Lena
The morning light in the estate always feels colder than it did in the city.
Out here, there are no skyscrapers to break the wind, no hum of traffic to mask the silence.
I stand by the floor-to-ceiling windows in my room, watching the mist roll over the manicured gardens like a shroud. But I don’t really see the grass.
I see him.
I see Razvan slumped on the floor of the nursery, his head in his hands, his broad shoulders shaking with the kind of sobs that break a man apart.
I can’t get it out of my head. I’ve spent months building a cage for my heart, reinforcing the bars with every memory of the dungeon, every cold word he ever spoke, and the haunting image of my father’s body.
I told myself he was a monster. A stone-cold killer who didn’t feel anything but the hunger for power and the weight of his own legacy.
But then he cried. He cried for Theo. He admitted he was terrified. In the blue light of the nursery, he wasn’t the Pakhan—he was a man drowning in a love so vast it was suffocating him.
Why am I like this? I press my forehead against the glass, the chill seeping into my skin. Why does my heart ache when I think of his face? Why did I want to pull him closer and tell him everything would be okay?
He killed my father. He’s the reason I’m a prisoner in this house.
He’s the man who forced a ring onto my finger, using my son’s life as a bargaining chip to ensure I’d never walk away.
Nothing will ever be okay between us. This isn’t a marriage of convenience or some polite arrangement—it’s a conquest. He held the sword to the neck of everything I loved and demanded that I say “I do.” I should hate him more today than I did yesterday.
But instead, the hate is being crowded out by something else—something warm and terrifying that makes my pulse race whenever I hear his footsteps in the hall.
It’s eating me alive. This back-and-forth, this tug-of-war between my loyalty to the dead and my desire for the living. Every time I think I’ve found my footing, he does something human, and the ground vanishes beneath me again.
A soft knock at the door breaks my spiral.
“Come in,” I say, straightening my posture and wiping a stray tear I didn’t even realize had fallen.
It’s Maria. She looks at me with a strange, knowing pity that I usually resent, but today, I’m too tired to care.
“The Pakhan requests your presence for dinner tonight, Lena,” she says. “In the private dining room. Eight o’clock.”
I frown, my stomach doing a nervous little flip. “With the council? Or the lieutenants?”
Maria gives a small shake of her head. “No. Just the two of you. He was very specific about that.”
As she leaves, I catch myself. I’m already moving toward the closet. My mind is already racing through my dresses. The black silk? No, too mourning-like. The red? Too aggressive. Maybe the emerald?
I stop mid-step, my hand hovering over a hanger. What are you doing? I scold myself. You shouldn’t care what you look like for him. You shouldn’t want to look good for your father’s murderer.
But I do. I want to see his eyes darken when I walk into the room. I want to see that flicker of hunger that tells me I have power over him, even if it’s only for a second. It’s a sickness. I’m becoming addicted to the very man who destroyed my life.
I spend the afternoon in a daze until the clock strikes eight. The private dining room is small, intimate, and lit almost entirely by candles. The scent of expensive wine and roasted meat fills the air, but all I can smell is the sandalwood that always seems to follow him.
Razvan is already there, standing by the sideboard. He’s ditched the suit jacket, his white shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, exposing the dark ink on his forearms. He looks tired, but the raw panic of the other night has been replaced by a quiet, focused intensity.
He looks up as I enter, and the world stops for a heartbeat. His eyes sweep over my emerald dress, lingering on the curve of my neck before meeting my gaze.
“You came,” he says. His voice is a low rumble that vibrates in my chest.
“I wasn’t aware I had a choice,” I reply, trying to keep my voice steady. I walk to the table, my heels clicking sharply on the wood. “What is going on, why am I here, Razvan? Am I being punished for something?”
“Sit down, Lena. Please.”
He pulls out my chair for me, his hand brushing my shoulder as I sit. The contact feels like a jolt of electricity, making me stiffen. He sits across from me, pouring a deep red wine into two glasses.
“How is he?” Razvan asks, his eyes searching mine. “Theo? Is his color back?”
I nod, watching the way the candlelight dances in the wine.
“He’s much better. His fever hasn’t returned, and he’s been eating well. He’s back to causing trouble for the guards.”
