I turn to watch the window but I can feel Nikolai’s gaze on me—intense, watchful, calculating. I try to ignore it, mostly because I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me nervous for the first time.
Just then, Maksim starts to speak, “Boss, pochemu my vso eto delayem dlya psikha, kotoryy otkusil mne ruku?”
Ivan throws his head into the window, clearly exhausted. “Maksim, nauchit’sya zakryvat’ svoy rot.”
Nikolai says nothing.
Then Maksim speaks up again, seemingly trying a different approach. “Yesli pozvolite, Mister Orlov, kak dolgo vy trakhayete ital’yanskuyu printsessu?”
Ivan rams Maksim’s face into the steering wheel, causing our ride to swerve. I grip Nikolai’s hand tight as a reflex.
“Eto bol’she, chem trakhat’, tupoy ublyudok,” Ivan says, looking back at us with a small smile, the first I’ve ever seen on his face.
I look to Nikolai, but they are clearly having some type of moment, so I just watch quietly.
When we finally slow to a stop, Nikolai reaches in his back pocket and pulls out a set of handcuffs. “I’m sorry, malyshka, it’s just for show.”
I turn around and let him cuff me, confident that I can trust him.
The cuffed hands kind of defeat the purpose of the knife that I have wrapped under my dress, but I’m hoping this is all planned.
The ballroom rises before us like a gilded cathedral. Chandeliers hang, spilling gold over polished floors. Music floats lazily through the air, a haunting mix of classical and jazz that should feel elegant but only makes my stomach twist tighter.
“Stay close,” he murmurs, just enough that it brushes against my ear, forcing my lips into a wry grin.
“You’re hovering,” I mutter under my breath, not letting him see the tremor in my hands.
“Protective,” he corrects, and I feel the weight behind that one word.
We move into the room, and immediately a crowd swirls around us, a river of silk, perfume, and ambition. Gross-looking men with gorgeous women on their arms. People smile, talk, and drink, oblivious to the currents of danger under the chandeliers. I scan the room, but it is almost impossible to focus when every glance carries a threat. I recognize a few De Luca men, but most are Orlovs.
My eyes land on a group of men laughing, pointing around the room with an unnatural comfort.
My stomach drops when I catch his back.
Adrian.
Alive. Laughing. Clinking glasses with Viktor Orlov.
My chest tightens, my hands shaking behind my back. He’s a prisoner, a prisoner who has been fighting for his life for months—or at least, I had believed he was. And now here he is, smirking and surrounded by what seems to be his closest friends.
I turn to Nikolai but he won’t look at me. The man who hasn’t been able to take his eyes off me for weeks.
Everything clicks.
The timing, the way Nikolai had been everywhere, the things Adrian had said, the small jokes meant to distract me, the way both of them had orchestrated everything to keep me safe. And in that instant, betrayal twisted through my gut.
Rage, grief, disbelief, and a strange, burning warmth that maybe, just maybe, was relief all flood into my mind. My fingers clench the cuffs around my wrists, and my nervous, timid breathing turns into a raspy rage in an instant.
Nikolai notices the shift immediately. I can see it in the tension in his jaw. He knew. He always knew.
I was being played.
The painful thoughts running in my head slow when I feel him on my back.
“Focus,” Nikolai whispers, voice low, almost a growl, brushing my fingers lightly with his as he passes my hand. “No one touches you. Adrian is not your enemy right now.”
I let the words anchor me, even as my pulse races. I don’t speak. I don’t move. I just let him be the shield he had promised to be. It was the only way I could survive tonight, emotionally and physically.
