4. Alina
ALINA
I’m still in the dress when the house goes quiet.
The pins in my hair are biting my scalp, my feet ache, and the ring on my finger feels heavier than it should. I stand in front of the mirror in the suite they’ve decided is “mine” and stare at myself until my eyes go unfocused.
Wife.
It sounds fake in my head, and the more I repeat it, the more it turns into a joke someone else gets to laugh at.
I tug at the bodice until I can breathe properly, then I make myself stop. If I rip it, they’ll call it a tantrum. If I cry, they’ll call it weakness. If I sit on the floor in a white dress and panic, they’ll call it entertainment.
So I do none of that.
I walk to the balcony doors, check the lock, check it again, then stand there with my forehead against the cold glass until my breathing settles.
Beyond the doors, there’s a garden that belongs to this family, manicured and guarded and useless to me.
The guards in the hall haven’t moved all night.
I can hear them shift only when I shift, like they’re tied to me by an invisible line.
Earlier, in the church, Mikhail’s hand closed around mine and didn’t shake.
At the reception, he watched every man who looked at me longer than a second.
He didn’t touch me, not even to pretend, but his eyes did more than hands would have.
Now he’s chosen not to come near me, and somehow, that feels like another kind of punishment.
I finally get the dress off on my own, because no one will be in here to help me.
I fold it the way I was taught to fold things I couldn’t afford, then I put it on the chair so it stays smooth.
When I’m down to a slip, my skin prickles with the memory of his gaze and the way it makes me feel exposed.
I hate that I noticed the hard line of his shoulders and that my body stays awake even when my brain wants to shut down.
I wash my face, brush my teeth, put my hair into a rough braid, and change into the robe the staff left out, the fabric soft against my skin in a way that makes me angry because softness isn’t meant for me right now. Then I sit on the edge of the bed and listen to the house.
Nothing.
Then, a sound from the hall. Footsteps that don’t pause outside the other doors. Footsteps that stop outside mine.
The knock comes once, firm and short.
My heart jumps anyway. I hate that too.
I stand, even though my knees don’t want to, and I cross the room without rushing. If I run to the door, it looks like fear. If I hesitate, it looks like rebellion.
I open it.
Mikhail stands there fully dressed, no tie, collar open, his suit jacket gone. His hair is slightly messier than earlier, and it does something unfair to my stomach. His eyes don’t soften at the sight of me. If anything, they harden.
He steps into the room without asking.
I close the door because I know the guards will not stop him and I refuse to give them a front-row view of whatever this is.
“What?” I say, and my voice sounds rough.
Mikhail turns slightly and looks at the lock, then looks back at me. “You wanted a lock.”
“You gave me one,” I reply.
His mouth twitches once, not a smile. “It wasn’t a gift.”
I don’t move. I keep my hands at my sides. “Why are you here?”
He doesn’t answer immediately. He walks farther into the room, eyes scanning it the same way he scans everything, then he stops near the foot of the bed and finally looks at me properly.
The anger in his face is controlled, but it’s still anger. It sits in his jaw and in the set of his shoulders. It sits in his hands, the way his fingers curl and uncurl once, then still.
“Your father promised you twice,” he says.
For a second, my brain refuses to understand the words.
I stare at him. “What?”
He repeats it, slower, like I’m stupid. “He sold you twice.”
My throat closes so fast, I choke on my own breath. I swallow hard and force air back in. “No.”
Mikhail’s eyes don’t flicker. “Yes.”
“That’s not possible,” I snap, because if I let the thought in, I will break. “He couldn’t. He didn’t.”
“He did,” Mikhail insists. “I found his record.”
My hands go cold. “Record?”
“A register,” he replies coldly. “He kept track of what he traded, who he owed, who he promised.”
I shake my head hard. “You’re lying.”
“If I wanted to lie to you,” he says, voice menacingly low, “I’d pick something that benefits me.”
“This benefits you,” I shoot back. “It gives you a new reason to keep me here.”
His gaze drops to my mouth, then back to my eyes, and the movement is so deliberate it makes heat crawl up my neck. “You’re here because you’re mine,” he says. “This changes who else thinks they have a claim.”
I press my nails into my palms until it stings. “My father’s debts were small.”
Mikhail’s brows lift in amusement and he almost snorts. “You silly child. That’s what he told you.”
“He couldn’t have been involved in this,” I say, voice shaking now. I hate that it shakes. “He was stupid, not evil.”
Mikhail watches me in silence that feels pointed. He lets me talk myself into a corner. “He loved me,” I say, because I need to say it, even if it sounds childish.
