Chapter 6 #3
The admission surprised me. That Eva would confess weakness. That Dmitry would show that kind of care publicly. That any of this was real instead of the performance I'd been witnessing all day.
"You looked like you were about to bolt," Clara said, not unkindly. "I remember that feeling. That moment when you realize you can't keep the mask on for one more second."
She understood. They both understood.
"Ivan is a good man," Clara said quietly, her hazel eyes holding mine. "I know that probably sounds like bullshit right now. I know you're terrified. But he's not like your father. He won't hurt you."
I wanted to believe it. Had seen evidence of it—the key, the dress, the four-count breathing during the ceremony. But belief required trust, and trust required something I wasn't sure I had anymore.
"How do you know?" I heard myself ask. My voice came out rougher than intended. Raw.
"Because we've seen how he treats people," Eva said. "He cares. He’s no monster like some of them.”
"Nothing is private in this family," Clara said, reading my expression. "But that's not a bad thing. It means we see when someone needs help. When someone is struggling. When someone needs allies."
Allies. The word felt foreign. Dangerous, even. Everyone who'd ever claimed to be my ally had either used me or abandoned me. But Clara and Eva were looking at me with something that seemed like genuine understanding, and I was desperate enough to want to believe them.
"I don't know how to do this," I admitted quietly. "Trust people. Be part of something. I've been—" Alone. Isolated. Property. Pick the word that hurt least. "—on my own for a long time."
"I know what that's like," Eva said. She leaned forward, her lavender dress rustling softly. "Being so used to surviving alone that accepting help feels like weakness. Like if you let someone in, they'll just hurt you worse than if you'd kept them out."
Too accurate. I pressed my fingernails into my palms. Four crescents. Grounding.
"Dmitry took me off the street," Eva continued. "I had a price on my head.”
I knew all about it, of course. I’d helped analyze the information. “I was a liability that needed to be eliminated. But Dmitry brought me home instead. Put me in his safe house. And I spent weeks waiting for him to hurt me. To use me. To do what men in his position do to women like me."
Her voice was steady. Matter-of-fact. But I saw her hands clench in her lap.
"He never did," she said. "He fed me. Let me hide when I needed to. Gave me space to figure out who I was beyond survival. And when I finally trusted him enough to—" She stopped. Smiled slightly. "Well. He was patient. Is patient. Still is, on my bad days."
Patient. That word again. Ivan had used it too. But patience in my world had always been strategic. Waiting for the right moment to strike. For the asset to become valuable enough to use.
Clara was watching me with those sharp hazel eyes. "You're thinking we're either lying or deluded."
"I'm thinking you're both still here," I said. "Still married to men who are—" How did you politely say criminals? Killers? "—in positions of power. You can't leave. So you've found ways to make it bearable."
"You're not wrong," Clara said. No defensiveness. Just acknowledgment. "Alexei took me as collateral against my father's corruption. I was terrified. Spent the first week planning escape routes and assuming he'd force himself on me because that's what powerful men do to powerless women."
She leaned back in her chair. Her posture was relaxed, but I saw the steel underneath.
"He didn't," she said. "He gave me choices.
Time. Space to decide if I wanted to stay or go.
And when I finally chose him—chose this life—it was because I'd seen who he really was.
Not the pakhan. Just Alexei, who reads to me when I can't sleep and carries me to bed when I fall asleep on the couch. "
The image didn't fit. Alexei Volkov, the man who'd talked about debriefing me like I was an intelligence asset, carrying his wife to bed.
"I'm not saying they're good men," Clara continued.
"They're criminals. They've hurt people.
They'll hurt more people. But with us? With family?
They're different. And Ivan is—" She paused, choosing words carefully.
"—probably the best of them, honestly. The most controlled. The most careful about consent."
Consent. Another word that felt foreign in the context of arranged marriage.
"The Volkovs are still dangerous," Eva said bluntly. "Still violent. Still part of a world that will hurt you if you're not careful. But they're different than the Morozovs. Your father uses people and discards them. The Volkovs protect their own."
"You're their own," I said. "I'm—" What? New acquisition? Asset under evaluation? "—the enemy's daughter."
"You're Ivan's wife," Clara corrected firmly. "That makes you family. And family means something here."
I wanted to believe her. Wanted it so badly my chest ached with the wanting. But belief felt dangerous. Hope felt like setting myself up for worse pain when it inevitably got ripped away.
"We'd like to spend time together," Eva said, steering the conversation somewhere safer. "If you want. No pressure. But coffee sometime. Lunch. Just—" She smiled. "—normal things. Friend things. Not bratva wife things."
Friends. When was the last time I'd had friends? Before my father locked me away completely. Before I became too valuable to risk exposing to normal people.
"I'd like that," I heard myself say. The admission felt dangerous. Revealing. But also real.
Clara's expression softened. "Good. Because honestly, being the only woman in a room full of Volkov testosterone is exhausting. Having backup would be nice."
Eva laughed—genuine amusement that made her look younger. "Clara handles Alexei better than anyone I've ever seen. Makes him actually explain his decisions instead of just expecting everyone to fall in line."
