I press my forehead against the cool glass, watch the river move beneath gray morning sky. The water never stops. Never hesitates. It just flows, indifferent to obstacles, wearing down resistance through constant motion.
I need to be like that. Relentless. Patient. Wearing them down until they break first.
But patience requires stillness, and I'm vibrating out of my skin with restless energy that has nowhere to go, no outlet, no release.
I need to get out of my head. Need to move, to sweat, to exhaust this feeling before it consumes me entirely.
Katarina and I usually train together. Hard sessions that leave me bruised and gasping, where she pushes me past limits I didn't know I had. She's ex-military, sixty pounds of muscle heavier than me, and she doesn't believe in going easy just because I sign her paychecks.
But I'm stuck here playing house with three men who are dismantling my carefully constructed defenses without even trying.
Fine. I'll train alone.
I pull on workout clothes: black leggings, sports bra, tank top. Tie my hair back in a high ponytail. The rituals of preparation help center me, give me something to control when everything else feels like it's slipping through my fingers.
The gym is on the ground floor. I take the stairs instead of the elevator, letting my muscles warm with each step, focusing on breath and motion instead of the thoughts spinning circles in my head.
My footsteps are silent on concrete, and the building around me hums with that particular early-morning stillness. Alive but not yet awake.
I reach the gym door. Pause with my hand on the handle.
The faint sound bleeding through the door, rhythmic, purposeful, unmistakably the sound of bodies in motion, stops me.
I should turn around. Come back later when the space is empty.
Instead, I push the door open.
Sound hits first. The thud of flesh meeting flesh, rhythmic and brutal. The sharp exhale of air forced from lungs on impact. The slide of bare feet on rubber mats.
Then smell. Salt and leather, the particular musk of men working hard, sweat mixing with metal that might be blood or might just be exertion pushed to its limit.
Then sight.
Alexei and Zakhar on the sparring mat, exchanging blows with the practiced efficiency of men who've been fighting together for decades.
Both shirtless. Both wearing only boxeur shorts that sit low on their hips, revealing more skin than I'm prepared to see this early in the morning.
They're magnificent.
Alexei moves like violence set to music, all kinetic energy and fluid motion, tattoos flowing across his torso like a map of survival written in ink.
His abs are cut deep, each muscle defined with the precision of someone who's spent years honing his body into a weapon.
Light catches sweat on his skin, turns him into something almost unreal.
A fighter who looks like art. Dangerous and beautiful in equal measure.
Zakhar is power sculpted in motion. Broader, more solid, his chest dusted with dark hair that trails down his stomach in a line that draws the eye lower whether I want it to or not.
His muscles bunch and release with each movement, controlled force that doesn't waste a single ounce of energy.
Every strike is calculated. Every block precise.
My mouth goes dry. My pulse accelerates, thundering in my ears loud enough to drown out the sounds of their sparring.
I should look away. Should announce my presence, make some cutting remark, do anything except stand here staring like I've never seen a man's body before.
But I can't move. Can't think. Can't do anything except watch the way they move together, knowing each other's rhythms, anticipating each strike before it lands, moving in perfect synchronization born from years of fighting side by side.
It's mesmerizing.
Zakhar's gaze snaps to me.
For half a second, our eyes lock across the distance, and I see recognition flare in his expression. Heat. Raw and unguarded before discipline slams back down like a door closing.
He moves. Fast. Steps directly in front of Alexei, blocking him from my view with his body.
The gesture is protective. Suspicious. Deliberate.
Like he's trying to hide his twin from me.
Alexei turns, confusion flickering across his face when he realizes Zakhar has stopped mid-spar. Then understanding dawns. He follows his brother's gaze to where I'm standing frozen in the doorway.
His expression shifts to wary.
He grabs his shirt from the bench beside the mat, pulls it on with movements that should be casual but feel rushed. Too deliberate.
Not fast enough.
