Chapter 17 - Yulia
I was feeling tired on the drive over, but I told myself it’s just because I had a long day. The dress is too tight at the waist, the heels are too high, and I forgot to eat lunch.
I have a solid headache, but I smile anyway. In no way is it forced. The truth is, I’ve been working so damn hard at the clinic for over a month now that tonight’s gala feels like the perfect way to let loose.
The massive ballroom sparkles under thousands of lights, packed with Boston’s underworld royalty.
Tonight’s gala is hosted on neutral ground—Trifon told me in the car—a mix of allies, rivals, and Bratva families with too much history between them to ever truly be comfortable.
He hadn’t said much else during the drive and looked tense, jaw locked the whole way over.
I presumed he was just stressed at the thought of seeing rivals tonight.
“You look pale,” Trifon murmurs, his hand warm against the small of my back.
I straighten my spine. “I’m fine. Just tired. Double shift yesterday, nothing serious.”
I don’t tell him about the waves of nausea that started this morning, or how my breakfast came right back up.
No point worrying him over what’s probably just exhaustion or a stomach bug.
Besides, I’ve been looking forward to tonight—to seeing his sisters, to stepping out of that massive house for something other than work.
His fingertips trace a small circle at the base of my spine. “You should have said something.”
“And miss all this?” I gesture at the dazzling display around us. “Not a chance.”
The Stradivari Hotel ballroom has been transformed into something out of a fever dream—crystal chandeliers, white roses dripping from every surface, champagne fountains that never seem to empty. It’s the most beautiful party I’ve ever been to.
Trifon seems tenser than usual, his eyes constantly scanning the room. His shoulders are rigid beneath his perfectly tailored tuxedo, and there’s a tightness around his mouth I’ve learned to recognize as trouble.
“Is something wrong?” I ask, studying his profile.
He shakes his head. “Nothing you need to worry about.”
Before I can press him, a familiar voice cuts through the crowd.
“Yulia! Oh my God, you came!”
I turn to see Nadya weaving through the crowd, looking utterly divine in a skin-tight red dress that makes her look like a movie star.
“Nadya!” I grin, genuinely happy to see her.
She throws her arms around me in a hug. “I wasn’t sure if Trifon would actually let you attend. Thought up he might have you locked up in his castle.”
“I’m right here,” Trifon says dryly.
Nadya ignores him, looping her arm through mine. “Darya’s been asking about you. Come on, she’s by the bar.”
I glance back at Trifon, who nods. “Go. I need to speak with Leonid anyway.”
Nadya practically drags me across the ballroom, whispering commentary about various guests as we pass. “That’s Nadim Orlov—total prick, but his wife makes the best pirozhki you’ve ever tasted. Oh, and that’s the Morozov twins—both sleeping with the same woman, and neither knows about the other.”
I stare at her like she’s lost her mind, then look back at the Morozov twins. “You’re joking, right?”
“Swear on my life,” she widens her eyes. And honestly? I do too. Shit like this? Doesn’t happen in real life. Not in mine, at least.
I begin to laugh, the sound feeling strange in my throat. It’s been weeks since I laughed like this.
We find Darya at the bar, sipping a cocktail. Unlike her sister, she’s opted for understated elegance—a midnight blue gown that falls in soft waves to the floor. Her face lights up when she sees me.
“You made it!” She slides off her stool to embrace me. “How are you holding up in the lion’s den?”
“It’s not so bad,” I admit. “Your brother can be...decent when he wants to be.”
Nadya snorts into her drink. “Decent. That’s a new one.”
“How’s the clinic?” Darya asks, signaling the bartender for another round.
“Busy. Good busy, though.” I smile, warming to the topic. “I had a seven-year-old with a broken arm yesterday who insisted on a pink cast so he could match his sister.”
“Adorable,” Darya says.
“Boring,” Nadya counters, grinning. “Tell us about the gunshot wounds. The knife fights.”
“Patient confidentiality,” I remind her, but I’m smiling too.
There’s something about Trifon’s sisters that puts me at ease every time I meet them. It feels like we’ve always been old friends.
