My breath hitches. I can’t tell if I want to scream, cry, or run. Probably all three at once.
He doesn’t flinch. He meets my glare evenly, gray eyes sharp, unyielding. “Your father owed the Rusnak Bratva millions,” he says, voice flat, almost clinical. “The agreement…it was collateralized on you. As a family asset.”
I laugh, bitter and incredulous, letting it echo off the steps. “You’ve got to be kidding me. This is ridiculous!” My hands fly up, trembling with a mix of anger and disbelief. “I can’t…this can’t—people don’t do this anymore. This isn’t—this isn’t real life!”
Lev tilts his head, expression unreadable. “It is. The paper trail is ironclad. Bratva law is older than American law. Older than most laws you follow without question. And it binds you.”
I take a step back, my stomach twisting. My mind screams that this is insane, medieval, impossible—but the way he says it…the way he isn’t apologetic, the certainty in his tone…it chills me.
“It’s unbelievable,” I whisper, almost to myself, because nothing else fits. Nothing I’ve been taught, nothing I’ve experienced…. This just isn’t supposed to happen.
Lev doesn’t soften. He just watches me, calm and in control, and I realize in a cold, sinking moment that none of my disbelief will change the fact staring me in the face: I’m trapped in a world I never asked to enter.
He steps closer, and the chill in his eyes makes my stomach clench. “You belong to me now,” he says plainly. “And you’re going to marry me before the week is over.”
I blink at him, trying to process the words. “Wait…what do you mean?” My voice cracks, disbelief edging into panic.
Lev doesn’t flinch. He tilts my chin with a hand, his grip firm but controlled, and locks his gaze with mine. “Do you have millions to pay back the Rusnaks?”
I shake my head, my throat dry. “No…of course not.”
His jaw tightens, and I feel the weight of his presence pressing down on me. “Then your options are limited,” he says, voice low and measured. “You can either become the Bratva’s property and work for one of our establishments—waitress, bar, club…whatever they decide—or you can become my wife. Keep the debt within the family. In that case, I take responsibility for it…as your husband.”
The words hit me like a punch to the chest. My knees feel weak; my heart pounds so hard I swear it will burst. I’m gasping, staggered by the sheer impossibility of it.
“Y-you…you’re saying….” I falter, words failing me. My mind is spinning, trying to catch the edges of reality. I feel like I’m falling, like the floor beneath me doesn’t exist. “I…I can’t….”
Lev’s grip doesn’t loosen. He doesn’t need to force me; the gravity of his words is enough to make me tremble. “I’m not asking, Sasha,” he says, his voice soft but merciless. “You don’t have the money. You don’t have a choice. Only the Bratva can decide how this debt is repaid. And I…I am the only solution that keeps you safe.”
His eyes harden, and for the first time I hear something rough in his voice—something almost dangerous. “There’s another option,” he says. “But you won’t like it.”
I swallow, my throat raw. “What option?”
Lev’s jaw flexes. “We can turn you over to a Greek ally. Someone who’s been circling this debt for years, waiting to collect. He’d take you as property, Sasha. Not a guest. Not a wife. Property.”
I can’t stop the small sound that escapes my mouth. My stomach twists as his words sink in.
“He’d own you,” Lev continues, his voice dark and steady. “You wouldn’t have a name anymore—only a price. You’d be sent where he wants, worn how he wants, touched how he wants. Every part of you would become a transaction. A bed, a room, a body at his disposal. That’s what happens to women turned over in these deals.”
I shake my head, backing away from him, but he follows, his gaze pinning me in place. “You’d disappear. No friends, no flights, no Noelle. Nothing. He’d break you down until you stopped fighting and started obeying. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve signed the papers. Do you want that?”
His last words are almost a growl. For a moment, I see something flicker behind his gray eyes—a shadow of the man who once touched me softly, who once whispered mine in the dark.
Then he steps closer, lowering his voice. “Or,” he says, “you stay under my name. My protection. You don’t becomeproperty. You become my wife. The debt dies with me. You stay in the light, not the shadows.”
I’m trembling, my nails digging into my palms. “You’re giving me a choice between a cage and a…cage,” I whisper.
Lev’s expression darkens, but there’s a flash of something—anger, maybe at himself. “I’m giving you the only door out of hell,” he murmurs.
I can’t breathe. My pulse is thudding in my ears, my chest tight like it’s been cinched with wire. His words are still hanging between us—wife, property, protection—each one a bar of the cage snapping shut.
Lev studies me for a long moment, his face unreadable, the perfect mask of a man who has negotiated a hundred lives into corners. “You don’t have to answer now,” he says at last, his voice even. “But we both know you will. No one chooses the other option. No one survives it.”
“I….” The word sticks in my throat. My lips tremble, but nothing comes out. I want to scream at him, hit him, claw at his suit, anything. But all I can do is stare at him, my whole body going numb.
He takes a single step closer, and in a softer voice—one that makes me hate him more—he murmurs, “I’m sure you’ll choose marrying me. Over the former option.”
Then, just like that, the softness is gone. He straightens, his expression shuttered. He turns on his heel and walks back inside the mansion, hands in his pockets, like he hasn’t just rewritten the rest of my life.