In the mirror behind them, I catch a glimpse of a small device attached to Alexei's upper arm, barely visible beneath the edge of his shirt sleeve. Medical. Necessary.
An insulin pump.
Alexei is diabetic.
The knowledge lands with unexpected weight. The awareness that his body requires constant vigilance, that without technology and discipline, it would kill him.
They're nervous. Both of them.
Zakhar's stillness has gone rigid, every muscle locked like he's bracing for impact. Alexei's usual grin is strained, not quite reaching his eyes. They're wondering if I saw. Wondering what I'll do with the information.
I could use this. File it away as leverage, as ammunition for whatever battles lie ahead.
In the world they inhabit, weakness is currency. And chronic illness even more so.
But looking at the tension in their shoulders, the way they're braced for mockery or pity or whatever cruelty they expect from me, I make a different choice.
I decide to protect them instead.
"Finally," I say, letting my voice ring with aristocratic irritation as I stride into the gym like I own it. "Zakhar, I've been looking everywhere for you."
His expression shifts from guarded to wary. "Why?"
"Because you still haven't arranged for my security person." I cross the gym floor, letting my frustration show in every step, real irritation mixed with performance. "It's been four days. Four. How hard is it to assign someone to chauffeur me around?"
"I'm working on it." His voice is flat, giving nothing away.
"Work faster." I stop directly in front of him, have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes because he towers over. "If you don't have someone sorted soon, you'll be the one escorting me everywhere I need to go."
His jaw tightens. A muscle jumps beneath stubbled skin. "That won't be necessary."
"Pilates." I poke his chest with one finger, solid muscle beneath slick skin, still warm from exertion.
My fingertip registers heat, the steady drum of his heartbeat.
"Brunch." Another poke, harder this time.
"Nails." Another. "Spa. Hairdresser. Shopping.
" Each word punctuated with my finger against his sternum, feeling his heartbeat accelerate beneath my touch, feeling my own pulse answer in kind.
His hand shoots out. Catches my wrist. Holds it against his chest so I can feel the thunder of his pulse, rapid, uneven, betraying the control he's trying to maintain.
"I would rather," he says, voice low and dangerous, each word deliberate, "have someone do paper cuts between my fingers and squeeze lemon juice into the wounds than drive you to those places."
We're close. Too close.
His chest rises and falls beneath my trapped hand.
I feel each breath, each heartbeat, each micro-movement of muscle beneath hot skin.
His breath mixes with mine. His grip on my wrist is firm but not painful, his thumb pressed against my racing pulse like he's taking my measure, reading my response in real time.
I can smell his clean sweat, masculine and uniquely him, that makes my head spin and my knees forget their structural purpose.
The air between us crackles. Electric. Charged with awareness I can't deny and shouldn't want.
His green eyes drop to my mouth. Linger there for one heartbeat, two, three. Then snap back up to meet mine, and what I see in them makes heat coil low in my spine.
Want. Raw and barely restrained.
I watch his throat work as he swallows. See his jaw clench. Feel his fingers tighten fractionally on my wrist before he releases me like I burned him.
He steps back. Puts safe distance between us with the deliberate precision of someone retreating from a threat they don't trust themselves around.
"I have things to do," he says, voice rougher than before, scraped raw. "Excuse me."
He moves past me toward the door, and I turn to watch him go. Can't help it. My wrist still tingles where he touched me, my pulse coming too fast, my body humming with awareness I refuse to examine too closely.
The door closes behind him with a soft click that sounds like finality.
I exhale. Try to steady myself. Try to remember why I walked in here in the first place, what I was hoping to accomplish beyond this restless need to move, to fight, to feel something I can control.
Then I feel warmth at my shoulder. Presence without sound.
Alexei has moved without noise, positioned himself close enough that I can feel his body heat, smell the salt-sweet scent of his skin.
"Careful, kotyonok," he murmurs, his voice a purr against my ear that raises goosebumps down my neck, my arms. "You keep poking the bear like that, one of these days he's going to bite."