Chapter 3 – Noelle
“No,ogonek. You’re going to marry me instead.”
For a beat, I just stare at him. Then a laugh bursts out of me—high and shaky. It sounds like it belongs to someone else, not me.
“That’s…a joke, right?”
His expression doesn’t change.
The sound dies in my throat. My heart starts to hammer so hard it hurts. He’s serious. God help me, he’s serious.
“Do I look like a fucking clown to you?” His voice is low, deadly calm, but the words cut sharper than a knife pressed against skin.
I swallow hard, heat flooding my cheeks. My instincts scream at me to shut up, but my mouth betrays me.
“Why marriage? Why? I don’t see how that—how it has anything to do with what’s going on.”
I feel the air shift. Like I just reached out and tugged the lion’s mane.
While he was away, I had time to think—to really think. To come to terms with my death. Because in the Bratva, crimes like this don’t go unpunished. And all I had was my word, which none of them believed.
It wasn’t as though I mattered. My existence wasn’t precious to anyone. My death wouldn’t shake the world. So I prepared myself for it, steeled myself against the inevitable.
Which is why his offer rattles me so badly.
“Why?” I ask again. “Why should I marry you?”
He stares at me, almost affronted, like the question itself is offensive. Like no one has ever dared to ask him why.
I know I’m pushing my luck, but I can’t help it. I need answers.
His voice lashes out, harsh and unyielding. “If you marry into the Bratva, you are untouchable. No one can kill you. Not Anton. Not anyone. You will belong to the Rusnak name. You will be protected, monitored, owned. By me. And that is how you will prove your innocence.”
The way he saysownedmakes my skin crawl.
I open my mouth, close it, then force words out. My voice cracks around them.
“And if I don’t?”
Something shifts in his eyes, a flash of cold steel.
“Then you die.”
The certainty in his tone steals my breath. There’s no drama in it, no threat. Just a fact. A sentence already written.
My throat tightens. My palms sting where my nails dig in. I don’t want him to see me break, to see the fear I feel choking me, but it’s there, trembling at the edges.
“Is this”—my voice catches; I steady it—“is this how men apologize where you’re from? Where’s the ring?”
For the first time, something flickers in his expression. Annoyance. A crack in the ice. His jaw works once, slow and deliberate.
Then, softly, terrifyingly steady, he leans in.
“A ring isn’t a problem.”
“If I…if I say yes—does that mean I become yours to control?”
My voice is barely a whisper, but I know he hears every syllable.