Razvan exhales, a visible wave of relief crossing his features. “Good. That’s good.”
We eat in silence for a few minutes. The food is perfect, but I can barely taste it. I can feel him watching me. Not like a predator watching prey, but like a man trying to solve a puzzle.
“I didn’t bring you here just to check on the boy, Lena,” he says suddenly, putting his fork down.
I feel my heart rate climb. “Then why? If this isn’t about business, what is it?”
Razvan leans forward, his dark eyes locking onto mine with an honesty that unnerves me. “St. Petersburg, the hotel, the night Theo got sick. Everything has changed. At least for me.”
I shake my head quickly, looking down at my plate. “Nothing has changed. We have an agreement. You forced me into this, Razvan. You used my son to trap me here. That is all this is.”
He shakes his head, his voice dropping an octave. “No. It’s not. I’m tired of the force, Lena. I’m tired of the forced marriage and the walls you build every time I walk into the room. I don’t want the arrangement anymore.”
I feel like the air has been sucked out of the room. “What are you saying?”
Razvan reaches across the table, though he doesn’t touch me yet.
“I want you,” he says plainly. There’s no arrogance in his voice, no demand.
Just a simple, devastating truth. “I don’t want the Pakhan’s wife.
I want you. Specifically. I want this to be real, Lena.
Not a bargain. Not a debt. I want you to want to stay. ”
I feel my eyes prickle with heat. I pull back, the emerald silk of my dress rustling as I create distance.
I won’t explain it to him. I won’t tell him that I can’t look at him without seeing my father’s ghost standing in the corner.
I won’t tell him that every time I feel a spark of love, it feels like I’m betraying my own soul.
“I can’t do this,” I whisper, my voice breaking. “Don’t push me tonight, Razvan. Please. Just let it go.”
He watches me for a long time, his expression a mix of frustration and a strange, deep longing. He looks like he wants to reach out and pull me into his arms, but he stays where he is.
“Fine,” he says softly. “I won’t push. Not tonight. But I’m not giving up.”
I don’t stay for dessert. I turn and flee the room, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
I reach my bedroom and lock the door, leaning my back against the wood. My breath is coming in short, jagged gasps.
He wants me. He wants it to be real.
The words should be a victory. I should be happy that the powerful Pakhan is at my feet. But instead, it feels like a death sentence.
I walk over to the bed and collapse onto it, burying my face in the pillows. The scent of him is still there, faint but present, and it makes me want to scream. I roll onto my back, staring up at the dark ceiling, the silence of the room pressing in on me.
I know why I pulled back. I know why I can’t give him what he wants.
It sits in my chest like a heavy, jagged stone I’ve been carrying since the night I was dragged from my home. It’s the weight of a thousand memories, all ending in the same bloody image.
How can I fall in love with him?
How can I look at the hands that held the gun that killed my father and want those same hands to hold me? How can I listen to the voice that ordered my captivity and want that voice to whisper my name in the dark?
“I’m sorry, Papa,” I whisper into the empty room.
The tears start then. They aren’t the quiet, ladylike tears I’ve shed in public. They are raw, ugly sobs that tear through my throat and leave me gasping for air. I curl into a ball, clutching the silk sheets, my body shaking with the force of my grief and my guilt.
Every time I feel a spark of affection for Razvan, I feel like I’m spitting on my father’s grave. Every time I enjoy his touch, I feel like I’m a traitor to my own blood. I’m falling in love with a murderer, and the shame of it is a physical pain, a burning in my heart that won’t go out.
He’s not just a murderer, a small voice in my head whispers. He’s the man who saved your son. He’s the man who stayed awake all night holding you when you were scared. He’s the man who wants you for who you are, not what you bring.
“It doesn’t matter!” I sob out loud, my voice muffled by the blankets. “It doesn’t change what he did!”
I cry until my eyes are swollen and my throat is raw. I cry for the life I lost, and for the life I’m trapped in. I cry because I’m a Sokolova, and my father taught me that loyalty is everything but my heart is a traitor that doesn’t care about bloodlines.
