Fear made my voice small despite my effort to keep it steady.
He closed the distance in two long strides.
Suddenly he was there—too close. I could feel the heat radiating from his body, smell clean soap and something darker beneath it. Control. Violence. Restraint held on a razor’s edge.
“Surely you don’t believe being my wife means you wake, bathe, eat, wander my estate, and sleep untouched,” he said quietly. “You will fulfill your duties. You will be loyal to me.” His gaze dropped—not to leer, but to claim. “In bed. Is that understood?”
I shook my head.
The movement was small. Instinctive. A refusal born not of courage but of terror.
He stepped closer still, backing me toward the low stone wall edging the olive grove. Sunlight flashed off the leaves behind me, nowhere left to retreat.
“There’s... there’s something I need to tell you,” I stammered, my heart racing, the words spilling out before fear could choke them back. “H-Harris and I—we have to marry. If we want the inheritance. Both of us. It’s in our parents’ wills. It’s... written there.”
Ruslan didn’t react immediately.
“You will not leave this marriage,” he said slowly, savoring each syllable. “Not in this lifetime. You belong to me. Your body, your thoughts, your soul... every piece of you is mine to command, to punish, to shape as I see fit.”
His gaze hardened, the temperature in the air dropping with it.
“As for your inheritance,” he added flatly, “forget it.”
Something snapped.
Anger surged up, sudden and reckless, burning through fear like a match to dry paper.
“Forget my father’s inheritance?” I shot back, hands curling into fists. “Millions—money that could give me freedom, security, a life where I don’t have to beg for scraps of mercy?”
He watched me burn without flinching.
Then he reached into his pocket.
The movement was unhurried.
When his hand emerged, it held a sleek black American Express Centurion card—the kind whispered about, the kind with no spending limit, no questions asked. The kind only kings and criminals carried.
He held it out between us.
“My punishment will not include you starving,” he said. “You will not beg. You will not need. You will not want for anything.”His eyes locked onto mine. “Take it. The password is Yannis’s birthday. Ask him when you’re ready.”
My hands shook as I stared at the card.
It felt heavy even before I touched it.
“My father’s inheritance is worth more,” I whispered—pride clinging to me like a lifeline.
His jaw tightened.
“Take this card from me, Elena.”
I snatched it—angry, humiliated, desperate—and turned my face away so he wouldn’t see the tears gathering despite my effort to hold them back.
The card burned in my palm.
Not wealth.
Not freedom.
