Chapter 7
Alexei
Artem Koval has been dodging a marriage contract for eleven years, but he finally runs out of luck in Kharkiv.
I stand by the grimy-streaked window of the warehouse and watch him climb out of a black sedan that has seen better days.
He has two guards with him, both useless.
They stand there shivering as my men relieve them of their weapons at the door.
Artem looks up at the building, his face the color of curdled milk, likely wondering whether he’s here for a meeting or an execution.
“Let’s get this over with,” I tell Viktor. “Bring him inside.”
The warehouse floor is an empty expanse of gray, save for a single wooden chair bolted to the concrete.
Artem enters with my soldiers behind him, looking like a man who already knows he’s dead.
He sits down, and his hands tremble against his thighs while I let the silence stretch until the weight of it forces him to look at the floor.
I pull a cigarette from my pocket and light it, the flame a small flare in the dim room as I take a slow drag and exhale toward the rafters.
“Your security is non-existent, Artem,” I say finally. “And the Georgians are taking your shipments whenever they feel like it.”
Artem flinches at the mention of the name and wipes sweat from his upper lip.
“Dato Janelidze is a vulture, Pakhan. He’s stolen three of my warehouses in a single month, and my buyers are walking away because I can’t guarantee a delivery.
I need you to intervene before there is nothing left of my operation. ”
“And why would I do that?” I ask, watching him through the smoke. “My father has been in the ground for six years, which makes the contract mine, and you have been a very poor businessman.”
“I tried to find her. I swear on my soul, I searched everywhere,” Artem insists, his voice rising in a desperate pitch.
“She vanished, changing her name and scouring Poland and America to escape the life I built for her. I never imagined she would have the audacity to hide in Russia, especially not within the borders of your city.”
I begin to circle the chair, my footsteps a slow thud as I want him to feel me behind him.
I have known Zoya has been in Moscow for five years, ever since my surveillance teams captured her face through a telephoto lens outside a government building.
I watch her live her small life, letting her play at being a journalist while I make sure the darkest parts of my world don’t reach her doorstep.
She’s getting too close to things she can’t handle, and I have spent years making sure she stays alive without her ever knowing I’m there.
“Your daughter was promised to me when she was fifteen years old,” I say, stopping directly behind him so he has to strain his neck to see me. “She was a bride for the Romanov heir in exchange for the weapons contracts, making you a very wealthy man.”
Artem is shaking so hard the chair rattles against the concrete floor, yet he still tries to defend his failure. “I did everything possible to satisfy the debt, Pakhan. If I could have delivered her on her twentieth birthday, I would have.”
“My father wanted your head for that insult,” I continue, walking back around to face him. “But I convinced him to be patient as I knew a girl like Zoya couldn’t hide forever.”
His head snaps up, hope and terror fighting for space in his eyes. “So now that you’ve found her, isn’t my debt paid?”
“Idiot. How is your debt paid when you’ve put zero effort into delivering my bride? Not only was she in my territory for five years without my knowledge, but she’s also taken up hobbies hardly fitting for a Romanov.”
I think of her lingerie streams, the way she performs for strangers, hunting for their tips.
She thinks she ran away to escape an arrangement with the Germans, assuming that soft boy Erik is the monster under her bed.
In reality, I’m the one who owns her, and her recent investigations into my business are pulling her too close to a war she isn’t prepared to fight.
“Stop crying, Artem, as business is never going to be usual again after you cost me five years of my life,” I tell him, leaning in until our knees are almost touching.
“I found my wife myself, and I no longer feel the need to negotiate on half-deals with a man who couldn’t even control his own household. ”
“The original deal is dead,” I continue.
“And since I had to find my own bride, I’m adjusting the cost of my patience.
I will be taking seventy percent of your total arms production from this moment on, and in exchange, I’ll provide the protection you’re begging for to keep the Georgians from raiding your ports while we proceed with the wedding preparations as originally planned. ”
Artem’s eyes widen as he grips his knees with trembling hands. “Seventy percent is almost everything I have, Pakhan, and I’ll barely have enough left to keep the lights in the factories on or pay the workers.”
“Then you had better learn to work harder, as the alternative is me letting Dato finish what he started while I take Zoya anyway,” I reply, standing up to straighten the cuffs of my suit while I look down at his pathetic frame.
He shakes his head frantically with eyes wide with desperation. “No, no problem. Thank you for sparing my life, Pakhan. I’ll make sure the shipments are ready on the new schedule.”
