5. Katerina #2
It’s a deliberate one I can’t take back, a purposeful one that will hopefully get me the answers I need so my father can get me the hell out of here.
I press my ear to the wood and I hold my breath.
At first, all I catch are murmurs. Blurred tones melt into each other, making it impossible to decipher what’s being said. Their cadence rises and falls, nothing clear enough for me to latch onto to use in my report.
Just as I’m leaning in closer, practically molding myself to the wood, an unmistakable sound shatters the quiet.
A scream.
It slices through the muffled conversation so violently that I nearly stumble back from the door, my heart lurching up into my throat. Before I can fully process the shock, a voice erupts from the other side, raw with panic.
“—don’t have the money!” His words are cut off instantly by another scream, louder this time. A harsh impact follows with the distinct, sickening sound of something solid colliding with flesh.
Each blow lands with a heavy thud, loud enough that it faintly vibrates through the wood beneath my ear. The screaming twists into a guttural cry, then into desperate pleas. There aren’t words anymore, just incoherent sounds strung together by terror and pain.
My stomach flips. This is not the controlled business talk I expected or coded exchanges my father trained me to decipher and uncover.
No, this is the violence rumored behind closed doors and whispered through the political grapevines that Aleksandr Volkov is capable of.
The violence that props up his empire and the ruthlessness my father warned me to never underestimate.
It’s the same he now expects me to help infiltrate, manipulate, and dismantle from within.
There is a sudden silence on the other side of the door. It’s so abrupt it feels unnatural, like the air has been vacuumed out of the hallway entirely. For a moment, even the muffled whimpering stops.
Then Aleksandr speaks. “Shall we try that again?”
His tone alone sends a cold ripple down my spine. It’s calm, almost patiently delivered. It’s the voice of someone entirely in control of not only himself, but of the entire room, including the man suffering in front of him.
A shuddering inhale answers him. It’s wet and ragged sounding. It conjures far too vivid an image of a man beaten half-senseless lying on the floor at Aleksandr’s feet, blood dripping from his mouth or nose or both, his face and body badly beaten.
The mental picture alone forces bile up my throat. Aleksandr Volkov is every bit the monster the world claims he is.
“Please…” the man begs.
Another sickening crack splits the air. Not quite the same as the earlier blows, this one is harder, like something solid impacting bone. A dull thud follows. The kind a heavy object, or a body, makes when it hits the floor.
Silence descends again.
My heart squeezes painfully, tightening like a fist.
Is he dead?
The thought flashes through me with horrifying curiosity.
For the first time since stepping foot into this estate, the full reality of what I am dealing with settles over me like an omen.
This isn’t the embellished story of a villain within the confines of political gossip.
This is Aleksandr Volkov, the man I’ve agreed to marry, inadvertently showing me exactly who he is.
I’m so busy grappling with that truth that I don’t notice the shift at first. Footsteps move inside the room, drawing closer to the door. By the time realization hits me, it’s already too late. The handle turns, causing panic to punch straight through my chest.
I jump back from the door instinctively, my body moving before my mind can catch up.
I search frantically for the darkest corner, any sliver of shadow wide enough to swallow me from view.
My breath escapes me in a shaky exhale as I press my back flat against the wall and will myself to disappear entirely.
Light spills into the hallway as the door is pulled open, slicing across the marble floor like a blade.
The contrast is blinding, a stark golden beam that seems to reach for me even as I try to shrink from it.
My pulse thrashes violently inside my body, each beat screaming in warning as every instinct I possess roars the same message. Do. Not. Move.
“Well,” comes a familiar voice, smooth and devastatingly self-assured. Amusement curls beneath the surface like smoke. “Either you’re terribly lost or terribly curious.”
My stomach drops.
Shit.
His posture is relaxed and almost lazy when he leans against the door frame and turns toward my direction. His eyes, however, are not. They rake over me with interest. The corner of his mouth lifts.
“Midnight stroll?” he asks lightly.
He knows I was here eavesdropping, but… strangely, he doesn’t look angry. If anything, he looks entertained. As though catching me like this isn’t a transgression but a discovery he’s delighted to make.
My heart is hammering so loudly, I’m certain he can hear it. I swallow it down, forcing the panic down as I school my expression to remain as neutral and unthreatening as possible. “I… couldn’t sleep. I thought a walk might help.”
