22. Anya
ANYA
Dmitri sees me smile.
That’s when he raises his paddle again.
“Two hundred and fifty thousand,” the auctioneer calls.
A low murmur moves through the room.
Katya’s expression shifts, satisfaction returning. She keeps her eyes on the necklace, but I see the small lift of her mouth. She thinks this is already decided.
For a moment, I remember being her. Not exactly, but close enough.
I remember sitting beside Dmitri at dinners, watching him toss money at waiters, drivers, jewelers, anyone who could make me feel chosen. I remember thinking expensive gifts meant affection. I remember forgiving him because diamonds were easier to accept than apologies he never truly gave.
Yaromir’s hand rests against my back. He lifts his paddle again.
“Three hundred thousand.”
A woman nearby inhales softly.
Dmitri’s eyes cut to us. His jaw is tight. The bruising near his mouth has darkened slightly under the lights, and there’s something almost satisfying about seeing his beauty damaged.
Katya leans close to him. I can’t hear what she says, but I know anyway.
She looks at him same way I must have looked at him once.
The thought should hurt.
It does, but not as much as I expect.
Dmitri raises his paddle. “Three hundred and fifty thousand.”
The auctioneer’s voice grows more high-pitched. He can smell blood in the room now. “Three hundred and fifty thousand. Do I hear four?”
Yaromir doesn’t even glance at the platform. He looks at me. “Do you still not want it?”
My throat tightens.
The necklace glows under the auction lights, heavy emeralds laid against black velvet. I imagine Katya wearing it. I imagine Dmitri fastening it around her throat while everyone claps for them, like he wasn’t about to be married last week.
I just look at him. He already knows the answer.
His gaze darkens with approval. He raises his paddle.
“Five hundred thousand,” the auctioneer says.
The room reacts properly this time. Heads turning. A few whispers that come too quickly to hide. Even the string quartet seems to fade under the weight of the number.
Dmitri goes still. Katya turns to him, her face suddenly less certain. He stares at Yaromir.
Yaromir only watches me.
It’s obscene, almost. The amount of money. The stillness in him. The way he makes it clear to the room that this is not about emeralds.
Dmitri lifts his paddle halfway. Then stops.
His father’s voice cuts across the silence from somewhere behind him. “Enough.”
Dmitri’s hand lowers.
Katya’s face drains.
The auctioneer waits, eyes moving between the two Volkov brothers like a man who understands he’s standing near something explosive and would still like his commission.
“Five hundred thousand,” he says. “Going once.”
No one moves.
“Going twice.”
Katya looks at the necklace one last time.
I don’t feel sorry for her. Not even a little.
“Sold.” The gavel comes down. “To Mr. Yaromir Volkov.”
The room applauds politely. It sounds like knives against glass.
Yaromir finally looks away from me and toward Dmitri. Nothing in his expression changes. That somehow makes it worse.
Dmitri’s face is hard with humiliation. Katya stares straight ahead, lips pressed together, trying to look indifferent and failing.
My heart is beating too fast. I should feel victorious.
And I do. But under it is something more complicated.
Not guilt. Never guilt. More like disbelief.
A week ago, I was running through alleys with blood on my dress.
Now I’m standing beside Yaromir while he buys an emerald necklace to make my ex-fiancé and former friend bleed in public.
The world is absurd.
The attendants carry the necklace away for final documentation.
I think that’s the end of it.
It’s not.
Ten minutes later, a man in a black suit approaches with a velvet case. He bows slightly to Yaromir and presents it. “Mr. Volkov.”
Yaromir takes the case.
I look up at him. “What are you doing?”
He opens it. The emerald necklace sits inside, brighter up close, cold and magnificent. The stones are darker than I realized, deep green with fire trapped somewhere inside them. It looks far too heavy for me.
Yaromir removes it from the velvet.
My stomach dips.
“Turn around,” he says.
“Here?”
“Yes.”
“Everyone is watching.”
“I know.”
My cheeks warm, but I turn.
The room shifts around us. Conversations weaken. Attention gathers again, greedy and silent. I can feel Dmitri’s eyes. Katya’s. Galina’s. Every woman who called me desperate. Every man who wondered what exactly I had become.
Yaromir steps behind me. His presence fills the space at my back before he touches me. Then the necklace settles against my throat, cool and startlingly heavy. His fingers brush the nape of my neck as he fastens the clasp.
A shiver runs down my spine.
I hate that it happens in front of everyone.
I hate that he knows.
His mouth comes close to my ear. “Lift your chin.”
I obey before I can stop myself.
His fingers linger for half a second at the clasp, then slide away.
I turn back around. His eyes move over me, from the emeralds resting against my skin to my face. Something dark and satisfied passes through his expression.
The necklace is not delicate on me. It changes the dress completely. The red silk, the green stones, the diamonds at my throat.
Yaromir’s hand comes to my waist. “Beautiful,” he says. Quietly. Not for the room.
For me.
My breath catches, and his thumb presses once at my side, like he feels it.
Across the room, Katya looks away.
Dmitri doesn’t. His stare is fixed on the necklace at my throat, his expression so tight it must hurt. For the first time all evening, I don’t feel like the woman he betrayed.
I feel like the consequence.
The rest of the auction passes in pieces.
People approach us carefully. Some congratulate Yaromir.
Some congratulate me with expressions that make it clear they don’t know whether they are offering blessings or stepping around broken glass.
A few women compliment the necklace. I thank them, because I know how to be polite with a knife in my hand now.
Yaromir never goes far. Sometimes his hand is at my waist. Sometimes at my back. Sometimes he says nothing at all, but his body remains turned toward mine, making it clear to the room that any approach to me passes through him first.
By the time we leave, my face hurts from holding it together.