“Speaking of my brother,” Nadya says, glancing over my shoulder, “he hasn’t taken his eyes off you all night.”
I turn slightly, catching Trifon’s gaze across the room. He’s standing with Leonid and another man I don’t recognize, but his attention is fixed squarely on me. Even from this distance, I feel the weight of his stare—hot, possessive, making my skin prickle with awareness.
“That’s... intense,” Darya comments.
“That’s nothing,” Nadya says with a wicked grin. “You should see them when they think no one’s watching.”
My cheeks flush. “Nadya.”
“What? I’m just saying, the ‘forced marriage’ thing seems to be working out quite nicely.” She wiggles her eyebrows suggestively.
“It’s complicated,” I mutter, taking a sip of water to cool my burning face.
The truth is, Nadya’s not wrong. Things with Trifon have shifted so dramatically that I sometimes forget how we started. The man who kidnapped me, who forced me to sign those papers, has become... something else entirely. Something I don’t have a name for yet.
“Men are always complicated,” Darya says wisely. “Especially men like our brother.”
A server passes with a tray of hors d’oeuvres, and the smell hits me like a slap. My stomach lurches, and I swallow hard against the wave of nausea.
“Yulia?” Darya touches my arm. “Are you okay? You just went white as a sheet.”
I take a deep breath. “Just tired.”
The sisters exchange worried looks, and before they take off to Trifon and scare him into taking me home, I change the topic.
“I swear I’m okay. Stop looking at me like that, and let’s have some fun! I’ve missed you both,” I admit, more than I meant to say.
Nadya nudges me. “We’re not going anywhere.”
Across the room, I see Trifon watching us, his mouth tugging up in a small, private smile. Something low in my stomach clenches. He hasn’t taken his eyes off me since we walked in.
But he still hasn’t said much.
I watch as he moves through the crowd, stopping to greet a few people. Still, something’s off. Trifon keeps checking his watch. His gaze flicks toward the entrance more than once. There’s a tightness in his shoulders.
The room is beautiful, with soft lighting and chilled champagne on offer. But the tension wrapped around him tonight feels razor-edged.
“Is he usually this broody at parties?” I ask Nadya under my breath.
She arches a brow. “Tonight’s different.”
“But, you might be onto something. He’s always hated birthdays, especially his.” Darya laughs.
“Oh my god. Yes! I remember his fortieth birthday. We thought we’d surprise him. He locked himself in his room and said he had to work! We broke the door down!” Nadya laughs.
As they begin to regale me with stories, I lose all sense of time. That is, until Trifon appears behind me, jolting me to the present.
“Are you three causing trouble already?” he says dryly, sliding an arm around my waist. His touch instantly sends a jolt through me.
Nadya rolls her eyes. “You mean we are saving her from a boring time you’d have shown her. You’re welcome.”
Darya and I laugh while Trifon glowers at us all.
“Trust me, I’ve got plans other than boring,” Trifon murmurs near my ear, low enough that only I hear. His voice sends goosebumps up my arms. Then, louder, he adds, “Mind if I steal her for a dance?”
“Please do,” Darya says, sipping her drink with a smirk. “We need a break from all the heart eyes.”
Trifon extends a hand toward me. “Come on.”
I take it.
And just like that, I forget the headache. Forget the nausea. All I can see is him.
Trifon in a tuxedo is a dangerous thing.
His dark hair slicked back, eyes sharp and clear as sky on a sunny day, the cut of his suit sculpting every inch of power into something to drool over.
Every woman in this room is watching him—watching us—and I don’t care.
I want him to keep looking at me like that.
Like he wants to devour me right here, consequences be damned.
“You look good tonight,” I say, breathless, not even trying to sound casual.
His lips curve. “Only tonight?”
“I’m trying to compliment you, not inflate your ego.”
He leans in, his mouth brushing the shell of my ear. “Too late for that.”
We make it halfway across the floor, weaving through the crowd, when something shifts in the room. A ripple. A whisper. A sudden tilt in the air like the pressure before a storm.
Trifon’s hand on my waist goes rigid.
I follow his gaze toward the ballroom entrance.
And I see them.
My father.
My brothers.
