Sergei
I read the text from Nelson and then listen to the voice note he sent.
It’s Sofia and her father. The voices are muffled, but I hear it.
I’m proud of her. She held her ground. Her father is her only living relative. The man she’s supposed to be able to count on. He should be the one protecting her. She’s strong, but that kind of thing fucks with a person’s head.
I know. I wasn’t close to my father, but there was a respect there. I had my brothers.
She has no one.
But her parting words, that’s what got me.
Sergei will kill them.
That one sentence tells me everything she’ll never admit outside my bedroom—she trusts me. She gave herself to me. I didn’t have to take anything.
My cock stirs at the thought of her beneath me.
I allow myself to replay the moment I slid inside her.
I’ve been given many luxury gifts in my life. Cars. Horses. Diamonds. None of them come close in comparison to the value of what my wife gave me.
The sound of a text interrupts my reveries.
It’s Nelson letting me know they’re on their way. The text is a warning that she’s in a bad way. After hearing that conversation with her father, I get it.
I hear the door followed by footsteps.
Then they’re coming my way.
She steps into my office, her eyes filled with anger.
I wait.
Her arms cross. She pops a hip and glares at me.
I wait.
I know she wants me to ask. But I’m not asking. She can tell me. Or not.
"Why did you save me?"
I expected something about her father. I don’t let it show she caught me by surprise.
"The night at the club, you mean."
“Is there another time?”
I don’t answer.
Her eyes widen. “Oh my God! There was!”
I shrug.
She throws her hands up. “Fine. The club. Why did you save me? Why did you kill the men that assaulted me?”
I debate what I want to say to her.
Not the truth. Not all of it. Not yet.
But she needs to know I wasn’t watching her because I was watching my enemy. That’s what she believes. It shouldn’t matter, but I don’t want her to worry I’m going to cut her throat in the middle of the night.
"I knew your mother," I say. The words feel like I’ve just released a breath I’ve been holding for eight years. “She asked me to keep you safe. I told her I would.”
She goes very still.
“You knew my mother?” she whispers.
"Not well. Not for long." This is the part I have to calibrate. There are things she doesn't need to know in a doorway when she's reeling from the conversation with her father.
The room is very quiet. I wait for her to ask when Elena asked. I won’t tell her. I don’t know if I’ll ever tell her.
"That's why you were there. That night."
"Yes. And like I said, it’s my club.”
"You'd been watching me."
"I had someone watching you. There's a difference." Small one. "I didn't intend to be the one in that alley.”
I watch her process this. The quieter she gets, the more carefully she's thinking.
“How did you know my mother?”
“Same circles.”
She nods like that answer is enough.
“How old are you?”
I almost smile. My wife is asking how old I am.
“Forty-one.”
She nods like I confirmed something.
“Did you—were you and my mother—”
She doesn’t finish the sentence. I know what she’s asking. It might be fun to tease her, but now isn’t the time.
“No. I had no romantic entanglement with your mother.”
Her shoulders sag with relief.
"What did she say? Exactly."
"She said you were good. That the world would destroy you if someone didn't watch." I meet her eyes. "She was wrong about you, for what it's worth. You'd have survived regardless."
She walks to the window and stands with her back to me, looking out at the street. I let her have it. I can see it in the set of her shoulders, the way they drop just slightly. The way her hand comes up and presses flat against the glass.
She's not looking at the street. She's somewhere else entirely. Her mother's last moments were spent making sure her daughter would be safe. She didn’t know until now.
I want to go to her. A single touch. Confirmation she's not alone in this world. I stay where I am. She needs to have this without me in it.
When she turns back, she's pulled herself together.
Mostly.
"You should have told me,” she says.
"Maybe.”
"Why didn't you?"
“I’m your father’s enemy.”
She looks at me for a long moment. I can see her deciding how many questions to ask right now versus how many to hold. This is one of the things about her that unsettles me most, that incredible self-control. She has a young woman's instincts and a much older woman's patience.
She doesn't push.
I'm grateful she doesn’t. I have things I still owe her. Tonight is not the night. Maybe after her father dies.
"That night in the alley," she says slowly, like she’s tiptoeing into the memory. "You carried me."
"Yes."
"You apologized."
"I was late. I should have had better eyes on you."
"You said you'd promised her."
I remember the words. I remember the fear I felt at the thought I failed Elena. Sofia had felt so small and fragile in my arms. Vulnerable.
"I know what I said,” I say.
