“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.
ANYA — Guest Suite, 21:48
Luka doesn’t say a word on the walk back.
His shoes are almost silent on the parquet, just a soft thud every few steps. My own heels tap louder, like I’m broadcasting panic down every corridor in this ridiculous mansion.
My hands still shake.
I keep them jammed into the pockets of my coat so he won’t see, but the tremor runs up my arms and into my shoulders anyway. My knees feel weird, like the marble from Roman’s floor is still under them, and every time I blink I see myself there again.
On my knees.
Looking up at him while his hand is in my hair.
My whole body does this awful hot-cold flip. Shame, fury… and something I really,reallydon’t want to name.
Nope. Not going there. Absolutely not.
“Breathe,” Luka says.
“I am breathing,” I snap, but my lungs feel like someone pulled them out and left two empty spaces inside my chest.
He glances down at me, mouth twitching like he almost smiles, then thinks better of it. “You went white back there. I thought Roman was going to have to carry you out.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry my nervous system didn’t get the ‘be cool in front of the crime lord’ memo.”
I swallow and stare straight ahead at the endless corridor. There are paintings everywhere—saints, battle scenes, women who probably married horrible men in this house and never left it.
I dig my thumbnail into my palm until it hurts. Pain is simple. Pain means chemistry, something I can label instead of just “holy shit.”
I’m going to kill him.
The thought drops into my head so clean it almost makes me stumble.
One day, when I have the lab he promised and access, I’m going to put something in his body that looks like bad luck on the autopsy.
Cardiac event. No suspicious circumstances.
I picture Mishka on a train to somewhere safe. I picture Roman Volkov in a coffin.
My hands stop shaking so much.
