Chapter Sixteen
Inna Grace
I gasped awake and pressed a hand to my head before my eyes fully opened. The throbbing wasn’t from bad sleep or a hard pillow. I massaged my temple and waited for the world to stop moving, then looked around. I was in a car.
The panic came in fast, and I became alert.
Scanning around, I found nothing that told me where I was, but there was a figure leaning against the front of the car, smoke curling above him.
The sun was setting ahead of him, burning him into a silhouette.
I couldn’t see him well. But I didn’t need to be told to run.
Looking at myself, I was still wearing the dress from the boutique. The memory came back in fragments. A man walked into the dressing room, held a cloth to my face, and after a moment of struggling, everything went dark.
I unbuckled slowly, watching him through the windshield. I checked behind. The road ran long and empty between trees. There was no visible end in either direction. I didn’t have shoes. That was another problem.
I pushed the door open quietly, keeping my eyes on his back the entire time, and stepped out onto the gravel. It bit into my feet, but I took one careful step at a time, leaving the door open because closing it would announce me.
But I didn’t go far.
“Nice try.” His voice stopped me, and I itched against the car, holding my breath. “Get back inside.”
Wait, I knew that voice.
Dmitri?
I came around the car to see his face, and there he was.
“Dmitri?” I called again, relieved. “How are you…. Wait, it’s you?”
He walked to the driver’s door without answering.
I stood there for another second before I walked over to the door I had left open. I got back into my seat and left my legs hanging over the edge.
“Were you the one who knocked me out?” He was wearing all black, just like the man in the dressing room. “I don’t understand. Was it you?”
“Close the door.”
He started the engine.
“You wanted me to go out shopping, where someone grabbed me in a dressing room, and now I’m waking up in your car, and you want me to just close the door?” I pulled my feet in and shut it. “What is happening?”
But why would he do that? I turned it over and couldn’t find a shape that made sense.
The shopping with Caitlin went well. I couldn’t remember when I last felt so free that I began loving being in Dmitri’s life.
Not until I was knocked out. Whatever this life was turning into, it was getting worse faster than I could keep up with it.
I sat quietly and let the view calm me. The sun was low over the water, pulling color across the horizon.
I have loved sunsets a lot ever since I was young—the one part of the day I could take a few minutes to watch and forget reality.
Back when Mum left, I used to step out and watch the light change, letting myself forget that my father was slowly fading away.
Now I was sitting in a car with a man I didn’t understand, a headache that sat behind my eyes, and the sunset wasn’t doing anything for me.
A mansion came into view in the distance. I could see it, but the road still curved and kept going.
“Where are we going?” I asked, not expecting an answer, but seeing where we were heading put pressure on me.
“I believe you were informed about the dinner.”
Dmitri took a turn, and the sunset disappeared behind us. The road ahead ran beneath a canopy of trees on both sides, and at the end, the outline of a mansion sat waiting. I looked at it, and my stomach dropped.
We were going to dinner with his grandmother. Caitlin told me everything about her being nice, but I needed a minute to get myself together.
I could sit at a table and be whoever this situation needed me to be, but not like this. My head still throbbed, and I was in danger a few hours ago.
Speaking of Caitlin, where was she? Was she okay?
“Can you stop the car?” I asked Dmitri.
“So you can try to run again?”
“I didn’t know it was you. I just need a minute.” My hand found the handle before he slowed and stopped.
The evening air hit me immediately when I stepped out. I leaned against the car and looked at what was left of the sunset, the orange fading at the edges. I wanted it to do something for the noise in my head, but it didn’t.
Dmitri came around and stood in front of me. “We’re late. Get in or walk.”
“I’ll walk,” I said, and meant it in the way you did when you were past caring about the consequences.
He looked at me for a moment and sighed as if he had run out of calculations and accepted the result. He leaned against the car beside me.
“What do you want, Inna?”
I almost laughed. That was the question he asked me the last time I embarrassed myself in front of him, and when I answered, he refused and walked out. “Stop asking me that. You won’t agree with it, anyway.”
“Maybe it’s not stupid this time.”
I looked at him. “Wanting to find my father isn’t stupid.”
“It isn’t,” he said. “Asking me to help you was.”