“Good. You’ll be invited to the wedding, and I’m sure Zoya will be thrilled to see her father again after all these years.”
Bohdan is waiting for me outside, his silhouette leaning against the car with a cigarette dangling from his lips as the smoke curls into the cold air. For twelve years, he has been my right hand and the only man alive who can speak freely to me without weighing the consequences of his honesty.
“Well?” He pushes off the frame as I approach, his eyes tracking my movement. “How’s the father-in-law?”
“Pathetic,” I reply, sliding into the leather interior of the backseat while Bohdan follows, settling himself across from me. “The man was practically trembling before I even uttered a single word.”
“Can you blame him? The Georgians have been bleeding his operations dry for months, so he likely assumed you were arriving to finish the job.”
“He assumed wrong.”
Bohdan studies my expression as the car pulls away from the warehouse, the tires crunching over the gravel. “So…the girl. Is she really the one you’ve been looking for?”
“She is the one.”
“And she remains entirely oblivious to the situation.”
“She has no idea,” I confirm. “Apparently, her father paraded her around the Germans often enough that she assumed she was headed for their son, never realizing the truth of her own heritage.”
Bohdan snorts at the irony of it. “Smart girl, but she reached a remarkably wrong conclusion.”
“She fled to Russia, thinking she was escaping an arranged marriage, only to sprint directly into my territory. Fate has a strange sense of humor.”
“Or perhaps she simply has terrible luck.”
“They are often the same thing.”
We drive in silence for a few minutes while the Ukrainian countryside rolls past in a blur of dead fields and bruised, gray skies that suggest winter is arriving early this year.
“What do you truly think of the father?” Bohdan asks eventually.
“I think he’s a coward who would sell his own mother to save his skin. He’s been skimming from his own operations for years and blaming the losses on misfortune, while his wife seems less distraught about a missing daughter than she is about losing a meal ticket to a good marriage.”
“Then why not just seize the ports? You could kill him and be done with the entire mess.”
“Because I require leverage,” I say, meeting his eyes to ensure he understands the gravity of the plan.
“Artem is weak, but he remains connected to buyers across Europe that would take me years to rebuild. More importantly, he has a daughter who doesn’t trust me, doesn’t like me, and will undoubtedly vanish the moment she realizes the reality of her situation. ”
Understanding finally dawns on Bohdan’s face. “You need him alive to keep her in line.”
“I need him alive and terrified. A father whose entire operation depends on my goodwill and whose life hangs by a thread I can cut at any second. That is the kind of man who will help me convince his stubborn daughter that this marriage is her only viable option.”
“And if she still refuses?”
I think of the fire in Zoya’s eyes and the way she looks at me like a puzzle she wants to both solve and destroy in equal measure.
“She won’t refuse. She might rage or even attempt to stab me, but in the end, she’ll stand beside me and say the words because the alternative is watching everyone she cares about suffer for her pride.”
Bohdan shakes his head slowly. “You’re a cold bastard, Alexei.”
“I’m a Romanov. There is no difference between the two.”
The car turns onto the road leading to the private airstrip where my plane waits on the tarmac, its engines already warming for the flight to Moscow.
“One more thing,” Bohdan says as we pull up to the stairs. “The Georgians. Dato has been making aggressive moves while you were out of the country, and word is he’s looking for leverage against you.”
“Let him look.”
“I’m serious. Something is off because he’s acting with a level of confidence that suggests he knows something we don’t.”
I consider the threat of Dato Janelidze, a young, reckless man who has inherited an empire he isn’t ready to lead. He makes mistakes, overreaches, and consistently underestimates his opponents.
“Keep your eyes on him,” I instruct. “I want to know every move he makes and every meeting he takes. If he’s planning something, I intend to know about it before he even realizes he’s made a move.”
“I’m already on it.”
I step out of the car and head for the plane, welcoming the sharp, bitter wind that cuts through my coat and keeps me focused.
Zoya is waiting for me in Moscow, my Vedma, the woman promised to me, who has spent five years running from a fate she doesn’t understand.
She thinks some soft European businessman’s son is the monster under her bed, but she has no idea what truly awaits her.
As I climb the stairs, I’m already planning a wedding that will take place within the month.
She will curse my name once I move her into my house, but she’ll learn eventually.
With her father’s throat in my hand and seventy percent of his weapons in my pocket, I hold leverage she can’t even imagine.
My little witch thinks she’s escaped her cage, but she has merely traded one set of bars for another.