“That is why they want me gone. Why they are hunting me.”
A faint, humorless curve touched his mouth.
“They tell themselves it’s because I came to California to build a sixth throne. That’s the lie they’re comfortable with.”
His gaze hardened.
“The truth is simpler. If I killed Al-Chapo and took his empire, then I also inherited his knowledge. His ledgers. His connections.”
He straightened slightly.
“And they know their names are written all over them.”
The room felt smaller. The air thinner.
“I didn’t come to California to start a war,” he said, his tone flat, almost bored. “Wars are loud. Messy. This is neither.”
His eyes stayed on me, unblinking.
“I came for one thing only—to find the woman who murdered Maria.”
A pause. Precise. Controlled.
“I haven’t found her yet.”
Then, softly—lethally:
“But I found you.”
The words landed like iron.
“As long as you remain in my custody,” he went on, calm as a man discussing logistics, “your sister will not stay hidden. She will feel you like a hook in her ribs. She will surface.”
His mouth curved, not quite a smile.
“And when she does,” he finished calmly, “divorce will no longer matter. You will be free to go. Free to live whatever remains of your life.”
My stomach twisted. Free? Free from what? Free from him? Or free from the weight of a sister’s sins I had never committed? I realized in that instant—I wasn’t just his wife. I was a hostage, a living instrument to draw my sister out of hiding.
Every breath I took, every step I made, was a tether in his plan.
“I... she wouldn’t do that,” I whispered, barely audible, the words trembling with disbelief.
My throat burned, my chest tightened. “She’s not capable of it. You’re wrong—she couldn’t... she wouldn’t hurt anyone like that.”
Ruslan’s gaze didn’t waver.
His voice dropped lower, steady, each word measured like a scalpel. “Be concerned about your father,” he said, “the one you thought dead, the one who watched you suffer in silence all these years. Getting your inheritance? Impossible. He’s alive. Unlike Harris’s father. Harris would have gained control of his family’s fortune by marrying you. You? You would see nothing. Not a single cent. Your father is the one who stands to benefit.”
He leaned forward slightly, the weight of his presence pressing into me, unrelenting. “Let this be the last time you defend that... sister of yours. You weren’t there. You didn’t see what I saw. A woman punching my sister—over, and over, even after she was dead. Even after her chest stopped moving. You didn’t see the cold, the obsession, the cruelty. You weren’t in the room. But I was.”
He leaned back, letting the silence stretch until it hurt.
The words crushed me.
Ten years.
Ten years of sleeping on concrete. Of eating from dumpsters behind bakeries and grocery stores. Of washing myself in public bathrooms, of scrubbing floors until my hands cracked and bled. Ten years of believing I was an orphan. Of believing the family fortune had died with my parents.
