Chapter 4
Anya
Well. The time had come. The day my I went from belonging to my dad, to belonging to a monster. If only I could belong to myself.
The black Mercedes crawled through Red Hook like a hearse. Slow, ponderous, unstoppable. I sat in the back seat drowning in my father’s cigar smoke.
This morning, father had taken me to church. It was symbolic—my last time attending an orthodox service as his unmarried daughter. As I’d listened, smelled the incense, looked at the icons, I’d never felt further from the almighty. How would a kind, loving God deliver me from one prison to another?
In the car, the incense was replace with smoke from dad’s Cuban Cohiba. At least when I cried, I could blame it on the cigar, rather than the despair I felt deep inside.
Through the tinted window, I watched the landscape transform around us.
Industrial bones showing through gentrified skin—art galleries squeezed between auto repair shops, organic coffee roasters next to old warehouses, riddled with rust. This was the kind of neighborhood where Tesla charging stations shared blocks with chop shops.
Where million-dollar lofts looked out on loading docks that moved product no one asked questions about.
My mind cataloged details automatically, the way it always did when I was terrified.
Count the exits. Note the cameras. Track the street names.
Van Brunt Street. Number 89 coming up on the left.
A converted warehouse, five stories of red brick and industrial windows, the kind that would have cost millions to renovate.
Security cameras at every corner, subtle but there if you knew where to look.
Private parking garage entrance with a steel gate that required a keycard.
The Volkov bratva had money. Real money. The kind that could buy respectability while keeping one foot in the criminal world.
I wasn’t married—not yet. Before the wedding, I would live in Ivan’s home for three days.
In theory, it was to give me a chance to change my mind—the Krovniy brak was very specific about this ‘cooling off’ period.
In practice, of course, I didn’t have a choice.
I couldn’t say no. I just had to live with Ivan until the wedding on Saturday, and then live with him forever afterwards.
Not happy ever after, obviously. More like miserable ever after.
And in just three days I’d lose my virginity. I was terrified.
The driver—one of my father's men—pulled into a loading zone directly in front of the main entrance.
Through the glass doors, I could see a lobby that tried too hard to look legitimate.
Exposed brick, Edison bulbs, a security desk where a man in a suit that couldn't quite hide his shoulder holster pretended to read a newspaper.
My father turned to me.
The movement was slow, deliberate, like a snake considering whether to strike. His pale blue eyes—the same ones I saw in my mirror every morning, the ones I'd inherited along with his genius for languages and his strategic mind—studied my face with total focus.
"Anya," he said, and my name in his mouth sounded like a curse. "Listen carefully because I will say this once."
I made myself meet his eyes. Made myself not flinch when he leaned closer, the smell of cigars and expensive cologne failing to mask the rot.
"If you try to escape," he said, his voice conversational, almost pleasant, like we were discussing dinner plans, "if you embarrass me, if you violate this treaty in any way—including lack of consummation—I will kill you myself."
The words landed like bullets from a sniper rifle. Each one precise. Each one meant.
"Not Ivan," he continued, taking a drag from his cigar, the ember glowing red in the car's dim interior. "Not the Volkovs. Me. It's the only way to preserve my honor if my own daughter proves herself a traitor."
My throat closed. Twenty-six years of being his daughter, and I still wasn't prepared for his casual brutality. The way he could discuss murdering me with the same tone he'd use to order wine.
"The treaty is specific," he went on, studying his cigar like it held the secrets of the universe.
"A wife who betrays the marriage agreement can be executed by her birth family to prevent war.
It's an old clause, but still binding. The Volkovs would actually respect me more for it.
Might even send flowers to your funeral. "
He smiled then. Actually smiled. Like the thought of my funeral brought him genuine pleasure.
"Of course, I'd prefer to avoid that unpleasantness," he said, brushing imaginary ash from his three-thousand-dollar suit.
"You're valuable to me alive, at least for now.
Your linguistic skills, your decryption abilities—Ivan will find uses for them.
And every successful project you complete for him reflects well on me. Makes me look generous."