I think about the way Razvan looked at dinner. The vulnerability. The way he dropped his guard and asked me to see him. He’s trying so hard to be the man I need, but I’m the one holding the knife now. I’m the one keeping us apart because I can’t let go of the past.
I stay awake for hours, the moon tracing a slow path across the floor. My chest feels hollowed out, as if the crying has emptied me of everything but the cold, hard truth.
I’m in love with him.
The realization is a fresh wave of agony. I don’t want to be. I fought it with everything I had. I used my anger like armor and my silence like a wall, but he found the cracks anyway. He didn’t use force or threats; he just used himself. He showed me his heart, and I was too weak to turn away.
“I hate you,” I whisper, though there’s no conviction in the words. “I hate you for making me love you.”
I finally fall into a fitful, exhausted sleep just as the first hint of gray appears in the sky. My dreams are a blur of blood and roses, of cold dungeons and warm beds. And in every dream, Razvan is there, reaching for me through the fog.
When I wake up, the stone is still there, sitting heavy in my chest. But the tears have dried, leaving my skin feeling tight and my soul feeling raw.
I sit up and look at the door. I know he’s out there. I know he’s waiting for me to make a choice. And as I stand up to start another day in this beautiful, gilded cage, I realize that the war isn’t between me and Razvan anymore.
It’s between me and my father’s ghost.
And I’m not sure who’s going to win.
I walk to the vanity and look at myself in the mirror. I look like a woman who has been through a war. My eyes are red, my face is pale, but there’s a new determination in my gaze. I can’t keep living like this—suspended between the past and the present.
I have to decide if I’m going to stay a Sokolova forever or if I’m finally brave enough to become a Volkov.
I take a deep breath, smoothing my hair and adjusting my robe. I have to go see Theo. I have to be a mother. And I have to figure out how to look at the man I love without seeing the man I should hate.
The morning routine with Theo is a blessing. It’s the only time my mind stays quiet. We play with his blocks, we draw pictures of dragons that look like scribbles, and I let his laughter wash over the jagged edges of my heart.
But as I watch him, I see so much of Razvan in him. The way he tilts his head when he’s thinking, the stubborn set of his chin, the intensity in his dark eyes. He is a living bridge between the man I loved and the man I’m learning to love.
“Mama, look!” Theo shouts, holding up a blue block. “It’s a castle for Superman!”
“It’s beautiful, Theo,” I say, my voice a little tight.
“Is Superman coming to play?”
I look toward the door, half-expecting to see him standing there in the shadows. “I don’t know, baby. He’s very busy today.”
“He’s always busy,” Theo pouts, his little lip trembling. “But he saved me from the fever. He’s my hero.”
I sit on the floor beside him, pulling him into a hug that he barely tolerates in his excitement. “He is very strong, isn’t he?”
Theo nods vigorously, then he gets quiet, looking at me with that serious expression that always reminds me too much of the man downstairs. “Mama, I love you too. You gave me the cold water and the hugs.”
He plays with a toy car then looks up. “Superman and Mama are married, right? Like in the books? Does that mean Superman is my Dad?”
The question hits me like a physical blow. I look at my son—this beautiful, innocent boy who deserves a father who loves him. “Would you like that, Theo? Would you like Razvan to be your Dad?”
Theo thinks about it. He goes very still, his little eyebrows furrowing as he considers it with more weight than any four-year-old should have to.
Then, he nods slowly. “Yes. I would like that.” I swallow the lump in my throat. “Why, baby?”
Theo smiles, a small, knowing thing. “Because Superman looks at Mama the way Prince Charming looks at Cinderella in the movie. Like you’re the best thing in the whole world. And he protects everyone. He protects us. I’m happy he’s my dad.”
I pull him into my arms, burying my face in his neck so he can’t see the tears finally spilling over. I try so hard not to cry, to keep the sob from escaping my throat, but my chest is aching. My son sees the love that I’m trying so hard to ignore. He sees a hero where I see a villain.
I hold Theo until he squirms to get away, his mind already back on his dragons.
I stand up, wiping my eyes, and look toward the door.
I know Razvan is out there. I know he’s waiting for me to make a choice.
And as I watch my son play, I realize that the war isn’t just about the past anymore. It’s about the future.
And I have no idea how it’s going to go.