Chapter Nine
Mila’s POV
I woke with soreness between my thighs and warmth against my spine.
For a moment, I didn’t move. I just lay there in the pre-dawn gray, feeling the weight of Alexei’s arm draped across my waist like a chain disguised as an embrace. His breath was steady against the back of my neck, deep and even in a way that told me he was still asleep.
It was strange, knowing that this man—this carefully controlled, dangerous man—was vulnerable like this. That he trusted me enough to let his guard down, even unconsciously.
I stared at the ornate crown molding on the ceiling, trying to reconcile the quiet, careful man who touched me last night with the cold crime boss who made me marry him.
The hands that explored every inch of my body with something close to reverence were the same hands that negotiated my future like a business transaction.
The mouth that whispered my name against my skin was the same mouth that gave orders that ended lives.
The eyes that softened when I came apart beneath him are the same eyes that watch people with the clinical detachment of a predator deciding whether they’re prey or not worth the effort.
Who is he, really?
And who am I becoming by wanting him anyway?
The soreness was a reminder of what we did.
My body carried the evidence of him—the slight ache, the faint marks on my hips where his fingers gripped too hard in the moment, the tender feeling that comes with being thoroughly claimed.
I should be horrified. I should’ve felt trapped, used, like I’d somehow betrayed myself by giving in to this. But I didn’t.
Instead, I felt… awake. Like I’d been sleepwalking through my life and suddenly crashed into something real, sharp, and impossible to ignore.
Alexei shifted behind me, his arm tightening reflexively around my waist, and I held my breath. But he didn’t wake. He just pulled me closer, his body curving around mine with a possessiveness that should make me want to run. But it didn’t.
God help me, it didn’t.
A moment later, I slipped out of bed as carefully as I could, extracting myself from his hold. I managed it, leaving him sprawled across the sheets, one arm reaching toward the warm spot where I’d been.
In the bathroom, I caught sight of myself in the mirror and barely recognized the woman looking back.
My hair was a mess, tangled from his fingers.
My lips were still swollen from kissing.
There was a faint mark on my collarbone—not quite a bruise, but evidence all the same.
I looked like someone who had been thoroughly made love to.
I looked like Alexei Lobanov’s wife. The thought sent a shiver through me that I couldn’t quite name.
I showered quickly, washing away the scent of him and the evidence of last night, trying to find some semblance of the person I was before all this. Before the engagement party, the gunfire, and the cold proposal that came with no room for refusal.
Who are you fooling, Mila?
I’d be lying if I said I really wanted to go back to who I was.
Okay, this was nothing like the kind of marriage I’d dreamed of for myself, and there was still so much chaos between us to walk through.
But at the same time, the warm, sweet thing between us was something I’d never experienced with anyone.
The way he looked at me with that fiery yet tender gaze, as if I was an angel, was something that made my heart melt.
While the issue of my safety was very valid, I knew it went beyond that now.
When I emerged wrapped in a towel, Alexei was still asleep. I dressed quietly in jeans, a soft cashmere sweater in dove gray, and my most comfortable boots. Then I slipped out of the room before he could wake and look at me with those hazel eyes that see too much.
**********
The estate was already awake in a way that had nothing to do with breakfast or morning coffee.
I wandered through the halls, trying to orient myself in this maze of wealth and violence.
Every corridor was beautiful—marble floors, oil paintings that probably belonged in museums, fresh flowers in crystal vases.
But underneath the elegance, there was something else.
A humming tension, like the air before a thunderstorm.
Guards nodded as I passed. Big men with cold eyes and guns I was not supposed to notice but couldn’t help seeing. They treated me with a careful respect that was more unsettling than if they’d ignored me completely. Because their deference wasn’t for me—it was for what I now represented.
Alexei’s wife. Lobanov property. Something to be protected.
I heard Russian in low, urgent tones coming from behind a closed door. I didn’t speak the language beyond a few phrases, but I recognized the cadence of it. Sharp consonants, rolling r’s, words that sounded like they were designed for giving orders and making threats.