“Ah,” he murmurs, the sound low, almost sympathetic. “Insomnia? How tragic for my bride-to-be.”
He pushes off the wall slowly, stepping closer with the kind of controlled grace that makes him feel larger than he is and more dangerous than anything I’ve ever known. I try not to let it get to me or shrink back and let him see the instinctual urge to turn and run.
Running would be pointless. Suicidal, even. But every cell in my body screams to create some distance as he closes the gap between us.
My eyes flick downward briefly, mainly on instinct, drawn to the hand at his side and narrowing in on the object held loosely in his grip.
A tire iron.
Slightly bent in the middle, as though something or someone absorbed the force behind it.
The end is speckled with a dark color that the low hallway light can’t quite disguise.
However, I don’t need to touch it to know what coats the steel.
If I did, I know without a shadow of a doubt it would still be wet.
My stomach twists painfully.
“Wandering near private meetings after midnight is a bold way to cure sleeplessness,” he adds, his voice deceptively mild.
Heat rises in my chest, mortification, fear, and fury tangled into a single tight knot. He’s not accusing me outright, but this is obviously a warning. Publicly, he’d humiliate me, perhaps even punish me for eavesdropping.
Privately, he’s reminding me of the hierarchy. Reminding me of my role and that curiosity in his world is a liability with consequences he doesn’t need to describe for me to know exactly what they are.
What I can’t understand and what I can’t stop asking myself is… why?
Why not teach me a lesson? Why not drag me inside the room where the man on the floor might be dead and force me to witness exactly what I decided to spy on? Why not make it clear he knows exactly what I was doing here and punish me accordingly?
Why is he letting me off with just a warning?
For a moment, I’m speechless. My mind scrambles for something that won’t implicate me or tempt him to test how far my luck stretches.
“I wasn’t aware there was a… meeting going on,” I say carefully.
His smile widens slightly. Not by much, just the faintest pull at the corner of his mouth, but it’s enough to tell me he doesn’t believe me at all. “Is that so?”
It isn’t a question, it’s an indulgence. A cat playing with its favorite mouse.
I stare at him for a long moment, searching his face for even a hint of what he’s actually thinking behind those dark eyes. He remains opaque, the polished surface of a mirror reflecting only what he wants me to see.
In that quiet, razor-sharp moment, a truth sinks deeper into me. He isn’t sparing me because he’s feeling particularly merciful. He’s sparing me because, for reasons I cannot begin to understand, he wants me here.
Before I can untangle the implications, he takes another step toward me. Just a half-step, barely enough to crowd me against the wall behind me, but it shortens the distance separating us dramatically. He’s close enough now that I have to tilt my chin up to maintain eye contact.
“You’re a terrible liar, Katya,” he whispers. The sound of my name—his version of it—sends a jolt through me. “Your eyes give you away every time.”
He’s reading me. Not in the way my father had trained me to read political opponents but the way a predator reads the tremble in its prey right before it’s devoured. Every flicker of uncertainty, every attempt at composure, he sees all of it.
He’s enjoying watching me squirm and try desperately to hold my ground anyway.
I force myself not to look away.
If I do, he wins.
If I flinch, he wins.
If I let him see how badly I want to run, he wins.
I roll my shoulders back and hold his gaze. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude. I was just—”
“Liar.”
Before I can react, his fingers brush the side of my face.
It’s barely a touch, feather-light and so soft, I almost wouldn’t believe it happened except for the way my nerves ignite beneath it.
The pad of his thumb traces the line of my cheekbone, stopping exactly where the heat of fear burns the most.
If I didn’t know better, I would have never predicted hearing him brutalize a man in the room behind him.
The most important thing I've learned so far is Aleksandr Volkov does nothing accidentally. He is suddenly close enough that his breath ghosts across the side of my face, close enough that I can see the flecks of darker color embedded in the blue of his irises even in the dim lighting.
“Next time you can’t sleep, don’t go wandering where you shouldn’t be,” he murmurs, voice low enough to buzz against my skin.
I swallow around the lump forming in my throat.
“If I catch you again,” he continues, the faintest edge bleeding into the softness, “you won’t like the outcome.”
A cold flush erupts over my skin.