Generous. Like I was a gift he was bestowing instead of a human sacrifice to save his own skin.
"But if you shame me," his hand moved faster than I could track, gripping my chin hard enough to bruise, forcing me to look directly into those empty blue eyes, "if you make me look weak by running or crying or failing to perform your wifely duties, I will gut you myself and send Ivan your head in a box with an apology note. "
I couldn't speak. Couldn't nod. Could only stare into the face of the man who'd created me and now discussed destroying me with less emotion than he'd shown choosing his cigar.
"Do you understand?" he asked, his grip tightening until tears leaked from my eyes despite my best efforts.
I managed the smallest nod. Just enough movement for him to feel it through his grip on my chin.
"Good." He released me, turning away like I'd already ceased to exist. "Now get out and be the perfect bride. Smile. Be grateful. Make me look generous for giving you to them. I’ll see you at the wedding. And don’t forget, I love you, detka."
I almost laughed.
He opened his door, stepping out into the afternoon like a man without a care in the world. I sat frozen for three seconds—three seconds to swallow the bile in my throat, to force my hands to stop shaking, to arrange my face into something that might pass for calm.
Then I opened my door and stepped out onto Van Brunt Street, the warehouse looming above me like a brick mountain I had to climb.
The security guard inside had stood up, was opening the door for us. I could see another man by the elevator, tall and scarred, probably one of Ivan's brothers. Everyone watching. Everyone waiting to see Viktor Morozov's daughter perform gratitude for her own imprisonment.
I smiled. Made it reach my eyes the way I'd learned to do at state dinners and diplomatic functions. Made it look like I was happy to be here, honored to be chosen, grateful to be given to a man I'd never met.
Because the alternative was my father's hands around my throat, and I wasn't ready to die.
Not yet.
The elevator required a keycard that Ivan's brother Dmitry produced with scarred fingers, and I memorized the way he held it—angle of approach, pressure, the soft beep of acceptance—because my mind couldn't stop gathering data even when my body wanted to collapse.
The elevator was modern, all brushed steel and hidden lighting, nothing like the baroque gold monstrosity in my father's building.
No mirrors to reflect my pale face back at me.
No music to fill the silence. Just the whisper of cables pulling us up, up, up.
Dmitry stood behind me, not touching but close enough that I could smell leather and cigarette smoke.
My father had already vanished—dismissed by Dmitry with a look that suggested Viktor Morozov ranked somewhere below interesting in the Volkov hierarchy.
The treaty signed. The goods delivered. Transaction complete.
“Your father is charming,” Dmitry said, voice thick with sarcasm.
“He’s a pig.”
Dmitry laughed. “You said it, not me.”
“Animals often recognise others of the same species,” I spat.
To my surprise, he laughed again. “Ivan is going to love you,” he growled. “You’re gonna break his heart, I can already tell.”
Second floor passed. A soft chime. Then nothing—no other floors accessible without that keycard. The third floor belonged to Ivan Volkov alone.
The doors opened directly into his space, and I forgot how to breathe.
Not because I was terrified—though I was, terror running through my veins like antifreeze—but because it was beautiful in a way I hadn't expected from a man everyone called the Ice King.
“I’ll leave you two to get acquainted,” Dmitry said. “Anya, don’t be afraid. Dmitry is a good man.”
“One thing I’ve learned,” I said, with venom in my voice, “is not to trust the opinion of monsters.”
A wry smile, and then he was gone.
The entire west wall was glass, floor to ceiling, nothing between us and the sky.
The sunset had turned Manhattan into something from a dream—buildings like golden teeth, the Hudson River molten copper, the Statue of Liberty small and perfect in the distance like a chess piece waiting to be moved.
The light flooded the space, warm and alive, turning everything it touched into art.
But it was the interior that made my analytical mind stutter to a stop.
This wasn't the ostentatious display of wealth I'd grown up with—no crystal chandeliers, no gold fixtures, no petroleum-based furniture that screamed its price tag. This was curation. Intention. Every piece chosen because it belonged, not because it was expensive.