Chapter 13 #3
“Make what he did sound romantic.”
A pause, then Malrik smiled. Small. Pleased.
“Good girl.”
Revulsion moved through me so sharply I almost stood.
“Do not call me that.”
“Lucien loved her.”
“No. He obsessed over her.”
“Yes,” he agreed easily. “He did.”
The room seemed colder despite all the candles.
“And you helped him,” I whispered.
“I provided an opportunity.”
My stomach twisted. An opportunity. Like my mother had been a door opened at the right time. As if what happened afterward was a footnote.
“He raped her,” I said, voice shaking.
Malrik’s expression did not change. “What Lucien did once he had access to Cecelia was his decision. ”
“You gave him access!”
“Yes.”
“Then you’re just as responsible!”
For the first time, his face stilled completely. Empty from all emotion.
“No,” he said softly. “Responsibility belongs to the man who acts. I simply arranged what was requested.”
The world felt suddenly too small. I looked down at the food in front of me, perfectly prepared, untouched, beautiful enough to make me sick.
“You’re a monster.”
“I have been called worse.”
“By women you sold?”
A slow blink. Something colder showed beneath the polished surface. Then it was gone.
“I don’t sell people, Emerald. I provide solutions.”
“You traffic human beings.”
“I fulfill demand.”
I gripped the table so hard my fingers hurt .
“You keep changing the words like that makes it less evil!”
“Words are how civilized people survive uncivilized things.”
I stared at him. There was nothing inside him. No guilt, no shame, no crack where decency might have lived once. Just calculation wrapped in a suit.
“What does any of this have to do with me?” I asked, my voice lower now. “Why am I here?”
Malrik smiled faintly, and somehow, before he even spoke, I knew the worst part was about to begin.
“Because you still don’t understand your own importance.”
I laughed once, sharp and humorless. “Trust me, my life has been one giant group project where everyone forgets to tell me what the assignment is.”
“Lucien had one biological child.”
The words landed strangely. My breath stopped.
“No.”
Malrik’s gaze held mine.
“Yes. ”
“No,” I repeated, louder this time. “No, Alexander was my father.”
“Alexander raised you.”
“He was my father.”
“In every way that mattered, perhaps.”
“You’re lying.”
“Am I?”
My thoughts splintered. Lucien. Cecelia. The journal. Nikolai. The missing pages. Everyone’s silence. Everything I didn’t know. Everything they had kept from me.
My stomach turned violently because somewhere beneath the denial, something cold and awful whispered that it made too much sense. Malrik watched all of it happen across my face.
“Nikolai is not Lucien’s biological son,” he said. “Which means he has no legitimate claim to the Voss empire.”
I could barely breathe. “Stop.”
“You, however, do.”
I shook my head. The room blurred slightly.
“No. ”
“You are Lucien’s daughter, Emerald.”
The words hit like a second kidnapping. One for my body. One for my identity.
I sat there in that ridiculous dress, inside a mansion that felt like a mausoleum, staring at a man who had just reached into my life and rearranged every piece of it like I was nothing but a file he had opened.
“You’re the heir ,” he said calmly.
I laughed. I couldn’t help it, although the sound came out broken and ugly.
“I don’t want it.”
“That hardly matters.”
“It absolutely matters to me!”
“Power doesn’t require desire. Only blood.”
I stared at him in horror. He meant it. God, he actually meant it.
“You kidnapped me because of an empire I don’t want?”
“I secured you because others would eventually do the same.”
“Oh, how thoughtful. Should I send a thank-you card? ”
“You are safer here.”
I barked out a laugh. “I woke up in a dress I didn’t choose after being dragged away from a man bleeding in the road.”
“Yes,” he said calmly. “And still safer than you would be if the wrong people learned what you are.”
“What I am?”
“A Voss heir.”
The name struck me like a slap. I didn’t want it. I didn’t want Lucien in my blood. Didn’t want his name attached to mine. Didn’t want his empire. Didn’t want his violence. Didn’t want any part of him living inside me like proof that my mother’s suffering had left a permanent mark on the world.
