Chapter 8
She wipes her cheek with the back of her hand, smearing mascara across her skin. The motion tells me enough. She’s not sad about the tears; she’s angry I saw them.
Her shoulders are still trembling under the coat.
“Step away from the door,” I tell her.
Her fingers hover on the handle for a second too long. She glances at the corridor like she’s checking the distance. Then she exhales, lets go, and turns back to me.
“I’m not trying to run,” she says. Her voice is thin but still sharp. “I was looking for a bathroom to wash my face.”
“This shouldn’t take long. It depends on how quickly you cooperate.”
She steps away from the frame with her chin a fraction higher, like she’s daring me. Her hands disappear deeper into her coat pockets.
“Rules,” she says. “You said we’re doing rules. Let’s get it over with.”
Good.
I walk toward her in even steps. The old parquet creaks under my shoes. She stiffens when she hears it, but she doesn’t run; she’s not giving me the satisfaction of backing up.
“Rule one,” I say, stopping close enough that I can feel her breath against my shirt. “You don’t leave this estate without my permission.”
Her eyebrows lift, and she lets out a tired laugh. “You going to put a GPS collar on me too, or is that later in the program?”
“Rule two,” I say, ignoring the jab, “no communication with anyone outside without my knowledge.”
“Perfect. Surveillance. Fantastic. This whole thing really needed a dystopian upgrade.”
Her sarcasm lands. It scrapes across nerves I thought were dead. I step in closer and brace my hand on the shelf beside her head. The wood is cool under my palm. Her spine presses into it; her ass nudges the books behind her. She’s pinned.
Her breathing stutters. Her lips part slightly, but her eyes don’t drop.
“And rule three,” I say, keeping my gaze on hers, “when I ask for something, you say yes.”
“Anything?” she asks. It’s a challenge, wrapped in fear and tired humor she’s using to protect herself.
“Yes,” I answer. “Anything.”
She shifts her weight, the coat pulling tight across her chest, the fabric stretching over the curve of her breasts. My eyes drop, and I make them come back to her face. She notices it.
“Of course,” she mutters under her breath. “Of course you’d—”
I cut her off by leaning in a little, just enough to crowd her.
“What about that surprises you?” I ask. “You’re smart enough to know exactly what this is.”
Her breath hitches, but her chin goes up another notch. “I’m smart enough to know you’re not the first man who thinks owning someone equals obedience. What happens if I don’t?”
I’m honest about it.
“If you don’t follow the rules,” I say, “you’ll be punished. Properly.”
She blinks once, slowly, like she’s sure she misheard. “Punished how?”
“Spanked,” I say. “Over my knee. Until the message sinks in.”
There’s a heartbeat of silence.
Then she laughs. It bursts out of her in a breathless, high sound. She slaps a hand over her mouth like she wishes she could shove it back inside.
My jaw tightens.
“You think it’s funny?” I ask. “Do I sound like I’m joking?”
She swallows fast. The laugh dies instantly. “No. I—I’m not laughing at you, I just—” She shakes her head once. “It came out. That’s all.”
“Anya,” I say. “If you break my rules, I will pull you over my knee and spank your bare ass until you remember who you belong to.”
Her breath catches so sharply her chest jumps against the coat. Colour floods her cheeks. Her eyes drop for a second, then drag themselves back up to my face like she’s forcing them.
“That’s barbaric,” she says.
“You asked.”
“That was not a serious question,” she mutters.
“It was serious enough.”
She mutters something in Russian under her breath. I catch the shape of blyad in there and let it go. Her chin tilts, fear and attitude threaded together.
I step back to give her a little space. Her lungs drag in a longer breath, like her body hadn’t realized it could until now.
“We’re not done,” I say.
Her shoulders slump for a second. “Of course we’re not. Why would we be.”
I move to the little table by the fire where the chessboard waits. The pieces are already set—habit. I sit, then look across at her.
“Come here,” I tell her.
She doesn’t move immediately. She stands there in the middle of the room, wrapped in that coat, looking at me.
“Anya,” I say. “I said come here.”
She exhales through her nose and walks toward the table. The coat sways around her legs. Her boots make soft sounds on the wood. She stops across from me, hands still buried in her pockets.
“Sit,” I say, nodding to the chair opposite mine.
