He finally turns his head and looks at me, and in that look, there’s nothing soft. “You think too loudly,” he says, the accent cutting his consonants like glass. It’s Russian. “Save the plans for later.”
My mouth wants to snarl something fierce, clever, defiant. Instead, I tuck my chin and breathe, because whatever I do right now has to be measured. There are better ways to burn the board than with a reckless, useless fire. If I’m going to survive this night and everything that follows, I have to be patient. And ruthless.
With a shudder, I picture my father still at the huge dinner table, smiling over crystal, a bowl of laughter around him, completely oblivious that his daughter has been taken from under his nose. Would he even care? A bitter laugh threatens my throat. Of course he wouldn’t. To David Chang, I’m currency, not kin.
My gaze slides back to the man beside me. He’s nothing like the men at my father’s table. In a way, he’s harder. Colder. Scarred in ways the eye can’t always name. His suit can’t hide the ink that curls up his neck, or another pale ridge of scar tissue at his collarbone. Military, I think.
He carries himself with the precision of someone who has been trained to measure danger by the beat of a pulse. His eyes are pure predator. Calm. Appraising. Already calculating. I look away, for good this time.
I tuck my knees tighter to my chest, trying to make myself small, invisible—an old reflex meant to protect a child from a father’s temper. It doesn’t work. He watches me like I’m a subject under glass, like I’m an experiment he hasn’t yet decided the outcome of.
I hate this gaze on me. It’s like he’s already planning my judgment, and I don’t even know what it is.
When the car finally stops, I’m half-frozen with questions I can’t ask. We pull up to a gated compound, iron gates yawning open to swallow us whole. The tires crunch over gravel, headlights slicing briefly through the dark before the night swallows us again.
The door swings open, and cold air hits me like a slap. A hand grabs my arm and drags me out. My shoes click against the stone driveway as we move toward the building rising out of the dark like something alive. Every window is black except one—a faint golden glow at the top floor, like an eye that’s been watching for me.
Inside, the world changes. Warmth replaces the cold, but it’s not comforting. The air smells faintly of smoke and cologne, sharp and masculine, the kind of scent that clings to men who make violence a habit. We walk across a marble foyer, my footsteps echoing in the silence. The place is immaculate—polished, quiet, too perfect. It feels like a trap disguised as elegance.
He pushes me through a door at the end of the hallway and steps in after me. The lock clicks behind us, heavy and deliberate.
I stand there, breathing hard, surrounded by leather, glass, and shadows. A decanter of amber liquid gleams under the low light, and smoke curls lazily from an ashtray on the table. Everything here feels calculated, controlled, just like him.
And as the silence stretches, a chill runs through me.
I’m in a predator’s den.
The man turns to me, finally speaking.
“Elara Chang.”
My heart stutters. He knows my name. How? A chill snakes down my spine, and I force myself not to step back.
“You’ve been busy tonight,” he says, voice low, rough, accusing. “Switching manifests. Covering tracks. Helping your father. Sabotaging.”
My breath catches. “I’m not sabotaging for him,” I snap before I can stop myself.
The corner of his mouth lifts into something that isn’t quite a smile; it’s colder, sharper. It’s the kind of expression that makes you realize he’s already ten steps ahead of you.
“Then who are you sabotaging for,printsessa?” he murmurs, the foreign word rolling off his tongue like smoke.
My pulse jumps. I can guess what it means, and it sounds dangerous, intimate in a way that makes me feel exposed.
My lips part, but no answer comes. Because I don’t even know. For myself, maybe. For freedom. For dignity.
He smiles then—slow, dangerous, deliberate. “Doesn’t matter,” he says, voice dropping to a murmur that still slices through me. “You belong to me now.”
The words hit like a blade to the gut. Sharp. Final.
And just like that, I know the nightmare has only begun.
I turn to him, voice trembling despite myself. “Who are you?”
He meets my gaze without hesitation. “Roman Rusnak.”
My breath stutters. For a moment, I think I misheard him. But no, his tone is steady, absolute.
Rusnak.