The lobby is colder than the auction hall, grand and echoing with marble floors, tall mirrors, and chandeliers throwing white light across the crowd waiting for cars.
Men in dark coats speak quietly near the doors.
Women gather their wraps. Security keeps a careful line between the guests and the press outside.
I’m almost relieved.
Then I see them.
Kirill Volkov stands near the center of the lobby with Galina beside him and Dmitri a few steps behind. Katya is not there. For some reason, that makes the moment feel worse, not better.
There’s no crowd between us now. Just the old Volkov family waiting under a chandelier, cold and still.
Yaromir’s hand moves to my back. “Stay beside me,” he says.
“I was planning to.”
His mouth barely shifts.
We walk forward. Kirill watches us approach. His face is controlled, but his eyes are not. They move first to the emeralds at my throat, then to Yaromir’s hand on me.
Galina looks at the necklace and her mouth tightens with open disgust.
Dmitri looks at my face. I don’t look away.
Kirill speaks first. “An expensive evening.”
Yaromir stops several feet away. “Not particularly.”
Dmitri’s jaw flexes.
Galina lets out a small breath. “Must everything be vulgar with you?”
Yaromir doesn’t look at her. “I was wondering the same thing when your son followed my wife into a locked bathroom.”
The air in the lobby changes.
Galina goes pale.
Dmitri’s eyes flash. “You broke my nose.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Enough,” Kirill says.
A few people near the doors slow down, sensing danger without wanting to be obvious about it. Viktor appears near the edge of my vision. Two of Yaromir’s men are farther back. I hadn’t noticed them before. Now I do.
Kirill’s gaze returns to Yaromir. “You have made your little display.”
“My marriage?”
“Your rebellion.”
Yaromir’s face remains calm. “If you’re only now noticing, you are slower than I thought.”
Dmitri takes a step forward. “You think humiliating me makes you stronger?”
Yaromir finally looks at him. “No,” he says. “You did most of that yourself.”
Dmitri’s face reddens, and I feel a flutter of satisfaction in my belly.
Then Kirill looks at me. Not like a father-in-law, or even an elder. Not even like a man looking at his son’s wife. He looks at me like he’s looking at something misplaced.
“You should understand something, Anya,” he says. “Men like my son do not make women powerful. They make women visible. There’s a difference.”
My fingers tighten around my clutch.
Yaromir’s hand stills against my back. A warning.
Not to me. To him.
I lift my chin. “I’m learning the difference.”
Kirill’s eyes narrow slightly.
Yaromir’s voice is quiet. “Don’t talk to her.”
Kirill smiles faintly. “You sound attached.”
“That should worry you.”
For the first time, I see anger break through Kirill’s control.
Only a crack. But it’s there.
“You are taking men who swore loyalty to me,” Kirill says. “You are interfering with port contracts. You are buying debts that were not yours to collect. And now you parade this girl through my circles wearing jewels meant to insult my house.”
“We already had this conversation,” Yaromir replies. “Must we repeat ourselves?”
“My house gave you your name.”
“My mother gave me my name.”
Dmitri looks away for half a second, as if the mention of Yaromir’s mother is something dirty.
Kirill steps closer. Not enough to touch him. Enough that the lobby seems to shrink around them. “You are forgetting your place.”
Yaromir laughs once, very softly. There’s no humor in it. “I took my place.”
“You are still my son.”
“No.” The word is simple. “You do not get to claim that word when it suits you,” Yaromir says. “You spent years making sure I understood exactly where I stood.”
“And now you think stealing from me will heal old wounds?”
“No,” Yaromir says. “It pays old debts.”
Kirill’s eyes darken. “Be careful,” he says. “You are building enemies faster than you are building an empire.”
“I build both well.”
“You think the men following you will stay loyal when blood starts spilling?”
Yaromir’s voice drops. “I know what they say about me. They call me a monster, and they’re absolutely right, because I fucking am one.”
Kirill leans closer. His voice is low enough that only we can hear. “You have taken territory. You have taken men. You have taken a bride meant for my family. Keep pushing, and I will remind you what happens to bastards who confuse patience with weakness.”
The word lands like a slap.
Bastards.
Yaromir goes completely still. I feel the change in him before I see it. His hand leaves my back. For one terrifying second, I think he will hit his father in the lobby the way he hit Dmitri in the bathroom.
I slide my hand into his. His fingers are rigid at first, but then they close around mine. Hard. Not hurting me but still holding on.
He doesn’t look at me, but I know he understands.
Not here.
Not for him.
Yaromir’s voice is calm when he answers. “That is the last time you use that word for me.”
Kirill watches our joined hands. Something cold and satisfied touches his expression, as if he has found a new weakness. “You should teach your wife when to stay out of family matters.”
Yaromir smiles then. It’s small. It’s terrible. “She is family now.”
Dmitri looks at me like the words physically hurt.
Kirill’s eyes move to the emeralds at my throat again. “Then I hope she survives what that means.”
Yaromir steps forward, but I squeeze his hand.
He stops. Barely.
The tension between them feels like a wire pulled too tight. One wrong word and it will snap.
Then Viktor appears beside us. “The car is ready,” he says.
Yaromir doesn’t move immediately.
Neither does Kirill.
Finally, Yaromir turns first. Not away in defeat. Away like the conversation has become unworthy of more time. He leads me toward the doors.
My legs feel steady until we step outside into the cold. Then I realize I’ve been holding my breath. The press noise rises beyond the security line, cameras flashing against the night. Yaromir keeps my hand in his, his grip still tight. The emeralds are cold against my throat.
Before we reach the car, I look back once.
Through the glass doors, Kirill is still watching us.
Beside him, Dmitri looks at my hand in Yaromir’s.
For the first time, I understand that this is bigger than revenge.
This is war.