Let Maksim see what he's bought.
I reach for the unopened water bottle, crack the seal myself with deliberate precision, and pour it into my wine glass. Thediamond on my finger throws tiny rainbows across the white tablecloth, beautiful and meaningless.
Maksim watches this entire performance without expression.
Three weeks until I walk down an aisle toward a man who bought me and a life that will require every survival skill I've spent years honing.
Then a year of performance. A year of living in his house, playing his wife, maintaining the lie while keeping my secrets buried so deep he'll never think to look for them.
I survived learning that safety is an illusion. I survived waking up violated with no one who believed me. I survived building something that matters from nothing but rage and determination.
I can survive Maksim Severyn.
I lift my water glass in a silent toast to the future, to the role I'm about to play, to the control I'm determined to maintain even as everything shifts into shapes I don't recognize.
The ring sits heavy on my finger.
Three weeks.
The countdown has already started, and I'm running out of time.
4
ZAKHAR
Maksim devours his steak like a wolf finally allowed to hunt.
I watch from across the table, fighting the urge to smile. He's cutting into the meat with focused precision, each bite deliberate, his expression somewhere between relief and vindication. The booth we occupy is tucked into the corner ofZolotoy Medved—the Golden Bear—one of our restaurants where the lighting is low amber, the vodka is Russian, and nobody asks questions.
The place smells like oak smoke and aged leather. Expensive cigars. Money. The kind of establishment where business happens in low voices and the staff knows not to remember faces.
"Didn't you already have lunch?" I ask, keeping my tone neutral. "With Victoria. At that place."
Maksim doesn't look up from his plate. "That wasn't lunch. That was performance art disguised as food." He spears another piece of steak, and the tension in his shoulders eases as he chews. "I was starving."
"That bad?"
"Worse." He reaches for his vodka, takes a measured sip. "The whole place was odd. All women. Staff, customers, everyone. Except me and one other couple who looked like he'd been dragged there against his will."
I consider this. Process it the way I process most information. Methodically, looking for threat assessment, strategic value, anything worth noting.
But I come up blank because I wasn't paying attention to the restaurant. I was too busy trying not to stare at Victoria Ainsley as she walked past me on the sidewalk, all cream silk and calculated grace, leaving a trail of sandalwood and vanilla that made my mouth go dry.
The scent hit me first. Sandalwood and vanilla, warm and expensive, the kind of perfume that lingers in elevators long after a woman's gone. My throat went dry. My chest tightened, ribs constricting like someone had wrapped steel bands around my lungs and started cranking them tighter.
Then she looked at me.
Slow. Assessing. Like she was deciding whether I was worth her time or just another obstacle to navigate around.
"Do you always look this tense, or is it just me?"
Her voice, honey over gravel, teasing in a way that made my jaw lock and my hands curl into fists at my sides. Made other parts of me respond too, which was the real problem.
I don't get distracted. Distraction gets you killed. I've built my entire life on discipline, on being the one who sees everything, anticipates everything, stays three steps ahead of disaster.
But Victoria Ainsley walked past me, and for those few seconds, my breathing pattern became shallow, irregular, the kind of autonomic failure I haven't experienced since I was a teenager with no control over my own biology.
I can't explain why she affects me this way.