She stares at the chair, then at me. “Do I ever get to say no?”
“You just did,” I say. “And you’re still going to sit.”
She pulls in a breath and lowers herself into the chair. She perches on the edge, spine straight, knees together, as if being fully seated would be giving in too much.
I sit back in my own chair. The board between us is comfortable territory for me. It isn’t for her.
“We’re making a bet,” I say.
Her eyes narrow. “That already sounds like a problem, considering the last time a man in my family made one, I ended up here.”
I almost smile.
“If I win,” I say, moving my pawn two spaces forward to e4, “we consummate the marriage tonight.”
I know I will win, but I still want to see if she’s as brilliant as her file says.
Her reaction is pure instinct. Her spine jerks, the air leaves her lungs in a small sound she doesn’t quite manage to swallow. Her fingers tighten in her coat.
“And if I win?” she asks.
“Then I wait,” I say. “Tomorrow. Next week. Next month. I don’t touch you until you ask me to.”
“Until I…?” Her tongue wets her bottom lip, and my gaze follows the movement before I drag it away. “That’s not a real choice. You’re better than me, otherwise you wouldn’t suggest it.”
“Yes,” I say. “I am better.”
“Then this is rigged.”
“Most things are,” I say. “Fight anyway. Fight dirty.”
The panic recedes by one degree. Her attention shifts down to the board. She reaches out and moves her pawn to e5.
We play.
At first, her moves are textbook. Then something in her clicks. She stops reacting to my pieces and starts planning around them. She leans over the board, elbows resting lightly on the table, and her hair slips loose around her face. Her breathing evens out. The fine tremor in her hands fades.
I study her while she studies the game. The way her brow furrows when she’s working through possibilities. The way her lips press together, then part when she thinks she’s found something. The way she bites her lip when she’s about to commit to a move.
She sacrifices a bishop to pin one of my knights.
“Risky,” I say.
She doesn’t look up. “So is getting into a car with Russians. I seem to be on a roll.”
I move my piece, testing her. She adapts. I can sense her mind working. The same mind Vadim wants shackled to MX-42. She’s good, but not good enough. My cock twitches, hungry.
I press. I can see the ending. I’ve done it a thousand times.
She moves her rook.
I look at her mouth again, while I counter her move, bored.
She moves her queen.
“Check,” she says quietly.
I look back at the board and say nothing for a full three seconds.
Her queen and knight are working together in a pattern I didn’t track because I wasn’t watching close enough.
I sacrifice the rook. There’s no other way to stay in the game.
She doesn’t hesitate. Her knight takes it with a neat, decisive click on the wood.
“Shakh i mat,” she says. Checkmate.
I stare at the board. Then at her. Then I start laughing.
She flinches.
“You actually beat me,” I say. “You actually fucking beat me.”
Her fingers curl around the edge of the table. “So you… wait.”
I can’t fucking believe it.
“Yes,” I say. “I wait.”
I stand in disbelief. The chair legs drag against the floor. She rises slower, her eyes on me the whole time, wary and flushed.
“Come here,” I tell her.
“Why?” Her voice is thin, but she doesn’t move.
“Just come here, Anya.”
She steps around the corner of the table, cautiously. She stops an arm’s length away.
I close that distance until the edge of the table presses into the back of her thighs. I plant my hands on either side of her on the wood, caging her in. The heat coming off her is enough to make my pulse jump.
“Do you have any idea,” I ask, “how badly I want to fuck you right now?”
Her throat moves. Her eyes drop to my mouth for one second before she drags them back up.
“But you won,” I say. “And I gave you my word. Slovo Volkova.” A Volkov’s word.
Confusion flickers across her face. Disbelief. A tiny, dangerous spark of trust.
I step back before I change my own rules.
“You’re wasted sitting in some anonymous lab in Basel,” I say, like I just had the idea. I move to the window because I need distance between us. “That mind belongs in a place where it actually matters.”
“I don’t have a lab anymore,” she says. There’s a raw note in the words she probably didn’t mean to let out.
“You will. Second floor, east wing. I’ll have a space converted. Proper hood, proper equipment. You give Luka a list of what you need; he’ll make it happen.”
She stares at me. “Just like that.”
“Just like that.”
“And the catch?”
“That’s the catch,” I say. “You working keeps you useful. You working under my roof keeps me in control of the risk. I don’t like surprises, especially the chemical variety.”
