Chapter 6
Galina
Two weeks.
Maybe it’s more than some Bratva daughters get. Maybe it’s less. Who really knows in cases like this? I was traded to prevent a war, and while women have been married off for less, it still sits heavily in the pit of my stomach.
My hands move absently as I pack one of my suitcases, and I look up when the door opens.
“Don’t you knock?”
“Only when I know you won’t tell me to go to hell,” Dad says.
“Whatever you want that corridor for, I hope it’s worth it.”
He sighs heavily. “If I said it is, would it make any difference?”
“No.”
“So, I won’t say anything then. Besides, the less said, the better.”
“That makes me think it goes higher up than all of us.”
“It does.”
“Why not just tell that to Voronov and save us all the drama?”
“If only it were that simple.”
He doesn’t need to say any more. I see where this is going, and I need to not know a single thing more than I already do. Plausible deniability. I know how this shit works.
“I wish your mother were here.”
“Makes two of us.” My hands shake slightly now as I fold and pack. Fold and pack.
“If he lays a hand on you…”
“He will lose it. Mum taught me before you did.”
“That’s my girl.” He crosses to kiss the top of my head, and I let him.
I’m not angry. I’m resigned. I always knew this was my lot in life.
I guess I just got used to living my own life, and now it’s going to be tied to a rival Bratva family, and my husband-to-be is a man who won’t ever take no for an answer.
“He is the safer option,” Dad says as he moves to the door.
“Safer than?”
“One of the others.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I saw the way he looked at you.” He leaves the room, closing the door behind him.
Yeah, I saw it too. I looked back at him the same way. That’s what fills me with fear.
I sit on the edge of the bed and press my fingers to my lips.
I can still feel where he touched me. The warmth of his hand on my chin, the brush of his mouth against mine, the way he said my name like he was claiming it.
I should have pulled away. I should have slapped him.
I should have done anything other than stand there and let Laszlo Voronov kiss me in my father’s doorway like I belonged to him already.
But I didn’t.
And that’s the part that keeps replaying.
I exhale and force my hands to resume their work. I fold each piece with the precision of someone who needs to control something, anything, because everything else has just been ripped out from under me.
I move methodically from one suitcase to the next, and before nightfall, I have three bags packed, plus one with toiletries that I can add to later.
Sitting on the bed, I know Dad will be wondering why I didn’t come down for dinner, but I just don’t have the appetite. I strip off and turn to the shower, just wanting to wash off this day and then crawl into bed, when there is a knock at the door.
“Go away,” I call out.
“There is someone here to see you,” Vasilisa calls back.
“Who?” I ask, wrapping a towel around me and striding to the bedroom door to open it.
I rear back when Laszlo Voronov is standing there with Vasilisa hovering, uncertainly.
“What are you doing here?” I hiss, pulling the towel closer and closing the door a fraction to hide behind.
“You can go,” he says to the housekeeper, who glances at me but decides Laszlo is the more frightening option, and she darts off.
“I will scream,” I say and then realise that was a stupid thing to say when his eyes go darker.
“I’m counting on it,” he murmurs, wrapping his hand around the door’s edge and pushing it slowly.
He is, of course, stronger than me, and I stumble back as he moves into my space, closing the door behind him.
“Get out,” I snap. “My dad will hear about this.”
“Your dad knows I’m up here. He invited me in,” he says easily.
My mouth drops open in horror. My dad just let the devil into my bedroom without warning me. I snap my jaw closed and glare at him. His gaze takes me in head to toe, and then he spies the packed suitcases.
“Good. You’re already packed.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, you’re going to get dressed, and you’re coming with me.”
Fear hits my blood. “Where?” I whisper.
“Home.”
“I am home.”
He smiles, that lazy smile that is somehow more terrifying than if he had glared at me.
He moves a step closer and takes my left hand like it’s already decided.
He slips a ring onto my finger, and I glance down at the weight of it.
An emerald and diamond ring glitters in the lamplight, easily six carats, and I swallow the mouthful of saliva that rushes into my mouth.
“There are three things you need to know, Galina,” he says conversationally, gripping my fingers tightly. “One: you’re mine. Two: you will be protected. Three: If you run, I’ll bring you back.”
I stare at the ring. Then at him. Then back at the ring. It’s obscenely beautiful, and I hate that my first thought is how perfectly it fits.
