Chapter 3
Claudia
Grace meets me in the back room of a wine bar in Fitzrovia.
She is late twenties, with hazlenut-streaked hair pulled into a low knot and the kind of careful posture that comes from years of navigating dangerous people.
She was a fixer once, for my father. Now she operates independently, connecting people who need connections and charging handsomely for the service.
"You want into the auction dinner," she says. It isn't a question. She's studying me, checking for weaknesses.
"Yes."
"You know what they are."
"Private marriage negotiations. Criminal aristocracy. Women attend seeking security or alliances. Men attend seeking wives and heirs."
Grace tilts her head. "Most women who come to me are running from something. Debt. Danger. Bad men." She pauses. "You don't look like you're running."
"I'm not."
"Then what are you doing?"
I set my hands flat on the table. My nails are clean, unpainted. I stopped getting manicures when the money dried up. "You know what’s going on with my father, Grace. I didn’t know...but that doesn’t matter. I didn’t know about what he did to you either, and I’m sorry for it."
Something shifts behind her eyes. I hope it’s acceptance. "I know, he was subtle about it."
I nod. “You were the one who brought him down, weren’t you?” It all clicks into place, and she doesn’t even try to deny it.
“I never meant for it to reach you like it did, or your mother, even though she definitely knew what he was doing to the women in that office. I’m truly sorry you got caught up in it, but I’m not sorry I did it.” She offers a half shrug, punctuating her lack of remorse.
“What happened to you? After, I mean.”
"I received an invite for a party. A masquerade ball that held an actual auction, not one of these fancy dinners. Liam bid on me, and the rest is history." She says this with a smile that looks like it holds the best kind of secrets.
I want that smile.
"So you must know that the attendees at these sorts of things… They are Bratva. And if they bid on you and win…there’s no coming back from that." She looks at me more intently now, searching for any sign I’m not sure.
She won’t find it.
"I want to attend the dinner and I want to be considered for auction."
Grace leans back. The wine bar hums around us, low music, quiet laughter, glasses clinking. All of it feels very far away.
"The women who attend these dinners are vetted extensively. Family backgrounds, medical histories, financial situations. The men who attend are paying for access. Some of them are paying for a wife and everything that entails. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"
I nod once, slowly. "I understand that it's transactional."
"Everything is transactional, Claudia. I'm asking whether you understand the permanence of what you're proposing.
These are not men you divorce. They are not men you negotiate with after the fact.
You marry one of these men, you belong to that family.
Your body, your name, your future children. All of it becomes theirs."
The word children moves through me like something warm. I don't look away from Grace's face.
"I understand."
Her eyes narrow. "Who are you targeting?"
I could say I'm open to anyone, that I want to browse, that I'm simply exploring my options. But Grace has been kind enough to help me in my time of need when she really didn’t need to, the least I can do in return is be honest.
"Rovin Mostovoi."
She goes very still.
The pause lasts three full seconds, and I feel every one of them.
I could fill it with an explanation of how this man has been central to my thoughts since I first laid eyes on him.
How no other potential date has measured up.
How I want permanence before intimacy, and I only want permanence with him.
"You know who he is," she says.
"I know exactly who he is."
"He has attended two of these auction dinners and chosen no one.
He is considered the most selective buyer in the current market.
Half the women who've been presented to him have left the room in tears, not because he was cruel, but because being dismissed by a man like that is its own kind of devastation. "
"I'm not interested in being presented to him."
Grace frowns. "Then what?"
"I'm interested in presenting myself."
Another silence. Grace lifts her wine glass, takes a slow sip, sets it down precisely in the ring it left on the table.
"The dinner is in six days. The fee for a woman's entry is ten thousand dollars. This covers vetting, styling, preparation, and access. It doesn’t guarantee a match. It doesn’t even guarantee a conversation. It guarantees a seat."
"I have seven thousand,” I say, mentally doing the math to see what I have left to sell. I’ve already sold all my jewelry, my designer handbags and shoes…short of selling an organ on the black market, I’ve got nothing left.
"Then you don't have enough."
"I have seven thousand dollars and a name that, despite everything, still opens doors in this city.
My father knows these men, Grace. ‘M well educated.
I speak three languages. I know how political economies work, how alliances are built, how to sit at a table with powerful men and make them believe I belong there, because I do. "
Grace watches me. I hold her gaze and let her see whatever she needs to see.
"Claudia," she says, and her voice is different now. Almost gentle. "Rovin Mostovoi is not one of your father's colleagues. He isn’t a man you manage. If he wants you, he will take you. If he doesn't, nothing you say or do will change his mind. Are you prepared for that?"
"I'm counting on it."
Grace sets down her glass and folds her hands. "Fine. Seven thousand. And you'll need a dress."