“But you considered it.”
“I consider everything,” he says evenly. “Especially when my sister is beaten and chained in a warehouse.” The air shifts slightly at that. The acknowledgment. The anger beneath his calm.
“I told him I believed someone thought I was leverage,” I say. “He demanded to know how that would benefit him.”
“And?”
“He argued it destabilizes the alliance. That it would be strategically stupid.”
Dmitri’s jaw tightens. “It would.”
“So either he is innocent,” I say quietly, “or he believed it would not trace back to him.”
Dmitri watches me closely. “You think he underestimated you.”
“He told me I was safer within the engagement,” I continue. “That stepping outside of it made me vulnerable.”
Dmitri’s eyes flash. “That is not how protection works.”
“No,” I agree. “That is how ownership works.”
He pushes off the wall and crosses the room, lowering his voice instinctively.
“Did he threaten you?”
I look away. “Not directly.”
“That is not what I asked.”
“He implied consequences,” I admit. “He implied I was destabilizing more than myself and I better do what I have been raised to do.”
Dmitri goes very still. “I will handle him,” he says.
“No.”
His head snaps toward me. “Anya.”
“Do you think he is capable of ordering something like that?” I ask quietly.
Dmitri does not answer immediately. He looks past me toward the hallway that leads to my father’s office, then back at me. “Yes,” he says finally. “I think he is capable.”
The honesty lands heavier than anger would have. “And do you think he did?”
He pauses. “I think,” Dmitri says slowly, “that if he believed fear would force compliance, he might convince himself it was justified.” My stomach tightens. “He would never see it as cruelty,” Dmitri continues. “He would see it as correction.”
The word makes my skin crawl. “He kissed me,” I say. Dmitri’s expression darkens instantly. “I turned away,” I add before he can speak. “He pushed me.”
Dmitri’s jaw flexes so hard I hear his teeth grind. “I will kill him,” he says quietly.
“No,” I repeat. His eyes search my face for something. Weakness. Doubt. Permission. He finds none. “I will not stand beside him as if nothing happened,” I say. “If he approaches me, it will be in full view. No private discussions. No staged unity.”
Dmitri studies me carefully. “You are playing a dangerous game, sister.”
“I am aware.”
He steps closer, lowering his voice further. “If you are right about him, this will not end at a gala.”
“I know.”
