6. Katerina #4
Both guards snap to life like attack dogs released from their chains. Their hands fly to their holsters in perfect, terrifying unison. They don’t draw just yet, but their eyes are locked on me now, waiting for the command giving them the permission to open fire.
Time freezes.
My hand is still raised, trembling violently in the air between us as though it belongs to someone else entirely.
The burn in my palm is vicious, pulsing in time with my racing heart.
I can still feel the faint ridge of his cheekbone under my fingers, the brief give of skin before the resistance of bone.
Aleksandr doesn’t flinch.
He simply… stops.
His head is turned slightly from the force of the blow just enough that I can see the red bloom spreading across his cheek. It’s vivid against the pale light coming from the chandelier above us. A single bead of blood wells at the corner of his mouth where the edge of my nail must have caught him.
I wait for the explosion.
For the backhand to be returned my way and with much more force. For the guards to rush me and drag me away, to make me pay in ways I’ve only ever imagined in my nightmares. I wait for him to become the monster I’ve always known him as hiding under those tailored coats and tricky smiles.
Slowly, agonizingly slowly, he turns his head back to face me.
His eyes meet mine again. There is no rage in them, just something deeply more terrifying than anger.
Interest.
A quiet, hungry fascination, as if I’ve just become something new. Something worth breaking.
His tongue touches the bead of blood at the corner of his mouth, tasting it.
The motion is deliberate, almost lazy. I’ve seen him amused plenty of times before.
I’ve seen him indifferent, too. But this…
quiet, predatory stillness is worse than any of them.
This is the look of a man who has just been given permission to stop pretending he’s anything but a monster.
A man who has been waiting for the right excuse to unleash it.
And that’s exactly what I’ve done.
The corner of his mouth curls into the same half-smile I’ve come to know he only wears when he’s already won whatever battle he’s entered and is merely deciding on how to collect the bounty.
One of his lieutenants shifts his weight, coaxing Aleksandr into raising a single gloved hand at them both.
They freeze in place like marionettes waiting for the next curl of his fingers to allow them to move again.
He lets the silence stretch over us, lets it congeal in the air until it presses around my neck like an invisible hand.
He reaches up and brushes the back of two fingers across the red mark on his cheek, as though testing the heat of it. His eyes never leave mine, not even for a blink. He’s memorizing this moment, committing my defiance to memory.
When he finally opens his mouth again, his voice is soft, almost gentle.
“Go back to bed, Katya.”
Underneath those softly said words, I hear the real truth. I will decide what to do with you later.
Without another glance, he turns and walks out toward the front doors and pulls them open.
A gust of cold air sweeps through the foyer, pulling a harsh shiver out of me.
His coat ripples behind him as he steps outside, both of his lieutenants following him out silently.
The doors close with a heavy, closing-of-a-coffin finality that makes my knees nearly buckle.
The second I’m alone again, fear crashes over me.
What have I done?
Aleksandr Volkov isn’t a man the world whispers about. Tales of disappearances, of brutal retribution carried out without hesitation or remorse. A man who answers defiance with obliteration.
People don’t cross him.
People don’t survive crossing him.
I press the heel of my stinging hand against my mouth, trying to keep the nausea down.
“Oh, God,” I whisper into my palm. “I’m so dead.”
My father will never know what happened to me. He’ll keep waiting for messages that never come. Or worse, he’ll be told I betrayed him. That I chose to run away and never come back. That I disappeared because I wanted to and left him to clean up the mess we both started.
He’ll never know the truth.
That thought guts me.
My legs give out and I slide down to the floor, landing hard on my knees. I lean forward, bracing my palms against the cold marble to steady myself as bile crawls, thick and acidic, up my throat.
Breathe, I tell myself. Think. Plan. Move.
But I can’t. Every time I try to summon the version of me that’s supposed to be clever—the version my father trained, the girl he molded and sharpened into for this exact type of situation—she slips through my fingers like smoke.
All I can see is the look in Aleksandr’s eyes right before he walked out that door.
A patient, quiet interest that told me he was already planning what to do with me and how much he would enjoy the process.
He could kill me tonight. He could make me wait days or weeks, letting the fear hollow me out, letting paranoia gnaw at me until I break myself before he kills me.
Or… he could hurt my father. He could punish him for my insolence.
A choked sound escapes my throat.
“Fuck,” I breathe. I’m so screwed.
Completely.
Utterly.
Irrevocably screwed.