The world I’d stumbled into was older than I realized. An empire of blood and loyalty that does not break, does not bend, does not forgive. And I married into it.
I found myself in what must be a library—floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with books in multiple languages, leather furniture that looked like it had never been sat in, a fireplace big enough to stand in. It was beautiful and completely impersonal, like a stage set for a life no one actually lived.
I pulled a book at random—Tolstoy, in Russian, of course—and flipped through pages I couldn’t read.
My hands were shaking slightly, and I realized I was more rattled than I wanted to admit.
Last night, in the dark with Alexei’s hands on my skin, everything made a kind of terrible sense.
But here, in the cold light of morning, I felt like a porcelain doll dropped into a war zone.
Fragile. Out of place. Likely to shatter.
“There you are.”
I nearly dropped the book. Anya swept into the library like a beam of sunlight, all golden-brown hair and easy smile, completely at home in this world of beautiful violence. In her designer jeans and a silk blouse, she looked effortlessly elegant as always.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” she said, linking her arm through mine like we were still just college friends meeting for coffee. “Come on. I’m going stir-crazy in this place, and the greenhouse is the only spot where I can actually breathe.”
I let her pull me along, grateful for the familiar anchor of her presence. Anya was the friend who made everything seem normal, even when it absolutely wasn’t. She never treated me like I was beneath her, even though there were dozens more zeros in her bank account than mine. She just… liked me.
I’d never been entirely sure why.
The greenhouse was on the far side of the estate, accessible through a covered walkway that was probably stunning in summer but felt drafty now.
Inside, though, it was warm and humid, filled with plants that should have no business surviving in winter.
We were surrounded by orchids and jasmine, lemon trees and something tropical I didn’t recognize.
Anya immediately started fussing with a tray of seedlings, chattering about normal things like they were the most important topics in the world.
“So Vissarion wants to have the wedding in Moscow, but I’m thinking maybe the South of France?
Somewhere warm. And his mother is being completely impossible about the guest list—apparently, we can’t have fewer than three hundred people, which is insane.
I wanted something intimate, you know? But try telling that to a woman who thinks anything under two hundred is basically eloping… ”
I listened, letting her words wash over me like white noise.
She talked about everything from wedding dresses and travel plans to her fiancé, with the easy enthusiasm of someone who had never had to question whether love and danger can coexist. Of course, Vissarion was entirely different from Alexei—softer, less weighted down by whatever darkness made my husband’s eyes go cold.
And then there was the fact that Anya knew how to navigate this world better than I did.
“Mila? You’re not listening.”
I blinked, focusing back on my friend’s face. She was watching me with those sharp eyes, and I realized—not for the first time—that Anya was far more perceptive than she let on.
“Sorry,” I uttered. “I’m just… tired.”
“Uh-huh.” Anya set down her watering can and crossed her arms. “Tired. Is that what we’re calling it?”
Heat flooded my cheeks. “Anya—”
Yup. Perceptive.
“Relax. I’m not asking for details about my brother’s sex life. That’s a level of trauma I don’t need.” She grinned, but then her expression softened. “I just want to make sure you’re okay. I know this whole situation is… a lot.”
A lot. That was one way to describe being married off to prevent a gang war and then falling into bed with a man who terrified and heated me in equal measure.
“I’m fine,” I insisted.
What else could I say?
I’m completely out of my depth?
I don’t know who I am anymore?
I’m starting to want him, and that scares me more than anything else?
Anya didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t push. Instead, she looped her arm through mine again and leaned her head on my shoulder. “You know you can talk to me, right? About anything. Even the scary stuff. Especially the scary stuff.”
“I know.” And I did. Anya had always been there, even back when I had tried to keep her at a distance because our worlds felt too different. “I just need time to figure out what I’m feeling.”
“Fair enough.” She squeezed my arm. “Just remember—you’re not alone in this. Whatever happens, you’ve got me. And despite everything, Alexei cares about you. I can tell.”
I wanted to ask her how she could tell. What signs did she see that I must be missing? But I was afraid of the answer, so I just nodded and let her change the subject back to flower arrangements and whether peonies were too cliché for a Russian wedding.
**********