Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Roman & Leah
Roman
I looked down at the woman before me.
Leah Carter was in far worse shape than she'd been a month ago.
Over the past month, Sergei had dug into her background. Squeaky clean.
Twenty-five. Parents divorced, both started new families, kicked her around like a worn-out soccer ball.
No complicated connections, no mob ties. She scraped by waiting tables at a coffee shop and working register at a convenience store.
Nothing unusual. She wasn't Dmitri's plant, wasn't some rival family's mole.
Just a stupid girl who got cleaned out by her ex-boyfriend.
Pure. No baggage. Easy to manipulate.
Perfect prey.
My domineering grandmother, Maria Volkova, had recently decided the Volkov family couldn't go on without a nominal mistress. A married Pakhan was more stable.
She'd even started shoving photos of scheming Russian socialites onto my desk. To shut her up, I needed a woman with a clean slate—completely under my control—to silence my grandmother and cut off Dmitri's attempts to plant eyes around me.
And Leah had walked right into my line of sight.
I could've moved sooner, but I knew that scumbag Trent was hunting for her. Waiting had value.
A rope thrown into the depths of despair gets grabbed and held tight.
I crossed the room and sat down on the sofa, meeting her stunned gaze head-on.
"What are you staring at? Don't recognize me?"
"Wait." Leah locked eyes with me. "You're Roman Volkov?"
I nodded, confirming it. She knew my name. That saved a lot of explaining.
Leah's lips trembled. Her eyes gradually lost focus.
"God, I actually slept with New York's biggest mob Pakhan..." She slumped to the floor, murmuring unconsciously.
She swallowed the rest, her already bloodless face going even whiter.
I heard what she didn't say. The corner of my mouth twitched upward, barely perceptible.
She was probably only now realizing whose bed she'd crawled into that night in Dmitri's private room.
"So..." Her voice sounded steady enough, though I could clearly see her knees shaking. "Mr. Volkov, what are you doing in my crappy apartment? You said the debt was cleared."
I watched her desperate attempt to distance herself, like a kitten extending its claws.
"I need a marriage."
Leah stared at me like I was insane. "What?"
"You heard me." I had no interest in dancing around it. "I need a woman with a clean background, no family entanglements, to fill a role."
I paused, my gaze sweeping over her body without disguise.
And I actually have a pretty good impression of you."
Any woman would do.
Since I had to keep a woman around anyway, picking one with a body and face that caught my eye beat those painted-up socialites of unknown origin cluttering my study.
The woman I'd chosen looked at me like I was an alien creature.
"In exchange," I continued, ignoring her shock, "you won't have to worry about threats from anyone. Just sign the contract, move into the Long Island estate, and play the mob wife in public. When it's done, I'll give you generous compensation. Name your price."
Leah finally seemed to shake off her shock, pushing herself up from the floor.
"No." She shook her head almost instinctively. "No, you've got the wrong person. Mr. Volkov, we've only met once. And I'm just an ordinary girl. I don't want anything to do with the mob."
Slowly, deliberately, I played the card I'd been holding all along.
"For the sake of that little complication in your belly, Leah, you'd better agree."
I watched with satisfaction as Leah's eyes widened in disbelief. I knew what shocked her—anyone would react the same way to discovering they'd been secretly followed.
"You... you've been watching me?" Her voice cracked, finally revealing the panic and anger beneath.
I didn't deny it, just stared at her coldly.
"If I hadn't been watching you, where do you think you'd be right now?"
Apparently unable to argue, Leah's words caught in her throat. She swallowed.
"I need time to think. Something like this... you have to give me time to consider."
A reasonable request.
I stood, pulled an all-black encrypted flip phone from my jacket's inner pocket, and tossed it onto the barely-standing dining table.
"Twenty-four hours." I adjusted my coat and headed for the door. "When you've decided, call the only number in there. After tomorrow at this time, the offer's gone."
I started toward that broken door but stopped at the threshold. I couldn't help asking the question.
"The baby. Whose is it?"
That kid was almost certainly Trent's.
But that night, something had happened between us—a possibility I couldn't cleanly rule out.
"Trent's." She stared at my back, enunciating each word. "It's that bastard Trent's baby."
Trent's.
I nodded, unconcerned.
In the end, I didn't care whose kid it was or what name it carried. Just a minor complication I could handle in passing.
I only needed the woman.
Leah
I stood in the middle of the trashed living room. It took forever before I realized my legs were shaking violently. So much had happened in just one hour.
I couldn't hold myself up anymore. I slid down the wall and sank to the floor, burying my face in my knees. Cold sweat had soaked through my back.
