Chapter 11 Inessa
INESSA
I'm mixing charcoal with fixative when a knock at the door startles me.
The art room door opens before I can even turn, and Kirill steps inside.
His usual composed expression wavers when he sees me hunched over the easel, my hands stained black from the drawing.
It's how I cope, getting lost in the art, and now I'm being interrupted.
I'm not fond of interruptions.
"What?" I don't look up from the sketch—a design for a winter coat that will never be made, for a collection that may never exist.
Maybe it's my inner self trying to tell the world how cold this place seems.
"There's been another incident, Mrs. Gravitch."
The charcoal stick crumbles between my fingers as he says that name.
It still infuriates me that they call me that.
It's not my name, and I won't accept it.
"Another incident?" I ask, dropping the broken pieces and turning to face him.
"Your second warehouse. The Nevsky location." He shifts his weight, seeming uncomfortable with delivering bad news.
Though I know the Gravitch men. They don't shy away from horrible things.
"Fire started around three this morning, and it was a total loss."
The easel tilts as I push back from it, sending the drawing pad sliding to the floor.
"What about the people? The employees?" My first thought isn't my stock or my business, but the men and women who work tirelessly for me to build our dream.
Getting wrapped up in this mess with the Gravitch family has put a target on my business, and I'm so angry about it.
"Three hospitalized with smoke inhalation and burns. They're receiving medical treatment."
My legs give out.
I sink into the chair behind me, staring at the ruined sketch scattered at my feet.
Two warehouses are gone, and now my people—real people with families, with rent to pay, with lives that depended on the work I gave them—are lying in hospital beds because of Yuri Gravitch.
There is no doubt in my mind that this would never have happened if they'd have left me alone.
"I need to see them."
I stand, reaching for my coat draped over the back of the chair. "The hospital—"
"You're not leaving the compound."
His hand rises in a motion to halt, and I scowl at him in anger.
"They're my responsibility. My employees. They trusted me to keep them safe, and now—"
"Boss's orders. You stay here."
His hands clasp in front of him, and his chest puffs out as if he himself were the door through which I must pass and he has no intention of allowing that to happen.
I move around him toward the door, but he blocks my path.
His wiry frame seems larger in the doorway, and his hand rests near the weapon at his hip.
"Get out of my way."
I stomp my foot at him, and he lifts one corner of his lip in an amused smirk.
"Can't do that."
"This isn't a request. Those are my people in those hospital beds."
My hands flail out in anger, but his response is the same stubborn ass smirk.
"And you're the boss's wife. That takes priority."
The title sits wrong in my thoughts, and I grit my teeth against the desire to spit on him.
I'm not just Inessa anymore—the woman who built something from nothing, who fought for every contract and every sale.
I'm the boss's wife.
Property.
A fucking chess piece moved around the board for other people's benefit.
And I hate it.
So much so that I intend to put this to a stop right now.
"Where is he?" I snip, letting my gaze darken to a glare.
"The office," he says, but he's barely finished before I'm moving.
I push past Kirill, and he doesn't stop me this time.
I march out into the hallway of what Yuri calls "our home", but this is the least home-like place I've ever been.
I hate it almost as much as I hate the situation.
Rosa emerges from the kitchen carrying a tray of tea, takes one look at my face, and retreats.
Even she realizes I'm on a warpath, and no one, not even Oleg, stands in my way as I approach.
I don't knock on Yuri's office door.
I barge right in and let the door slam shut behind me.
He sits behind his massive desk, reviewing files on dual monitors.
A security feed flickers on one screen—views of the compound perimeter, the front gate, the garden paths.
He doesn't acknowledge my entrance or look up from whatever business consumes his attention, and the storm in his eyes haunts me, but I approach anyway.
"Another warehouse burned," I spit, and I strut right up to his desk.
He still doesn't look up at me.
His fingers continue moving across the keyboard. "I'm aware."
"Three people are in the hospital."
"I've made arrangements for their care."
Finally, his eyes flick up at me, but only for a second, and my fingers curl into fists under my arms.
"Arrangements."
The word tastes bitter.
"They're not inventory, Yuri. They're people who worked for me, who fucking trusted me."
I squeeze my hands so tight my fingernails bite into my palms, but I don't lash out yet.
"And now they're casualties of the world you married into."