I turned back to the darkening view and said nothing.
“What happened in that dressing room?”
I crossed my arms. “A man in a mask walked in, pressed something over my face. The next thing I knew was waking up in your car.” I rubbed my arms. “Is someone after me? Was it the necklace? Because standing in that room, wearing twenty million dollars around my neck, was a sign that said, ‘Come and get me’.”
He pulled out a cigar, lit it, and let the smoke go without answering.
“I feel like I’m losing my mind. I wish I never touched your money and just jumped off that building when I had the chance.”
“So you want to die.”
“Cole wouldn’t last a week alone.” The words came out in a flat truth. “I have already dragged him into this. Someone is after me, and I don’t know why. And I am standing here with no shoes and a headache, and you want me to walk into a family dinner.”
The quiet settled between us.
When Caitlin and I were moving through those boutiques, laughing, it felt close to normal.
“Is Caitlin okay?”
He pushed off the car. “Let’s go.”
I followed him to the driver’s door. “Can I smoke? Just once.”
“Inna.”
“One second, I just—”
He took my hand and walked me back to my side. “You are driving me crazy.” He opened the passenger door. “Get in before I lose what’s left of my patience.”
I didn’t get in. “I don’t want to go. Look at me, I have no shoes. And this is a family dinner. If they ask how we met, what will I answer? I am sure they will ask other things too, and I don’t have answers.”
He watched me without interrupting.
“If you’re going to keep pulling me into things like this, at least prepare me first. You drop me into these situations with no warning and expect me to just act like I wasn’t in danger a few hours ago? You want me to sit at a table and pretend to be your wife in front of your family?”
“Who said you’ll be pretending?”
I stared at him. “Aren’t I?”
His free hand came toward my face, and I moved back from it. He didn’t pull away. Instead, his fingers found my hair, pushing it behind my ear. What was he doing?
“I don’t rescue things I consider fake.” His voice was calm. “You are my wife until I say otherwise. Don’t use that word in front of me again.”
His thumb moved to my chin, slowly as if I were something that required gentleness when handling.
“As for the dinner, you’re my wife. You answer what you want and leave what you don’t. That power is yours tonight.” He tilted his head toward the open door. “Now get in. I don’t like repeating myself.”
He nudged my shoulder gently, but I only sat, leaving my legs out.
“You know what that means? You are giving me power. And I can tell your employees what to do. That’s what being your wife means.”
He reached down, lifted my legs, and swung them into the car himself. Before he closed the door, I held it open.
“You’ll regret saying that. You should take it back now while you still can.” I warned him.
He pulled my hand off the door. “Enjoy it while it lasts.” He shut it.
I watched him walk around to his side, ready to say more, but he already had his phone to his ear before he reached the door. He slid in mid-conversation, and I sat quietly, watching the road ahead, hoping he would finish the call before we arrived.
The gates opened. And we drove in. I pressed my back into the seat and stared through the windshield.
Holy mother of God, we drove into heaven.
“Now that we are all here, let’s have dinner,” Madam Regina gestured toward the dining area, and everyone moved.
I was still catching up to the mansion itself.
Walking through it felt like stepping into something that belonged only in magazines.
A place that made you aware of your posture and the exact angle of your shoulders.
Every surface was polished, every piece of furniture placed with the intention that made you feel like sitting down required permission.
People actually lived like this? While people like me were out there calculating rent.
We were having dinner with the Mark Blackwood family. The Governor of Florida. A face I recognized from news segments, the serious man behind the podium saying serious things about serious matters. And now he was pulling out a chair at the same table I was apparently sitting at.
I fixed my posture and focused on looking like I belonged.
His daughter, Malia, sat across from me.
She was put together, the sort of polish that didn’t happen by accident.
She has been watching me since we walked in.
Apparently, this was the woman Dmitri was supposed to marry.
I remembered her name was Malia, but I never knew she was the governor’s fucking good-looking daughter.
I had no makeup on and didn’t have time to see how I looked. The shoes saved me from shame. When we arrived, a maid appeared with the pair Caitlin bought earlier. It meant Dmitri had called ahead, which meant he thought of it.
I reached for the water glass and took a sip. This was uncomfortable.