"Someone has to," Clara said. "Otherwise he'd just pakhan everyone to death."
The casual way they talked about their husbands—with affection mixed with exasperation—felt foreign. My father had been many things, but never someone I'd laughed about. Never someone I'd describe with warmth.
"Can I ask something?" My voice came out quieter than intended. "Something that's probably inappropriate?"
"Yes," Eva said immediately. "Ask."
I pressed my nails harder into my palms. The pain helped. Made the question feel less impossible.
"Tonight," I said. Just that word. Couldn't manage the rest.
Understanding crossed both their faces. Clara leaned forward slightly.
"The consummation," she said. Not making me say it. "You're terrified."
I nodded. My throat was too tight for words.
"Ivan won't force you," Clara said with absolute certainty. "I don't know what he's told you, what agreements you've made, but I know him. He'd rather violate the treaty than hurt you."
"My father said—" I stopped. Swallowed. "The treaty requires proof. Within a week. Ivan said it wasn’t true, but, If Ivan sends me back untouched, my father will—" Kill me. But I couldn't say that part out loud. Not to these women who'd been kind.
"Ivan was telling the truth. Your father is a liar," Eva said flatly. "And an abuser. And nothing he told you is worth the oxygen it took to say it."
The vehemence in her voice surprised me. Made something hot sting behind my eyes.
"Give Ivan a chance," Clara said gently. "Give yourself a chance. I think you'll be surprised."
I wanted to believe them. Wanted to think tonight wouldn't end in violence or force or my father's threats becoming reality.
But belief required a kind of courage I wasn't sure I had.
"Thank you," I whispered. "For this. For—" Everything. For seeing me. For offering friendship. For making me feel less alone.
"You're family now," Eva said, and her smile was warm enough to melt something frozen in my chest.
The elevator ride up felt like descending into deep water.
Pressure building in my ears. Lungs forgetting how to work.
Ivan stood on the opposite side of the car, hands in his pockets, maintaining the careful distance he'd kept all day.
Twenty seconds to the third floor. Nineteen.
Eighteen. Counting down to what came next.
What was required. What my father had made very clear would happen tonight or I'd die slowly enough to understand my failure.
The elevator chimed. Doors opened onto Ivan's penthouse—our penthouse now, legally, though it still felt like his space. The city lights painted everything in silver and shadow through those massive windows. Beautiful. Like a cage made of glass and good taste.
My legs carried me inside on autopilot. The ivory silk dress that had whispered all day suddenly felt too tight. Too much fabric between my skin and whatever was about to happen.
Ivan moved toward the kitchen. Away from me. Probably to make tea or give me space or do anything that wasn't what the treaty demanded.
"Wait," I said.
The word came out rougher than intended. Desperate. He stopped mid-step, turned, those gray eyes finding mine across the dark space.
My heart hammered. Four counts wouldn't come. Three wouldn't come. Just rapid-fire beats that said run run run even though there was nowhere to go.
"We should—" I started. Stopped. Tried again. "The marriage isn't real until we—"
I couldn't finish. Couldn't say consummation or sex or any of the clinical words that described what happened next. My hands were shaking. I clasped them together to hide it.
"My father will know somehow if we don't," I continued, forcing the words out. "He'll think I'm defective. He'll—"
He'll kill me. Slowly. Days, maybe. Until I understand exactly how much I've cost him.
"No," Ivan said.
Just that. Simple. Absolute. The same way he'd said it before, in this same space, when I'd begged him to get it over with quickly.
"Anya, no." He moved slightly closer but stopped several feet away. "I told you. We wait until you want to. If you ever want to."
"But the treaty—"
"Fuck the treaty." More force this time. His jaw clenched. "I can see you're a good person. I care about you too much to—"
He stopped abruptly. The sentence hung unfinished in the air between us.
Care about me? Ivan Volkov, the Ice King who felt nothing, cared about me?
"I'm attracted to you," he said quietly. Like he was confessing something dangerous. "Very attracted. But I know you're not interested in me that way, and I would never—"
He stopped again. This time deliberately. Drawing a line he wouldn't cross.
Attracted to me.
The words didn't make sense. I'd spent the day being assessed like merchandise. Being calculated like an investment. Being looked at as asset or liability or tool. No one had looked at me like I was someone they wanted.
But Ivan was saying he wanted me. Was saying it and then immediately promising he wouldn't act on it because he knew I didn't want him back.
My stomach did something complicated. I felt heat that had nothing to do with fear. Awareness of his body across the space—tall, controlled, carefully maintaining distance when maybe part of me didn't want distance anymore.
I opened my mouth to say—what? That I was attracted too? That I didn't know what I felt? That every time he looked at me something in my chest twisted?
No words came.
I just stood there in my wedding dress, with my heart hammering and my mind racing and something unnamed unfurling in my chest that might have been want or might have been terror or might have been both things tangled together.
Ivan took my silence as confirmation. I saw it in the way his shoulders shifted. The way his expression closed off slightly.
"Goodnight, Anya," he said softly. Already moving toward his bedroom. Away from me. Away from the possibility of this conversation going somewhere neither of us was ready for. "Sleep well. You're safe here. Always."
His door closed with a soft click.