6. Katerina #3
His head tilts, predatory amusement curling at the edges of his mouth. “Oh? Are you in the business of demanding things from me now, Katya? Our paperwork hasn’t been filed yet, so technically, you’re still only a bride. Perhaps when there is a ring on your finger, we’ll revisit the hierarchy.”
My hands fist at my sides so tightly, my nails bite into my palms. “Do we actually have to wait for the state to give you permission to do me a favor?”
He laughs, the bright bark echoing harshly across the marble floors, bouncing off the high ceilings and doubling the humiliation. “No one in this world gives me permission to do anything, Kotyonok.”
I’m actually going to scream.
This infuriatingly arrogant bastard somehow manages to prod exactly the parts of me I’ve worked the hardest to keep buried. No matter how much I try to reel in my composure, or how many times I remind myself that I must stay disciplined for the mission, he finds the pressure point effortlessly.
I want to slap that smirk right off his face. I want to claw it off. I want to show him I am not just some pliant object he can bend to his will like the rest of his men, like the rest of this goddamn world.
I force myself forward, closing the distance between us.
My slippers whisper across the marble nearly soundlessly.
His eyes track me as I move and the closer I get, the more amused he becomes.
His eyes dance with true, genuine delight because denying me is easy for him.
Because he knows there’s nothing I can do.
I am the only one in this house reckless enough to challenge him, and he’s savoring every second of it.
I swallow down my anger, of what little of it I can, at least, and force the next words through clenched teeth. “Please take me to see my father.”
“Absolutely not,” he says with infuriating ease. “That’s not how this works.”
He enjoys this game far more than I thought previously. I see it now.
He enjoys watching me push against the bars of the cage he’s built around me and finding them immovable.
He enjoys the resistance. The defiance. The futile struggle as I try whatever way I can to escape.
I see it in the slight tilt of his head, the way he studies me like a specimen pinned under glass.
His gaze drifts over me with that quiet, proprietary curiosity. Like I’m some prized dove beating my wings bloody against gilded iron, too stubborn to realize the door has been welded shut and was never meant to be opened again once I was placed inside it.
I refuse to let him tower over me unchallenged. If he’s going to cage me, he’s going to have to work for it.
I lift my chin and meet his gaze head-on. “Take me to see my father right now or else I’ll go upstairs, jump off the balcony, and kill myself. That would be such a waste of the good money you paid to buy me, wouldn’t you say?”
The words burst out of me before I fully register them. They aren’t even rational and aren’t even remotely true. I’d never give this smug tyrant the satisfaction of breaking me to the point of self-destruction. He isn’t worth that. Not even to spite him.
But the moment the threat leaves my mouth, the room shifts. His eyes narrow instantly, amusement erased in a blink as though it never existed at all. His expression sharpens into something lethal.
When he speaks again, it’s with devastating calmness. “Do not threaten me, Katerina.”
“Or what?” I hiss back, stepping closer, planting myself between him and the door.
I know I shouldn’t provoke him. I know it’s dangerous and I’m already one breath away from consequences I’m not prepared to face, but something inside me refuses to bow down like everyone else.
The faint notes of his cologne wrap around me then. It’s woodsy with a musky edge that clings to the air around me. It envelops me as I step closer again, feeling just as overwhelming as the man in front of me.
Up close like this, I see everything. From the flicker of rage shadowing his eyes to the twitch of muscle in his jaw. The barely restrained anger simmering beneath that carefully controlled exterior is startling to see.
How is it that this threat has hit a nerve dead-on? Clearly, whatever he paid for me was a hefty investment. He wouldn’t be reacting like this if I were some disposable plaything. Under any other circumstance, a woman like me wouldn’t be worth the trouble. Not even for entertainment.
This reaction suggests something else entirely.
His jaw moves as he grinds through whatever words threaten to spill out of him. Whatever he wants to say, he’s holding it back with visible effort.
Why hold anything back with me at all?
For a full, agonizing minute, he doesn’t speak. He just studies me with that cold intensity until the silence grows oppressive enough to make me squirm.
Finally, he says, “As my wife, your access to the outside world is mine to grant. Or deny.”
Rage floods me so violently, it nearly knocks the breath out of my lungs, a white-hot surge that burns through my veins like fire. “You can’t just imprison me forever.”
He takes a single step backward then, putting just enough space between us to observe me without interference. His eyes remain locked on mine, dark and unblinking. “I’m merely enforcing the terms you agreed to.”
For one dangerous second, I consider shoving him. Hitting him. Doing anything to crack that calm, superior mask he wears like armor. But his lieutenants are only three steps away and I know how fast they can move.
I know that if I give him even the ghost of an excuse to restrain me, he won’t hesitate. He will drag me downstairs into whatever dungeon I’m certain exists beneath this mansion and throw me inside before I have time to scream.
He moves then, stepping to the side as if I’m nothing but furniture in his path. When he speaks again, his voice is tight, annoyance flickering beneath the calm. “I suggest finding a hobby to occupy your time with. Perhaps that will keep you from believing you are more than a glorified houseplant.”
A glorified houseplant.
The insult doesn’t just sting. It rips through every fragile layer of composure I’ve been clinging to. Before I can stop myself and before logic or survival instinct can intervene and tell me to stop and turn around before it’s too goddamn late, I lash out.
My hand connects with his face in a sharp, resounding crack that echoes through the entryway. For one perfect, suspended second, the entire world narrows to that single point of contact of my stinging skin connecting with his cheek.
The sound is deafening.