Mikhail takes one step closer. “Then he loved himself more.”
The words land clean and sharp, and my eyes burn. I look away first, forcing myself to breathe through it and face him again. “Who is the other man?”
The question is out before I can stop it, and I watch his face carefully as I ask it. Mikhail’s eyes narrow slightly. “Why do you care?”
“Because if you’re going to stand in my room at midnight and say my life was sold twice,” I retort, keeping my tone steady through sheer will, “I want to know who else thinks they own me.”
His gaze holds mine for a long beat.
Then he says, “I don’t know yet.”
Something in my chest loosens and tightens at the same time.
He doesn’t know.
He’s furious, but he’s missing a piece. He’s used to walking into rooms already holding the answers, and now he’s in my room holding a question he can’t solve.
I don’t let my face show the relief. I don’t let him see that I just found a small weapon.
I nod once, as if I’m processing. “So you came to accuse me of something you can’t even name.”
Mikhail’s jaw flexes. “I came to tell you your father put a target on your back.”
“I already have a target,” I say, and I lift my hand and tap the ring once. “You gave me one.”
His eyes drop to the ring, then rise. “I put my name on you to keep you alive.”
“Is that what you call this?” I ask. “Keeping me alive?”
He steps closer again, close enough that I can smell him, the clean bite of his cologne and the heat of his skin. “Do you want the truth,” he asks, “or do you want comfort?”
I swallow. My body responds to him even now, even with my throat tight and my eyes burning. It’s infuriating. “I want information.”
His mouth twitches again. “Ask.”
I force myself to stay still. “How does it work?”
Mikhail’s eyes don’t move from my face. “Explain.”
“You say my father promised me twice,” I say, keeping my voice as calm as I can. “What does that mean in your world? Is it a contract, blackmail, or debt that transfers like property?”
His stare gets heavier. I can feel him assessing me, deciding whether I’m playing or panicking.
He answers anyway. “It’s leverage,” he says. “Men trade leverage. Your father didn’t have money, so he traded you.”
My stomach turns. I keep going because stopping means crying. “And the other man,” I say. “If he thinks he has a claim, what does he do? He comes to you. He comes to me. He tries to take me.”
Mikhail’s eyes sharpen. “He won’t take you.”
That possessiveness hits hard, a mix of threat and something else that makes my pulse trip. It isn’t comforting, not really, but it fills the room. “You don’t know that,” I say, my voice growing thin with rising panic. “You don’t even know his name.”
A beat of silence.
Mikhail’s voice drops. “If he tries, he dies.”
I hold his gaze. “And if he already shot your brother?”
The words hang between us.
Mikhail doesn’t move, but something in his face shifts. “Is that what you think?” he asks. “That this unknown man killed Sergei?”
“I don’t know what to think,” I say, and that part is true. “I know Sergei walked into my life and died in front of me. Then you took me and married me to make a point. If there’s another man involved, that changes everything.”
Mikhail’s eyes narrow. “It changes the list of suspects.”
I take a slow breath. “If you don’t know who he is, then maybe I do.”
His gaze locks. “Do you?”
“I don’t know yet,” I say carefully, and I watch him react to the honesty. “But I can think. I can remember. My father took calls he wouldn’t take in front of me. He met men who didn’t come inside. He had friends he didn’t name.”
Mikhail’s head tilts slightly, like he’s listening now in a different way.
I keep going, because momentum matters. “If you want the name, you need me more awake than scared. You need me to talk.”
His eyes drop to my mouth again, then back up. “You talk anyway,” he says. “Fear or no fear.”
“Not well,” I reply. “And not fast.”
For a second, I think he’s going to snap at me.
Instead, he steps back half a pace, and the loss of his heat feels strange, like my body noticed before my brain did.
“What do you want?” he asks.
There it is. The negotiation. The part where I get a sliver of room.
“I want to call my mother,” I say immediately.
Mikhail’s eyes harden. “No.”
My chest tightens. “You promised she’d be safe.”
“She's safe.”
“Then let me hear her voice,” I push, and my voice rises on the last words. I rein it in fast. “Ten minutes. Guards on the line. Whatever you need.”
Mikhail stares at me in silence.
Then he says, “Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow is not a guarantee,” I say, and I hate that desperation is there, but I can’t stop it. “Everything in my life has turned into tomorrow. My father kept saying tomorrow. Now he’s dead.”
Mikhail’s jaw tightens. “Don’t use grief as a weapon on me.”
I laugh once, short and ugly. “What else do I have?”