Akim Fyodorov. Damien. Arman. Ilya.
Standing across the room like ghosts from another life.
My heart stops, then races so fast I feel dizzy. My father looks exactly the same—silver at his temples, immaculate in his tuxedo. My brothers flank him like sentinels, all in matching black.
Before I can blink, before I can even breathe, Trifon is moving. He doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t even look at me. He just takes my hand and leads me straight toward them.
I want to scream. To run. To collapse. Instead, I let him lead me straight into the nightmare because my brain doesn’t know how to process what’s going on.
I can’t feel my feet. My limbs move, but it’s like I’m underwater. My vision tunnels, locking onto my father’s face. He hasn’t seen me yet. None of them has. They’re too busy scanning the room.
And Trifon does the unthinkable.
He comes to a step right in front of them.
My father pales. My brothers gasp. I see it in their eyes—the shock of seeing me with Trifon.
“Father,” I say, my voice coming out weak and small.
“What the hell is the meaning of this?” my father roars, his eyes landing on where Trifon holds my hand.
Damien, my oldest brother, steps forward. “Yulia,” he says, his voice gentler than I remember. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh, you care all of a sudden now?” Trifon glowers. “Considering you haven’t wondered where she’s been for what? Three months now?”
I clench Trifon’s hand tight, begging him to keep quiet. Begging him to remember that my family doesn’t know what’s happened. But Trifon? He doesn’t register the squeeze.
“How dare you?” Ilya steps forward. “We’ve tried calling. We thought she was busy at the hospital.”
“For three months?” Trifon looks incredulous.
“Yulia,” my father hisses. “What the hell are you doing with him?”
My father’s voice pierces through the chaos of the gala, demanding an explanation for what he sees. I stand frozen, my hand still clasped in Trifon’s, watching this exchange unfold, the panic rising in my chest.
“I believe it’s not unusual, is it, for a wife to be with her husband?”
The word lands like a grenade. I feel my heart fly like The Concord.
My father’s face goes rigid. “Your what?”
“Wife,” Trifon repeats, the word dripping with satisfaction. “We were married three months ago. I’m surprised you didn’t know.”
Father’s eyes flash with barely controlled rage. “This is impossible.”
“Very possible,” Trifon counters. “And legal. Would you like to see the certificate?”
Trifon just watches them with that glint in his eyes—that quiet, dangerous satisfaction I’ve seen before when he knows he’s won.
I feel it then.
This was planned.
This was always the plan.
The tense car ride. The way he kept checking his watch. The gala’s location is on neutral ground. He brought me here for this. To make a statement to my family that he’s staking a claim.
My stomach turns—not from nausea this time, but from the slow, burning realization spreading through my chest.
My brothers are staring at me now, with various degrees of shock and anger on their faces. But no one asks if I want this, if I’m okay. No one asks why I never told them.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” Father hisses, his composure cracking.
“We would’ve preferred to be consulted before this union,” Damien growls.
Trifon raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t realize I needed permission to marry my wife.”
“You do when it affects business,” Arman snaps. “You know damn well we’ve been in talks with the Zakharovs for an alliance.”
My father steps closer, his voice dropping to ensure only we can hear.
“The Zakharovs are offering us protection against the Italians. Territory expansion. A merger that would make us the most powerful family on the coast. And now—” his eyes flick to Trifon, hatred clear in his gaze, “—this complicates everything. They were considering her hand for their son.”
And just like that, the truth shatters through me. They’re not angry because they care about me. They’re angry because I married someone without clearing it with their allies. Because I’ve screwed up a political arrangement. Because I’m property, and I’ve been moved off the board.
I stare at my father. He hasn’t even asked if I’m happy, safe, or how this happened. Not once. In fact, he was willing to pawn me off as a wife to a criminal family, without even telling me the truth about ours.
I stand frozen.
The ballroom spins in gold and candlelight, but I feel ice-cold. Like someone cracked my chest open and left it hollow.
I look up at Trifon, and everything falls into place. He used me. Maybe not cruelly. Maybe even with some twisted version of care. But he used me nonetheless.
And my family?
They never gave a damn.