Now his eyes trace up across my body and lock on my face, but the amused smirk I saw on Oleg's face isn't on Yuri's face.
All I see there is anger.
I step closer to his desk, rage building in my chest. "I want to see them."
"No."
He turns back to his monitor as if to ignore my request.
"They're scared. They don't understand what's happening. The least I can do—"
"The least you can do is stay alive."
He looks up again, his dark eyes raking over my skin.
It makes me flush with anger and a touch of attraction when his eyes linger on my chest for a second.
"Visiting hospitals makes you a target."
"I'm already a target. My warehouses prove that."
The urge to snap is extreme, but I control myself because I know fighting him will only make this harder.
"Your warehouses aren't the target. You are."
"Because your enemies think I'm fair game now. If you'd have left me the fuck alone, I wouldn't be suffering these attacks."
I'm seething now, unable to contain my rage anymore.
"Or is this your doing? To keep me under control?"
"You think I orchestrated attacks on your property?"
He chuckles a dark, morbid sound that I hate, and I want to slap him.
I stomp around the end of his desk because I'm not going to just stand here and have him disrespect me and not do something about it.
"I think you'd do whatever serves your interests. And a wife with her own empire is harder to control than one who has nothing left but you."
My hands hang loose at my sides, and he stands slowly, his full height towering over me.
The temperature in the room drops, and I realize I may have pushed too far.
"You believe I would burn down buildings and hospitalize innocent people to make you more compliant?"
The incremental way he leans toward me and the tiny, measured step he takes make me shudder.
"I believe you'd sacrifice anyone if it meant consolidating your power."
"Including you?"
His hands brace on either side of me, trapping me against the edge of his desk.
"If I wanted you destroyed, you would be ash by now."
The sweet scent of whiskey dusts my cheeks as he speaks.
"Maybe you want me broken instead. Easier to handle."
I'm uncomfortable here, feeling the heat of his gaze radiating across my skin.
It makes me feel things I don't want to.
I should not be attracted to or aroused by this man.
But here I am with my body nearly trembling for him again.
"I want you alive."
His eyes bear down on me, and I turn my head to the side so I don't have to look into their dark depths.
"Why? So you can parade me around as proof of your successful alliance? So you can point to your obedient wife and show the world how completely you've tamed the Mirova empire?"
"Because the alternative is watching you die."
His voice carries an edge I haven't heard before—something raw beneath the usual control.
But I'm too angry to analyze it because if I let myself relax from that angry stance, I might crumble and let him actually touch me.
"Better dead than caged," I snip, and he clicks his tongue.
"You don't mean that."
"Don't I?"
My fingers twitch, my chest growing tight.
"At least the dead don't have to watch their life's work turn to ash while they sit in pretty rooms doing nothing."
The menacing way he leans over me is too much, too close to be comfortable.
I reach up and slap him hard, and he chuckles.
Actually fucking laughs at me.
Every muscle in my body tightens, coiled to strike, and the smirk disappears from his face.
His hands capture my wrists, pinning them behind my back as he presses me against the desk.
The edge digs into my thighs, and I can feel every line of his body through the thin fabric of my dress.
"Let go," I hiss.
"No," he growls, and I know there's no way I will ever be able to free myself.
I struggle against his grip, but he's immovable.
"You can't keep me locked up forever."
"Can't I?"
His mouth hovers inches from mine, his breathing steady while mine comes in short, angry bursts.
He's too strong to fight.
Too powerful to manipulate.
Too dangerous to run from.
And my body is melting at the idea of how thoroughly he satisfied me the last time I spat in his face.
My mind yo-yos, wrestling between the urge to bite him and the need swelling between my legs.
"I hate you," I snarl.
"I know."
"I'll never stop fighting this."
"Good."
His grip on my wrists tightens.
"I don't want you broken. I like feisty Inessa Gravitch."
His words make fire race through my veins.
Never in my life have I met a more infuriating man, and this one, nearly twice my age, seems to think he owns me.
And my fucking God, do I want him to own me.
Gone is any rational thought about my business or my employees and the only coherent thing I can latch on to is how desperately I need to be touched.
His hot breath on my skin, the throb of my pulse in my neck, and the press of his cock on my thigh are hypnotizing.
What the fuck is he doing to me?
It's like he's drugged me and I can't resist him.
"We have nothing more to discuss."