“The dramatics are over, Liza,” I said, my voice quiet, dangerously low. “The fainting, the tears, the silence… It’s all done. The wedding is over. The secret is out. Now we talk.”
Her face was tight with fear, but she didn’t look away. “What is there to say, Roman? Your nurse told you everything.”
“She told me a biological fact,” I countered, squeezing her wrist gently. “I need the strategic facts. The things you’ve been protecting since the day I took you. You’re going to tell me everything.”
I leaned in, my gaze boring into hers. “No games. No masks. Do you think this changes anything? It changes the threat level, yes, but not the objective. I know you were the face of your father’s NGOs in Moscow, the key contact for his charitable foundations in London. You’re clever, Liza. It’s impossible you know nothing about his dealings.”
“I told you,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “I know nothing of his deals.” Tears finally welled up in her eyes, slipping down her temples and soaking into the pillowcase. “Why do you not believe me when I say I know nothing? What purpose would I have in lying now?”
I saw the tears. They were real; her body was too broken right now for performance. But I dismissed the emotional barrier. It was a soft, feminine weapon that I couldn’t afford to accept.
“Because you are not some naïve pawn who can be used and told nothing,” I stated, pulling her wrist slightly closer. “You are too sharp. Too controlled. You know exactly what your father was doing. You know how he was planning to use the Lobanovs. Tell me about his business. Tell me about the money he planned to take from me. Don’t waste my time, Liza. This is your chance to trade honesty for protection.”
She closed her eyes briefly, gathering a painful breath. “You are wrong,” she whispered, the tears still coming. “You are so completely wrong about me.”
“I am not wrong, Liza,” I insisted, kneeling beside the bed. The silence of the suite was heavy, broken only by themonitor and the quiet sound of her weeping. “I know your father. He built you into a public icon. That kind of façade costs money and demands control. He wouldn’t risk giving his public face zero information. You know more than you’re admitting.”
She shook her head slowly, her face turned away from me, damp with tears. The expensive satin of her dress rustled as she shifted.
“You’re wrong about him, Roman, and you’re wrong about me.” She repeated, her voice thin but strengthening with a sudden, painful defiance. She turned her face back toward me. Her eyes were red, but the fear was slowly being replaced by a desperate clarity. “You think I was his partner? He treated me like a pawn precisely because I was too public. I was too clean. He kept me away from the ledger books, away from the meetings. My job was to smile for the cameras and raise money for orphans so the world wouldn’t look at his real business.”
She took a huge, ragged breath. “He kept me uninformed so I could pass any lie detector test you threw at me! I know nothing about his dealings… except that he was in serious debt.”
That detail ripped through my analysis. It was new information, something my own intelligence hadn’t confirmed.
I seized on it immediately. “Debt. How? He was a billionaire. That’s a lie.”
“It’s not a lie,” she insisted, her tears now slowing, replaced by a deep, weary anger. “It was bleeding out, Roman! I was the commodity.”
I leaned closer, my voice demanding specifics. “How did you know of the debt? Did he leave a note? Did he contact you?” There had to be the entry point, the hidden truth Arkady had left behind.
Liza stared at me, her eyes widening slightly at my intensity. She pressed her fingers to her temple.
“I didn’t read his ledger. I overheard him,” she confessed, the volume dropping to a horrified whisper. “I heard him yelling with his lawyer a month ago, the night before I left St. Petersburg. He was talking about selling me off to foreign buyers.”
The revelation hit me with the force of an actual counterattack. The blood in my veins seemed to turn to ice. Selling her. Not transferring her, not marrying her off for political gain, but selling her to repay a debt. A condition. The image flashed in my mind, Arkady, the polished monster, treating his own daughter like a horse to be traded. My fury, which had been aimed at Liza’s perceived deception, swung violently back toward her father.
“Who?” I ground out. “Who was he selling you to?”
“I don’t know the names. Just whispers of the Gulf and old money,” she cried, a fresh wave of tears starting. “That was my only confirmation that he wasn’t just a powerful thief, he was a monster. I was his victim, Roman. I was planning to run away before your men came and kidnapped me.”
She gestured toward the room, encompassing the monitors, the chaos of the day, and my oppressive presence. “You think I’m lying? The second I heard that, I started collecting evidence against him. Not for you, not for the police, but for my exit strategy. I wanted to expose him myself and disappear before he could finalize the sale. I was working against him. I was the victim.”
She choked on a sob. I could see the truth in the way her body shook, the raw, unsophisticated terror behind the expensive façade. She was telling the absolute truth. The hostage was fighting the same enemy I was.
Her confession, the raw, shaking truth about Arkady planning to sell her off, was not an exit ticket. It was asledgehammer to my carefully constructed beliefs. My mind, a place built on logic and strategy, was in absolute shock.
I was wrong. I stared at her tear-streaked face. My entire strategic blueprint had been predicated on the idea that Liza was a cynical accomplice, a polished player in Arkady’s scheme. I had subjected her to terror, humiliation, and constant surveillance based on a lie. She wasn’t my rival; she was a fellow victim who was already fighting my war.
The confession didn’t bring the triumph I had expected. It brought fury. I felt an icy rage at Arkady so profound it made my throat ache. He hadn’t just defrauded me; he had treated his own blood like property he sold to the highest bidder. But that was nothing compared to the burning, bitter fury at myself. I had taken her, terrified her, forced her into a marriage under false pretenses, and all the while she was carrying my child, a child conceived during an act of calculated dominance while she was already running for her life.
I released her wrist, the cold sensation of the silk on the bed suddenly intolerable. I needed to move, to assert control over the disintegration situation.
I leaned in closer, my body eclipsing hers. This was no longer an interrogation. This was a physical assertion of ownership and protection.
My hand moved to the back of her head, my fingers tangling in her damp hair, cupping the back of her neck. It wasn’t a rough grip, but it was firm, allowing no escape. I forced her gaze up from the tears and the crumpled satin. Her eyes, red-rimmed and exhausted, locked onto mine.
“You heard him,” she pleaded, her voice a desperate rasp. “He was going to sell me. I know nothing. You have to believe me.”
