Chapter 5 Inessa
INESSA
Morning comes whether I want it to or not, and I force myself to dress and go into the studio to finish up a few things before I take a few days off to grieve.
Everything appears exactly as I left it yesterday—the mannequins draped in my latest designs, the fabric samples arranged by color and texture, the sketch boards propped against the walls displaying next season's collection.
But the familiarity feels wrong now, hollow.
The space that once pulsed with creative energy now feels mausoleum-quiet.
I push through the glass doors, and the soft chime that usually welcomes me sounds mournful today.
My employees look up from their workstations with expressions I've never seen before—a mixture of sympathy, curiosity, and fear.
Word travels fast, especially when blood is spilled in broad daylight.
They know about Batya and Dominic.
They know their jobs depend on a twenty-three-year-old woman whose world imploded twelve hours ago.
"Good morning, Inessa." Marina, my head seamstress, approaches carefully.
Her usually bright smile is subdued, her eyes red-rimmed. "We're so sorry about your father."
The condolences feel necessary but painful.
Each one reminds me that Batya will never walk through these doors again.
He'll never inspect my latest sketches with that critical eye, never argue with me about profit margins while secretly proud of what I've built.
The grief sits in my chest like a boulder, but I force myself to nod and murmur appropriate responses.
"Thank you. We need to keep working. Batya would want us to keep working," I tell her, but even as I say the words, I can see the doubt in their faces.
They've heard whispers about the Gravitch family, about what happens to businesses that get tangled up with men who solve problems with violence.
They're wondering if their paychecks will clear, if their jobs will survive whatever storm is coming.
I walk to my office, a glass-walled space that overlooks the main work floor.
My drafting table is covered with sketches.
I gather them up and shove them into a drawer, but not before one catches my eye.
A wedding dress, one of the alternate designs I drew up for my dress when the idea of marrying Dominic felt more forced.
I hate it.
The memory of drawing it brings back the taste of defeat, the moment I realized Yuri Gravitch has me trapped.
"Inessa?" Alina hovers in the doorway.
Her young face is pale, and she clutches a tablet against her chest. "I need to speak with you about the orders."
I sink into my desk chair and gesture for her to continue.
But her expression already tells me everything I need to know.
"Bergdorf Goodman called this morning. They're pulling their spring order." Alina's voice quavers.
"They cited security concerns about working with us during this… transition period."
The words hit me in the stomach.
Bergdorf Goodman represents thirty percent of our American sales, a relationship I spent two years building through late-night phone calls and countless revisions to meet their exacting standards.
"What about Harrods?"
"They called twenty minutes later. Same reason."
"And Galeries Lafayette?" My heart is sinking further with every pronouncement, unraveling one thread at a time.
Alina nods miserably.
"All three major buyers. They're not canceling permanently, they say. Just postponing until things stabilize."
I close my eyes and try to calculate what this means.
Three major buyers pulling orders represents more than half our projected revenue for next year.
Without that income, I can't pay suppliers, can't meet payroll, can't keep the lights on.
The dominos are already falling, exactly as Yuri predicted.
"There's more," Alina continues.
"I tried to call our lawyer this morning about the estate issues, but his office said he's no longer representing us. Something about conflicts of interest."
My eyes snap open.
"What conflicts of interest?"
"He wouldn't say. But when I pressed, his secretary mentioned that all our corporate accounts have been frozen pending resolution of the issue."
The room tilts sideways.
I grip the edge of my desk, feeling the polished wood beneath my palms, using the physical sensation to anchor myself.
Yuri's people have been busy.
While I was sketching funeral dresses and drowning in grief, he was systematically dismantling my ability to fight back.
"What? This is my company. I don't understand."
My mind is reeling.
Just because my father died does not mean I can't keep my business functioning.
I've been on my own for more than two years now.
This is ludicrous.
"I don't know. The secretary just said all assets are frozen until the matter is resolved through proper legal channels."
Proper legal channels controlled by judges who can be bought, lawyers who know which way the wind blows, bureaucrats who understand the difference between a signature and a death sentence.
Yuri has played this game for decades.
I'm a child fumbling with weapons I don't understand.
Alina retreats, leaving me alone with the magnitude of my situation.
I pull up our financial accounts on my computer, but every screen shows the same message, Account access restricted pending legal review.
My business bank accounts, my personal savings, the emergency funds I set aside for exactly this type of crisis—all of it beyond my reach.
The rage builds slowly, starting as a low burn in my chest and spreading outward until my hands shake with it.
I spent three years clawing my way up from a girl with a sewing machine to a designer whose work has graced international runways.
I fought for every contract, every client, every square foot of this showroom.
And now a man I barely know is stealing it all because he has more guns and fewer scruples.
I grab the crystal paperweight from my desk—a gift from Batya when I signed my first major deal.
The weight feels good in my palm, and for a moment, I imagine hurling it at Yuri's face, watching his blood splatter across one of those expensive suits.
But my eyes prick with tears and my shaking hand drops the damn thing, and it falls to the concrete and shatters, ripping one more thing from my life that Batya gave me.
I jump back, startled, and let the tears pour from my eyes.
"Inessa! Are you hurt?"
I stare at the glittering fragments scattered around my feet.
Each piece catches the light differently, creating tiny rainbows among the destruction.
Beautiful and broken and completely useless.
"I'm fine. Just… clumsy." I sniffle, wiping my eyes.
This can't be happening.
It feels like a nightmare, and all I want is for Batya to walk through those doors and tell me it's a joke.
