He took a step closer.
“But understand this,” he continued calmly. “I have men in every corridor she might crawl through. Ports. Borders. Intelligence circles. Black markets. Old favors. New threats. I have people who don’t sleep, who don’t stop, who don’t fail. If she breathes anywhere on this planet, I will know.”
His gaze locked onto mine, unblinking, merciless.
“And until I find her,” he said, “you remain with me.”
The words landed like a sentence passed in a courtroom with no appeal.
“You will pay her debt in full.” His tone hardened, steel entering his voice. “She alone killed my sister. She alonebutchered my wife—pregnant, defenseless—and murdered my unborn child.”
My breath hitched.
“But you,” he went on, relentless, “will carry her burden. Like a cross nailed to your back. You will live under it. You will breathe under it. Until the day I stand over her body and decide what justice looks like.”
The words struck with surgical precision—no heat, no flourish. Just sentence.
They settled in my chest like stones, crushing breath, cracking ribs from the inside.
“No.” I took a step back, bare feet silent against the warm stone path.
The sun had climbed higher now, gilding the olive leaves above us, sharpening the light until the air itself felt unforgiving.
“You will not punish me,” I said, my voice steady despite the tremor in my chest, “for a crime I did not commit. For an offense I know nothing about.”
He didn’t move.
He simply tilted his head, studying me the way one studies a flaw in a weapon—something disappointing, something that must be corrected.
“You bear her name,” he said slowly. “You speak almost like that devil who took my sister from me. The cadence. The restraint. The way you hold yourself when you lie—or think you’re telling the truth.” His eyes darkened. “She beat my sister to death with one hundred and fifteen punches. One hundred and fifteen. You share her blood. And yet you think it unjust to answer for her crimes in her absence?”
I stepped back again.
The heat of the morning pressed against my skin, but I felt cold—hollowed out.
I had been so foolish. I had thought the truth would free me. That once he knew I hadn’t butchered his wife, the hatred would dissolve.
Instead, it had only evolved.
The crime had changed.
The sentence had not.
“Petros will bring you a pill before the day ends,” Ruslan continued, voice flattening further. “You will take it. Dutifully. I do not want a child.” A pause. Deliberate. “Not from you. Not from anyone. Ever.”
My chest dropped, sharp and sickening.
I had almost forgotten what this was.
Not a hostage situation.
Not a misunderstanding.
A marriage.
Legal. Binding. Inescapable.
“I’m sorry—I can’t—” I swallowed hard, the words scraping through my abused throat like broken glass.
