“There will be no examination,” he says. “No doctor. No third party. No one touches her.”
His gaze flicks up, meets Vadim’s over my head.
“And anyone who tries,” he adds softly, “loses the hands they use to do it.”
I can feel his other hand on the back of my chair now, fingers curling over the carved wood. He’s close enough behind me that I can feel the heat of his body through the veil, through the dress, through my skin.
Vadim watches him for a long moment. Something sharp and ugly passes through his eyes, then smooths out again.
“Possessive,” he says, amused. “How very interesting.” He flicks his fingers at Sergei. “Strike it.”
Sergei grabs his pen and scratches the paragraph out so hard he almost tears the paper. His hands shake the whole time.
Roman’s fingers leave the back of my chair. He straightens slowly, fixes his cuff again, and steps away. This time, he doesn’t go all the way back to the window. He takes a position at my side instead, a little back, where he can see Vadim.
“Sign,” Vadim says, as if nothing happened. He pushes a pen toward me with two fingers. “We are wasting time, and I have other things to do tonight.”
There’s a small cut on my palm from where I must have clenched my hand around the corner of the page earlier. Blood beads up, bright red against cream paper.
It smears a little as I pick up the pen.
Roman’s signature looks so calm next to my shaking hand.
I think of Mishka. I think of Yuri and his “training program.” I think of Roman’s hand in my hair and the way my body betrayed me on that office floor.
I think of the lab he promised me.
I think of poison.
“Gde podpisat’?” I ask. Where do I sign?
Sergei points to the line with a trembling finger.
I press the pen down. The nib drags through the smear of my blood before it hits paper. My name comes out neat, somehow, as my hand belongs to a calm stranger.
Anya Nikolayevna Volkova.
The second I finish the last letter, something in my chest snaps.
Vadim smiles like he just won a game where no one else knew the rules. “Pozdravlyayu,” he says. “Congratulations. The Wolf has a wife.”
Roman’s jaw clenches.
I put the pen down very carefully, because if I let go too fast, I think I might throw it at someone’s face.
Anya Morozova is gone on this paper. Dead in the ink.
Anya Volkova sits there, hands still shaking, and quietly rewrites a mental formula.
Not if I kill him first.
I look up and meet Roman’s eyes. He holds my gaze for exactly three seconds.
I’m not afraid of the big, bad wolf.
ANYA — The Chapel — 22:17
The chapel doors slam behind me, and I jump like I’ve been caught.