Marina doesn't believe me, but she fetches a broom anyway and doesn't question me.
I watch her sweep up the remains of my father's gift, each shard disappearing into the dustpan.
Another piece of my old life erased.
Through the glass wall of my office, I can see my employees huddled together, whispering.
They keep glancing toward the front windows, and when I follow their gaze, I see why.
Three black cars are parked across the street, dark figures visible behind tinted glass.
Yuri's men, making sure I don't run or do anything stupid.
My phone buzzes from in my pocket and I pull it out to see Yuri's number on the screen.
My stomach clenches, and I let it ring four times before answering.
"What do you want?"
"Good morning to you too, Wife."
The word 'wife' makes my skin crawl.
He's a disgusting man with no right to do what he's doing.
"I'm not your wife."
"A technicality we'll correct tomorrow."
Papers rustle in the background.
"I trust you've had time to consider your situation."
"You mean the situation where you've stolen my company and bribed my lawyer?"
"I've done nothing but protect our mutual interests. Your accounts are frozen to prevent any… impulsive decisions during your difficult time."
"My difficult time? You're the one who created this mess."
"I didn't pull the trigger, Inessa."
His voice drops to a low register and it makes me cringe.
"But I'm the one offering you a way out."
Of course Yuri didn't have his own son killed.
He might be the Devil incarnate, but he felt the loss of his son the way I feel the loss of my father.
I saw it in his eyes even if he won't admit it.
I close my eyes and press my free hand against my forehead.
My employees are watching me, waiting to see if their boss will hold everything together or fall apart completely.
"What do you want?" I repeat.
"Come to me tonight. We need to discuss wedding arrangements."
"I'm not coming anywhere near you."
"Then I suppose those buyers were right to cancel their orders. Who wants to work with an unstable company run by an irrational woman?"
The violent anger I felt only moments ago as I learned my major buyers are backing out already surges to my chest with renewed vigor.
More buyers will withdraw.
More contracts will disappear.
My company will die by inches while I watch helplessly.
"You bastard."
"Perhaps. But I'm a bastard who can save your business."
His tone shifts, becomes almost conversational.
"Seven o'clock tonight. My driver will collect you."
"I won't—"
"You will. Because the alternative is watching everything you've built crumble into dust."
The line goes quiet for a moment.
"I'd rather have a willing partner than a broken one, Inessa. But willing or broken, you'll be my wife on Thursday."
The call ends, leaving me staring at the phone in my shaking hand.
The rage has transformed into something colder now, more calculating.
He's backing me into a corner, cutting off every avenue of escape until marriage becomes the only path forward.
I dial Alina's number with fumbling fingers, and before it even rings thrice, she's standing in my office.
Her eyes flick to Marina who is stooped over, picking up the glass.
I see a brief flash of recognition and then she turns to me, letting Marina stand and pass by her to the outer office before she closes the door and then speaks.
"How are you holding up?" she asks.
"I'm not."
The words come out broken.
"He's destroying everything. The buyers are gone, the accounts are frozen, my lawyer won't take my calls. I can't even pay my employees."
"Can you fight it? Take him to court?" Alina crosses to my desk and perches on the edge while I sink back into my chair and bury my face in my hands.
"With what money? And which court? He probably owns half the judges in St. Petersburg."
I lean back in my seat and stare at the ceiling.
"He wants me to come to his house tonight. To discuss wedding arrangements."
"You can't go there alone…" Her voice is breathy.
Even she is anxious about this.
The most powerful criminal in the city is demanding audience with me tonight.
I'm right to be terrified.
"I don't have a choice. If I refuse, he'll make sure I lose everything. If I go…" I trail off, unable to finish the thought.
"If you go, you might find a way to negotiate. To salvage something from this mess."
"Or I might not come back at all."
Alina's silence is painful.
We both know how this ends.
If I don’t show up, he'll just come chase me down.
When she finally speaks, her voice is gentle.
"You built your company once. You could build another one."
"Not from nothing. Batya gave me seed money. I don’t have investors." The exhaustion hits me suddenly, bone-deep and overwhelming.
"I'm twenty-three, Alina. I don't have another decade to spend clawing my way back to where I am now."
Besides the fact that all of my money, including personal funds that have nothing to do with my businesses, has been frozen.
I can't support myself without access to provisions.
"So, what's the alternative?" she asks, and I sit straighter.
I look around my office, taking in the sketches on the walls, the fabric samples scattered across my desk.
All of it represents years of work, thousands of hours spent bent over drafting tables and sewing machines, countless nights dreaming of building something that would last.
"The alternative is accepting that sometimes, survival looks different from we planned."
"You mean marrying him."
"I mean doing whatever it takes to protect what's mine."
The words feel foreign, but they're true.
The idea of marrying that bastard makes my stomach roll.
There has to be another way, but the only way to know that is if I show up at his house for dinner the way he asked.
"Inessa…" she cautions, but I stand and smooth my hands down the front of my slacks.
Grieving or not, I have to fight for what's mine or lose it.
"I'll be fine. I promise. Now, let's get this place ship shape. I need to take a few days off to plan the wake."
The knot in the pit of my stomach tightens as I think of being forced to greet mourners and put my father's body in the ground.
"And we need to think of the staff."
Alina nods at me, but her expression is tight.
She knows I'm putting on my war paint, and there's nothing she can say to make me change my mind.
I will go to dinner with Yuri Gravitch and I will fight to disentangle my world from his, one way or another.
And if it doesn't work, I will call my mother for support.
If I don't, I will end up calling him my husband, and that's a future I don't think I can survive.