Chapter Three
Mila’s POV
The walls of Anya’s bedroom were covered in silk, a delicate champagne color that should feel soothing but it didn’t. The walls felt like a cage to me.
I paced the length of the Persian rug, my bare toes digging into the intricate weave. Every few seconds, I glanced at the heavy oak door, half-expecting to see the shadows of armed guards passing by in the hallway. In this house—this fortress—every shadow carries a weapon.
It was the morning after my best friend’s ruined party, and my restlessness had kept both of us awake since dawn.
“Mila, please. You’re going to wear a hole in the floor.”
I stopped to look at Anya. My best friend was sitting on the edge of the bed, her engagement ring—the reason we were all celebrating before the world turned to ash—glinting under the chandelier.
She looked exhausted, yet there was a calmness in her eyes that frightened me.
It was the calmness of someone who had grown up in a house where the sound of gunfire was just another part of the ambiance.
“He wants to marry me, Anya,” I whispered. “He didn’t ask. He didn’t suggest. He told me.”
“He’s trying to save your life,” Anya said softly, rising to walk toward me.
She reached out, taking my cold hands in hers.
“Yes, he’s a Lobanov. He’s cruel when he needs to be, and God knows he’s a tyrant when he wants something, but he’s a good man.
He’s a good brother. He knows how to protect what belongs to him. ”
I pulled my hands away, a sharp laugh escaping my throat. “That’s the problem, Anya! What belongs to him. I am not a car. I am not shipping territory in the Mediterranean. I am a person. I don’t want to belong to anyone.”
“If what we hear is true, the Morettis don’t see you as a person,” Anya countered, her voice gaining a hard edge. “They see you as a target. A way to settle a ten-year-old debt. If you leave this house as Mila Petrov, you won’t make it to the end of the block.”
I turned away from her and walked to the window.
The estate was sprawling, manicured, and terrifyingly silent.
I thought about my father. Lev Petrov. The man I thought was a simple construction worker until I caught him with a gun, and he told me he helped punish bad people.
The man who suddenly disappeared without so much as a goodbye, knowing fully well that I didn’t have anyone else in the world.
All those years without closure, of mourning a man who didn’t exist, only to find out he had painted a target on my back before he died.
A ghost who left a trail of blood that eventually led straight to my door.
“I’ve seen this world, Anya,” I said, my voice trembling.
“My dad got into it, and it consumed him to the point of disappearing without a trace. I had to assume he was dead, Anya. And then, somehow, I entered the professional orbit of the Bratva again. I audited the books for the Lobanov charities. I saw the ‘donations’ that came from nowhere. I saw the way the numbers moved to hide the bodies. I quit that job because I wanted peace. I’m getting my Master’s of Psychology so I can help people heal, not…
not join a dynasty built on breaking them. ”
Anya came up behind me, resting a hand on my shoulder. “If there is anyone who has the spine to handle all of this, it’s you, Mila. You’ve always been the strongest person I know. You’re the one who kept me grounded when my family’s world got too loud.”
“I don’t want to be strong,” I whispered. “I just want to be invisible.”
But as the words left my lips, a memory flashed behind my eyes. The balcony. The smell of smoke and expensive cologne. The way the masked man’s grip had bruised my arm before Alexei arrived. The fear that overwhelmed me and the sharp relief that wrapped around me when he rescued me.
And then, I thought back to the heat.
Before the explosions, before the screaming started, when Alexei had found me on the balcony.
When he had looked at me with those sharp hazel eyes and kissed me.
It was the taste of whiskey and darkness, and it had made my bones feel like they were melting.
Even now, through the terror, my skin hummed where he’d touched me.
A sharp knock at the door made me jump.
The door opened, and the air in the room suddenly felt heavier. Alexei stood there, his auburn hair swept back, his three-piece suit pristine, as if he hadn’t spent hours in an interrogation room. The tattoos on his hands, a map of his violent life, peeked out from beneath his cuffs.
Had I ever noticed his tattoos?
Anya looked between us, bit her lip, and slipped out of the room without a word.
“You look like you’re contemplating jumping,” Alexei said, his voice a low, melodic rumble. He didn’t move toward me. He just stood there, commanding the space.
“Maybe a fall would be safer than staying here,” I snapped. My fear was curdling into a hot, defensive rage. “You’re a monster, Alexei. You’re a control freak. You’re a tyrant who thinks he can buy and sell people like commodities.”
He took every word in silence. His expression didn’t flicker. He didn’t even look angry. He looked… efficient.
“I’ve been called worse by better people,” he answered calmly. He finally moved, walking slowly toward me. I backed away, but the window was behind me. I was trapped. “Are you finished?”
“No! You’re forcing me into a marriage! This is the twenty-first century, not some medieval fiefdom.”
“In this city, for people like us, it is exactly a medieval fiefdom,” he said, stopping just inches from me. I could perceive the scent of his cologne. “This isn’t about your choices, Mila. This isn’t about your ‘life plan’ or your degree. This is about survival. Pure and simple.”
“You’re using that as an excuse to own me,” I accused, my voice lower than I intended.
“I am using the only leverage I have to keep you from being gutted and left in a dumpster,” he retorted, his voice finally losing its chill, flaring with a brief, white-hot intensity. “The Italians are already regrouping. The way, the only way, they back off is if you are a Lobanov. My wife.”
“I hate you,” I whispered.
But my body was a damn traitor. As he loomed over me, the tremor in my bones wasn’t just fear. It was a terrifying, magnetic pull toward the very danger he represented. I hated the way my pulse spiked when his hazel eyes dropped to my mouth.
“Hate me all you want,” he said, leaning down so his face was level with mine. “It will mean you’re still alive. You can walk out of this estate right now. I’ll even have Dimitri drive you. But the moment you leave my sight, you’re dead. Is that the choice you’d rather make?”
I looked into his eyes, searching for a lie, a hint of a bluff. I found nothing but the cold, hard reality of a man who had already decided the future.
“You’re forcing my hand,” I pointed out, my voice reflecting the brokenness I felt inside.
“I am,” he admitted, his thumb grazing the line of my jaw. The touch was surprisingly light, almost reverent, contrasting with the brutality of his words. “And I’m doing it for you.”
The silence stretched between us, thick with everything I couldn’t admit. I thought of the man in the ballroom. I thought of the blood on my dress. I thought of the way Alexei felt like a shield when the world exploded. But my foremost thought was fear. It had a way of making decisions for me.
“Okay,” I whispered. “Yes.”
He didn’t celebrate or smile. He simply nodded, as if we’d just finalized a shipping manifesto. “Good. Stay in this wing. I’ll have the papers and the priest brought here to the estate.”
He turned and walked out, leaving the door open this time—a silent reminder that while I was “safe,” I was no longer free.
Later that day, after the house had settled into an uneasy quiet, I stood in front of the full-length mirror in the dressing room.
I gazed at my reflection—the pale girl with the chestnut hair and the haunted hazel eyes. I looked small. I looked like a victim.
I reached up, touching my lips where I could still feel the ghost of his kiss, even after several hours.
My fingers trembled, but my gaze hardened.
“This isn’t love,” I whispered to the empty room. “This is war.”