No name, no details.
Just cryptic entries about her leaving the house in the evenings and returning late.
A boyfriend. Probably some civilian who has no idea what her last name really means. That relationship will end the moment she becomes my wife.
I look at her photograph again and study that innocent face, those expressive eyes, that gentle smile.
She looks soft. Sheltered.
Like someone who’s been protected from the uglier parts of her family's business.
Not anymore.
She’s about to learn exactly what it means to be an Ashford and what it means to cross a Volkov. I’ll make sure every day in my home reminds her of what her family took from me.
I’ll strip away that innocence piece by piece. That soft smile will disappear. Those expressive eyes will learn to hide everything, or they’ll stay permanently afraid.
She’ll become a ghost in my home. Beautiful, yes, but broken. A living monument to what happens when you come for my family.
I reach for my phone and dial Konstantin’s number.
He answers on the second ring. “Have you decided?”
“Tell Vincent Ashford we have a deal,” I say, my eyes still on Vera’s photograph. “I’ll marry his daughter, but not in two weeks. One week. Next Saturday.”
There’s a pause. Then, “This is the right choice, Dimitri. For the family. For the business.”
“I know,” I say quietly.
For the family. For the business. For revenge.
I hang up and look at Vera Ashford’s photograph one more time. I memorize every detail of that innocent face, that gentle smile, those warm eyes.
In one week, she’ll be mine.
And she’s going to learn what it means to mess with a Volkov.
“Welcome to hell, Vera Ashford,” I murmur to the photograph.
Then I close the file and get to work planning her new life.
My life.
Our life together in hell.
3
VERA
It’s the morning of my wedding, but it could better be called a funeral.
The white dress they’re putting on me feels more like a burial shroud than a wedding gown.
It’s heavy silk and hand-beaded with crystals that catch the morning light streaming through my bedroom window. It’s beautiful. It’s exquisite. And I want to tear it off and run.
But I can’t. So I stand here like a mannequin while the seamstress makes final adjustments to the hem, while the makeup artist touches up my foundation for the third time, while my mother sits in the corner chair and cries.
She’s been crying since she came into my room an hour ago. Quiet, dignified tears that she keeps wiping away with a tissue that’s now shredded in her hands.