Her mouth twitches. “Very responsible of you, Mr. Volkov. Crime, murder… but with proper lab safety.”
“I don’t break what belongs to me.”
She goes very still at that. Then she laughs.
“You really think that makes you better,” she says. “The rules. The lab. The waiting. You think it makes you some kind of… kinder monster.”
“I never said I was kind.”
“No,” she says. “But you’re very invested in convincing me you’re not like the others.”
I turn back from the window to face her fully. “I’m not like any other.”
“Sure,” she says. Her eyes are bright now. “You didn’t drag me out of my apartment yourself. You didn’t hold the gun. You just bought the result. You’re not different from those men, Roman. You’re just better dressed.”
The words cut.
I walk toward her slowly. Her bravado flickers, but she doesn’t move. Her hands slide into her coat pockets again. Her shoulders rise.
“What did you just say?”
“I—”
“Na koleni.” Kneel.
The air tightens in the room.
She stares at me. “You can’t be serious.”
“Try me.”
I take another step. She takes an involuntary one back, and her shoulders meet the bookshelf with a soft thud. Her scent—peppermint, fear, something warmer underneath—hits me stronger here.
“I honored your win,” I say. “I gave you time. I offered you a lab, a path to something that looks almost like the life they ripped you out of. And you repay that by comparing me to the mutts who fetch and carry for my uncle.”
Her breath comes faster now. Her chest lifts and falls. The coat strains over her breasts again.
“Kneel,” I say. I hate repeating myself.
She shakes her head once. “Roman, don’t—”
“Kneel, Anya.”
There’s a long, thick moment where she thinks.
Then she slides one knee down onto the polished floor, then the other. Her hands hover uselessly for a second before she brace them lightly on her knees.
She looks up at me.
And fuck.
On her knees, looking up through dark lashes, mascara smeared, lips parted, chest rising fast—I think about it.
About what it would feel like to wrap a hand in her hair, guide her head forward, watch her lips open around my cock, feel the heat and the wetness and the tremble of her throat while she tries to keep her composure.
I’m no priest. The thought hits and doesn’t let go.
I slide one hand into her hair, gripping. Her head tilts back slightly. Her throat stretches out in a pale, vulnerable line. Her pulse hammers under the skin.
“Look at me,” I say.
She does. Immediately. Her eyes are wide, pupils blown, fear and humiliation and something hotter all tangled together.
“When I show mercy,” I say, my thumb brushing along the edge of her lip, “you don’t throw it back in my face. Mercy cost me, solnyshko. I don’t pay it twice.”
Her lips part on a shaky exhale. “Fuc-”
“You want to curse me?” I cut her off. “Save it for the bedroom. Save it for when you’re on this floor for a different reason, and you’re begging me for things you swore you’d never want from me. Everywhere else, you’re Anya Volkova. My wife. Act like it.”
A small sound escapes—half swallow, half protest. She doesn’t say the words, but I see the moment she understands that resistance has limits here.
I let go of her hair. My fingers don’t want to. I force them to unclench.
She stays there on her knees for a beat too long. Then she pushes herself up, legs unsteady, eyes skittering away from my face.
I turn my back on her because if I keep looking, I’m going to wreck everything I just promised. I walk to the sideboard, pour myself another whiskey, and focus on the sound of the liquid hitting glass instead of the memory of how she looked, kneeling at my feet.
“The chapel is in thirty minutes,” I say, keeping my voice level. “Luka will escort you to your room. Try to look like a bride. It will make everyone’s life easier.”
She moves toward the door. I hear the soft tread of her boots, the faint drag of fabric, the hesitation when her fingers touch the handle.
“Anya,” I say.
She stops but doesn’t turn. Neither do I.
“The next time you feel like calling me a thug,” I tell her, lifting the glass to my mouth, “make sure you’re already on your knees. At least then I’ll enjoy the position.”
She sucks in a breath. The door opens. Closes.
I take a swallow of scotch and set the glass down on the chess table beside the knight she used to corner my king. My hand is still shaking, just enough that I can feel it.
She beat me because I was too distracted by the way she looks and the way she fights. If I’m not careful, the little chemist is going to do the same thing everywhere else.
And this time, it won’t just be a game I lose.