“I’m a Deveraux,” I said through my teeth.
“For now.”
My blood chilled. “What does that mean?”
Malrik set his wine glass down. “You’ll marry me.”
For a second, my brain simply refused to process the sentence. Then I laughed again. Because honestly? What else was there to do?
“You’re delusional. ”
“You will take the Drax name. The transition will be clean. The empire will remain stable.”
“You are fifty-eight!”
“As we established.”
“I’m eighteen.”
“Also, established.”
“That’s disgusting!”
“That is perspective.”
“No, that is a felony with catering.”
A faint smile pulled at his mouth. I hated him more for enjoying me.
“I’m not marrying you!”
“You will.”
“I would rather throw myself through that window.”
“The glass is reinforced.”
“Of course it is.”
Malrik leaned back slightly. “You’re emotional.”
“Oh my God, if one more man says that to me, I’m going to start biting people. ”
“Nikolai survived the shooting.”
Everything inside me stopped. The air disappeared.
“What?”
Malrik’s expression remained calm.
“He was retrieved approximately forty minutes after you were taken. Viktor stabilized him.”
My lungs opened so sharply it hurt. Alive. Nikolai was alive. Relief hit me with enough force that tears burned instantly behind my eyes. I looked down. No. Not here. Not in front of him. But my hands had started shaking and I couldn’t stop them. Malrik noticed, of course.
“There it is.”
I hated him. I hated that he could see it. I hated that Nikolai had been right. The second someone mattered to you, they became leverage.
“What do you want from me?” I whispered.
“I already told you.”
“No,” I snapped quietly. “You told me the arrangement. What do you want?”
Something old and cold settled into his face.
“I want what Lucien promised would eventually be mine. ”
My stomach tightened.
“Access?”
He smiled faintly. “Control.”
“You’re using me.”
“Yes.”
At least he didn’t lie.
“You’ll marry me willingly,” he continued, voice smooth as polished glass, “or Nikolai dies.”
The words settled over the table. My heart pounded so hard it hurt.
“You’re bluffing.”
“Am I?”
I searched his face. There was nothing there to read. Nothing human enough to hope for mercy.
“Nikolai is alive because I currently allow it,” Malrik said. “If you run, he dies. If you refuse, he dies. If Roman interferes before I decide it’s useful, Nikolai dies.”
My throat tightened until swallowing became impossible.
“You can’t— ”
“I can.”
The quiet certainty in his voice terrified me more than any weapon would have. I wanted to scream. I wanted to launch myself across the table and claw his eyes out.
I wanted Nikolai. God, I wanted Nikolai.
His darkness. His rage. His awful commands and rough hands and the way he looked at me like the rest of the world could burn as long as I survived it, but that was the problem.
Malrik knew that. He had looked at me for less than an hour and found the exact place to press.
“You have 48 hours to decide,” he said.
My eyes burned. The candles flickered between us. The food sat untouched. Somewhere in this dead, beautiful house, a clock ticked steadily, each second sounding like a door closing.
“You’re a monster,” I whispered.
Malrik lifted his wine glass.
“No, Emerald.” His smile was faint and demonic. “I’m simply a man willing to do what others pretend they are too moral to survive doing.”
I stared at him across the table while fear wrapped tight around my ribs.
Nikolai was alive, but not safe. I now understood the kind of prison Nikolai had been raised inside. A choice that wasn’t a choice. This life was a cage dressed up as power, a future someone else had already decided.
Malrik took a slow sip of wine. I looked down at the black silk covering my body. Lucien’s daughter, a Voss heir. Future wife? No. My hands curled slowly into fists beneath the table. No.
He could dress me up. Lock me away. Threaten the one person he knew I couldn’t lose, but he had made one mistake.
He thought fear would make me obedient. He didn’t understand that I had been raised by Roman Deveraux, kidnapped by Nikolai Voss, and dragged through enough secrets to know one thing with absolute certainty.
Women like me didn’t break quietly, even when we were terrified.