"Leah?"
I jerked my head up. Harper stood in the broken doorframe, face pale, staring at me. She'd clearly been hiding in the hallway for a while.
"I knew something happened—you never ignore my messages!" Harper dropped a rusty half-pipe she'd apparently picked up somewhere and rushed into the room, grabbing my arm and frantically checking me over. "Are you hurt? What did those bastards do to you?"
I opened my mouth. My throat felt tight, stuffed with dry cotton. I couldn't get a word out.
Harper had dropped everything to come save me. I couldn't speak, just reached out weakly and held her tight.
Harper froze for a second, then clumsily hugged me back, one hand patting my back erratically, cursing under her breath, her voice shaking badly.
"What happened? Who were those men?"
After a long moment, I finally explained against Harper's shoulder. "I'm okay. That man... was Roman Volkov. He wants me to marry him."
Harper gripped my hand tightly. "Roman Volkov... Jesus Christ! The mob boss who kills without blinking? He wants you to marry him?"
I closed my eyes, bitter despair rising in my throat. That was exactly what had terrified me, completely stripping away my ability to resist.
"I don't know. I might not have a choice at all."
I looked at Harper's shocked, nearly frozen face and forced myself to continue. "You know what? From that night at the club until now, for an entire month, he's probably had people following me."
Harper stood frozen, silent. Her chest heaved violently. Finally she ground out an extremely vulgar curse through her teeth and dropped into a rickety dining chair.
"That's fucking terrifying!" Harper stared at me, eyes full of disbelief. "This is way more dangerous than Trent."
"What can I do?" I looked at her desperately. "Can I even run?"
Harper didn't speak for a long time, just stared at me hard.
"We're leaving." Harper finally clenched her jaw, making the decision.
She spun around and charged into my bedroom, yanked out an old canvas duffel bag, and started frantically stuffing my clothes into it.
"Leave New York! I've got some savings, add yours. We'll go to the West Coast, to Ohio, to Texas! Somewhere those bastards and the mob can't find us. We'll start over!"
"With what?" I leaned against the wall, tears streaming down my face, laughing bitterly. "Your pathetic savings barely cover next month's rent. Buy two long-distance bus tickets and we'll be begging on the street. Besides—"
I suddenly stopped.
"Harper, what about your job?"
Harper's hands froze mid-stuff, visibly.
Just last week, Harper had gotten a call from that top design studio.
It was an assistant designer position she'd landed after submitting at least fifty resumes and getting rejected countless times.
"...The job's nothing." Harper turned her face away, avoiding my eyes, shrugging with false bravado. But her movements slowed. "It's just a stupid job. Worst case, I reapply somewhere else. You and the baby matter most."
Though Harper talked down the job, I knew it was a dream she'd worked so hard to reach.
Why should she give up what she'd finally grasped because of my mess?
No. Absolutely not.
I walked over, took the old sweater from her hands, and hugged Harper tight, burying my face in her warm shoulder.
"Harper," I closed my eyes, trying to make my voice sound light and certain, "maybe... being a mob wife isn't so terrible?"
"Leah—" Harper struggled to push me away.
"Think about it," I interrupted, forcing a light laugh, sniffing, "The debt's completely gone, no more worrying about next month's rent, I'd live in a Long Island mansion. Maybe I could even save enough to send this little one to an Ivy League school."
That night we argued for a long time. Harper finally could only sigh.
I promised I'd spend tonight alone in this relatively safe apartment and think it through completely. Only then did Harper leave reluctantly, looking back every few steps.
But I didn't really need to think. I knew I was out of options.
The apartment was terrifyingly quiet that night. So quiet I could only hear my own slightly heavy heartbeat.
I walked to the table with the missing corner. That cold black encrypted flip phone lay there quietly.
The phone rang once before being answered.
Complete silence on the other end, as if Roman had been sitting leisurely on his throne of power, waiting for this ring that symbolized my submission.
"It's me." I heard my own voice echo in the empty room. "I agree. All your conditions. I agree."
A second of silence on the other end.
Roman's voice came through—low, calm, without a trace of surprise.
As if he'd expected this answer from the start.
"Good." Roman paused. Through the line, I could almost see those bottomless black eyes. "My secretary, Sergei, will pick you up tomorrow morning at nine."
The non-negotiable order delivered, he hung up. The receiver emitted a cold dial tone.
I held the phone, still faintly warm, standing alone in the center of this trashed, empty apartment.
I lowered my head, gently placing both hands over my still-flat belly.
Tomorrow, I'd walk into that dangerous man's territory carrying a potentially fatal lie.
I only hoped Roman would never learn this secret.