“You think showing up at my bedroom, acting like a caveman while I’m in a towel, is a power move?”
“No.” His thumb traces across my knuckles, slow and deliberate. “The towel is a bonus.”
I yank my hand free and take a step back, clutching the towel with white-knuckled fingers. “You don’t get to waltz in here and—”
“I do, actually. I’m not leaving you here for two weeks.”
“Why not?”
His expression shifts. The lazy amusement drains out of it, replaced by something harder.
“Because your father just made a deal with Baron Voronov, and every opportunistic piece of shit in London will know about it by morning. You think you’re safe here with a handful of guards and a housekeeper who runs when I look at her? Think again.”
“My father’s men—”
“Are not me.”
My blood spikes. The way he looks at me is chilling.
Not because he’s threatening me. His eyes don’t widen for effect.
His voice doesn’t rise and fall with intimidation.
No, his gaze stays level, his words measured and even, like someone stating that water is wet or fire burns.
As I stand here, clutching my towel, I feel my pulse quicken not with fear but with something worse: recognition.
The same instinct that makes animals seek higher ground before a flood.
“Turn around,” I whisper.
“No.”
“I need to get dressed.”
“Then get dressed.”
“With you standing there?”
“I’ll be standing in a lot of places from now on, Galina. Get used to it.”
My jaw aches from clenching. I consider my options. There aren’t many, but to play him at his own game.
Without taking my gaze from his, I drop the towel. I wait for the inevitable dropping of his gaze to my tits, to my shaven pussy, but he doesn’t look. His lips curve up on one side, and he holds my gaze, making me feel stupid for even trying to play this game with him.
“Nice try,” he says softly.
I want to kill him. I want to kill him slowly and with creativity.
Instead, I turn on my heel and walk to the wardrobe, naked and furious, my skin burning under the weight of a gaze I can feel even though he refused to drop it.
I pull out jeans, a black cashmere jumper, and underwear.
I dress with my back to him because I’m not giving him the satisfaction of watching me fumble with a bra clasp while pretending I’m unbothered.
I’m extremely fucking bothered.
I pull the jumper over my head and tug my hair free, letting it fall around my shoulders. Boots next. Low heel so I can run if this night goes sideways.
When I turn back around, he hasn’t moved. He’s standing exactly where I left him, hands in the pockets of his Tom Ford suit, watching me with an expression that’s possession and lust.
“Happy?”
“You are being compliant, Galina. Compliance makes me happy.”
“I’ll remember that,” I spit out, grabbing my phone from the nightstand and shoving it into my back pocket. “I’m not leaving without speaking to my father.”
“He’s downstairs waiting to say goodbye. There are men waiting to load your suitcases.”
The word goodbye hits differently than it should. This isn’t goodbye. It’s a handover. A transfer of ownership from one dangerous man to another, dressed up in cashmere and a six-carat emerald.
Let them call it ownership. I will make them learn the difference between possessing me and keeping me.
I look at my packed suitcases and the half-empty toiletry bag. “You will wait until I’m done,” I say, picking it up and taking it into the en-suite.
I take my time. Not because I need to, but because it’s the only rebellion I have left. I gather my moisturiser, my perfume, my makeup bag, my toothbrush. I check the over-the-sink cabinet twice for things I’ve already packed. I line each item neatly in the bag and zip it with deliberate slowness.
When I step back into the bedroom, Laszlo is exactly where I left him, which shouldn’t surprise me. Men like him don’t fidget. They wait like predators, endlessly patient, conserving energy for the moment it matters.
“Done,” I say flatly.
He nods once and opens the bedroom door, stepping aside to let me pass first. A gentleman’s gesture from a man who is anything but. He holds out my blade before I walk through. I snatch it from him with a hiss, not even daring to look at the expression on his face.
“Don’t touch my things.”
“Thought you might need it.”
“Risk-taker, are we?”
“Hopeful,” he says in a way that heats my blood and makes my clit twitch.
“Yeah, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” I stride past him, head held high.
My father is at the bottom of the stairs, waiting.
When we reach the bottom, two of Laszlo’s men head up to get my bags. They move efficiently, silently, the way men do when they’ve been trained not to draw attention.
“You’re allowing this?” I ask stiffly.
“It’s for the best,” he says.
“For all the reasons he said?”
“Yes.”
I grit my teeth. Of course he laid it all out for my father like a master plan.