She nods slowly. I see the realization dawning. She had no one to ask about that night. I’m giving her the pieces she didn’t have.
I find myself wanting to go to her again. I want to pull her into my arms and make her feel safe. I see that fear in her eyes as she relives that night. Her bottom lip trembles. It’s barely noticeable, but I see it. I see her hands clench.
And then the Sofia of today is back. Her chin tilts up. Her shoulders go back just a touch.
"Thank you," she says finally. "For that night."
"You were reckless."
Her face goes from steely resolve to surprise in the blink of an eye.
“What?”
"You were eighteen years old with a fake ID and you went somewhere you had no business being.
You allowed yourself to get drunk. Took drinks from strange men.
You allowed men close enough to put their hands on you.
" The anger I have felt over that night bleeds through my words.
Three years of knowing how close it came and what another sixty seconds would have meant. "Reckless. Foolish.”
Her chin comes up. "I was eighteen."
"And now you’re twenty-one and still making foolish decisions.”
"I went to class this morning."
I get to my feet and round the desk, but I don’t close the distance. I don’t trust myself not to grab her and shake her.
"You went to class with a target on you and then went to see your father while Yuri is still unaccounted for. You walked into the lion’s den.”
“You let me,” she sneers. “Remember?”
“You would have gone anyway.”
“Because I’m a grown ass woman and I can go where I want—including my house!”
“That’s your father’s house.”
“I wasn’t reckless. You sent a team of guards with me.”
“But you would have gone alone if I hadn’t.”
She doesn’t argue. We both know I’m right.
I hold her gaze. "Reckless."
She opens her mouth. Closes it. Her cheeks are pink. She’s pissed. Maybe embarrassed.
"I want my own room," she blurts out.
She’s digging for control. This goes back to that night.
I watch her struggle for words. She's trying to reclaim control after I called her out, and she's going for the nuclear option.
"We consummated the marriage," she says, her voice sharp. "That's done. But we won't be doing it again."
Ouch. The words actually sting. That never happens. I don't let it show on my face, but something in my chest twists. Last night had been—I don't have words for what last night was. I thought she felt it too. The connection. The trust.
Apparently not.
I keep my expression neutral. "I had the guest room made up for you. It’s on the third floor."
It's not entirely a lie. I did have it prepared, assuming she’d sleep in there. But after last night, after the way she'd curled into me and slept peacefully in my arms, I'd thought—
Doesn't matter what I thought.
"Good," she says. Her voice wavers slightly. "That's good."
I return to my chair, letting her have the power in the room from her standing position. She's hurt. Lashing out. Trying to draw lines because her father just gutted whatever was left of their relationship and she needs to feel in control of something.
I can give her this. For now.
"You will have my child, Sofia." I say it calmly. Matter-of-fact. "That only gets done one way."
Her eyes flash. "You won’t touch me."
"It's part of the arrangement. You agreed to it. A legitimate heir solidifies both our positions. Makes this marriage unassailable."
"I didn't agree to be your broodmare!"
"No, you agreed to be my wife. Children are part of that arrangement. We discussed this."
She snarls at me and turns on her heel. She storms out of my office, and I hear her footsteps pounding up the stairs.
I allow myself a small smile.
Better she's angry than broken. Better she's fighting me than sitting somewhere drowning in the pain of her father's indifference.
I lean back in my chair and stare at the ceiling. The guest room is on the third floor. Far from my bedroom. Far from me.
It's what she wants.
It's not what I want.
Last night had been a fluke. The way she'd looked at me with those blue eyes full of trust. The soft sounds she'd made. The way she'd fallen apart in my arms.
Not a fluke. I will have her again. She will say my name while she comes apart.
She's my wife. That's the arrangement. Strategic alliance. Protection in exchange for legitimacy.
Except it stopped being just strategy the moment I slid that ring on her finger. Maybe it stopped being strategy years ago, when I first started watching over her.
I scrub a hand over my face.
This is a problem.
I don't do feelings. Feelings for her are a liability I can't afford in my world.
I'm handling it, I tell Elena’s ghost. I find myself talking to Elena a lot lately. Her daughter is making me crazy, and we’ve been married a day. She's fine. She's angry. That's fine.
She'll come around. Or she won't. Either way, I made a promise. A man who doesn't keep his promises is a man with no currency left in any world, this one or the one I hope exists after it.
I keep my promises.
Even the inconvenient ones.
Especially those.