1 - Sofia
The Chanel clutch weighs exactly three ounces more than it should, and I love it.
Standing alone on the Museum steps, I adjust the cream silk of my Valentino dress one final time. The August afternoon air tastes of coming rain, carrying the distant sound of champagne laughter from inside, where Chicago's elite continue their charity charade without me. Three weeks since Emma took a bullet meant for Alessandro. Three weeks of planning while she healed, while I perfected this moment.
My driver waited exactly as long as I told him to—ten minutes after I dismissed him with a smile and assurance that I'd catch a ride with my brothers.
My brothers who left an hour ago.
The blade hidden in my clutch's lining presses against my palm, a comfort more intimate than any lover's touch. The electronic lockpicks nestle beside it, tools of a trade my family doesn't know I've mastered. In the Rosetti family, we all keep our secrets close and our weapons closer.
I descend two steps, my heels clicking against marble in deliberate rhythm. The silk of my dress whispers against my skin with each movement, a sensual counterpoint to the weapons hidden beneath. The sound echoes across the empty plaza, a dinner bell for the predators I know are watching. Three weeks of leaving strategic gaps in my security. Three weeks of mysterious headaches that sent me outside for air atprecisely the wrong moments. Three weeks of being the perfect, vulnerable prey.
All leading to this moment, alone in a designer gown, practically gift-wrapped for the taking.
My pulse stays steady at sixty-four beats per minute. I've trained for this. Not the kidnapping itself—that's just theater. I've trained for what comes after. For walking into the den of the man who wants me dead and finding out why I dream his brother's name. The nightmare fragments claw at the edges of my consciousness—why do I know Russian lullabies? Why does this feel like coming home?
The wind shifts, bringing the scent of expensive cologne.
They're here.
Three shadows emerge from behind the museum's ornate columns, moving with fluid precision. They don't run or shout or wave weapons. They simply appear, cutting off my paths of retreat with an economy of motion that would be beautiful if it weren't meant to be terrifying.
"Miss Rosetti." The lead man's voice carries a faint Russian accent, polished but present. "Mr.Volkov requests your company."
I let my hand tighten on my clutch—not enough to reach for the blade, just enough to sell the fear I should be feeling. "I don't believe we've been properly introduced."
"We haven't." He steps closer, and my trained eye catches the telltale bulge of his shoulder holster, but it's the stilted grace of his movements that snags my attention. Old injury in his right leg, probably. "But Mr.Volkov has been wanting to make your acquaintance for some time."
My steady pulse betrays nothing of the satisfaction coursing through me. Finally. After weeks of careful planning, the trap I set for myself is springing shut.
"And if I decline his request?"
The man's smile is almost apologetic. "Then we'll have to insist."
I glance between the three of them, noting positions, calculating angles of attack I have no intention of using. The black SUV idles at the curb, its door already open like a mouth waiting to swallow me whole.
"Well," I say, letting a tremor enter my voice that's only half-false. "When you put it that way."
I walk toward the car with my chin high, every inch the Rosetti princess too proud to be dragged. The men fall into formation around me, close enough to grab me if I run, far enough apart that I couldn't take all three even if I tried.
Which I won't. Because this is exactly what I wanted.
"You can get in yourself, or Boris here can help you." The lead soldier gestures to the open door. "Mr.Volkov prefers willing compliance, but he'll accept other arrangements."
Before I can respond, another voice cuts through the night air. Soft, measured, and somehow more dangerous than any shout.
"That won't be necessary."
Alexei Volkov steps from behind the SUV like he's been there all along, and my carefully maintained composure cracks just slightly. His pale eyes catch the fading afternoon light, turning them the color of winter ice. He's exactly as I remember from when I last saw him, standing in my own dining room, threatening my family. Because of me. Tall, lean, moving with the reined-in grace of a predator who's never needed to hurry because the prey never escapes.
"Sofiya Rozetti," he says in Russian—????? ???????—and hearing my name in that language from his lips sends an unexpected shiver down my spine. "Printsessa."
Princess. The word should sound mocking, but there's something else in it. Something that makes my chest tight.
He circles me slowly, close enough that I can smell his cologne—dark, with notes of amber and smoke. When he passes behind me, his breath stirs the hair at my nape, and I hate that my body recognizes him—some cellular memory that predates conscious thought. My traitorous body responds to his proximity—pulse jumping despite my control, skin heating beneath the fabric.
"You know," he says conversationally, still circling, "I expected more fear. Tears, perhaps. Certainly more than this… calm."
