To punish.
And I’ve never been a patient man.
33
Bella
I’m pacing. Scratch that—I’mpanicpacing. The kind where you wear an actual groove into the hardwood floors of your childhood home while your brain spins through increasingly apocalyptic scenarios.
“I slapped him,” I whisper to myself for the fortieth time in the last hour. “I slapped the head of theRussian mafiaacross the face in a restaurant full of people.”
I glance at the single Louis Vuitton suitcase standing by the door. One suitcase. That’s all I’m allowed to bring to start my new life as Mrs.Konstantin Belov.
“One suitcase,” I mutter, kicking it as I pass. “Twenty-nine years of life condensed into one overpriced piece of luggage.”
The suitcase had arrived this morning, hand-delivered by one of Konstantin’s stone-faced security guys.
“Mr. Belov requests that you pack only essentials,” he’d said, expressionless. “Everything else will be provided.”
When I’d asked what “essentials” meant, he’d handed me a typed list: underwear, toiletries, medications, and “any small personal items of sentimental value, within reason.”
“Within reason?” I’d repeated.
“No furniture,” he’d clarified, completely serious.
I’d wanted to scream that I wasn’t planning to stuff my bed into a suitcase, but I just nodded like this was all perfectly normal.
“What have I done?”
The empty house doesn’t answer. Julian and Lila’s absence feels like a physical weight pressing down on me. Their rooms—hastily packed up for their move to those fancy private schools—stand like museum exhibits of the life I’m systematically dismantling.
“You’re not dismantling it,”Angel-Conscience whispers in my ear.“You’re saving it. This is for them.”
“You’re literally marrying a crime boss tomorrow,”Devil-Conscience counters.“How is that ‘or them’?”
“Shut up, both of you,” I mutter, pressing my palms to my temples. “I need to think.”
I hurry to the window for the millionth time and peek through the blinds. The black SUV is still parked across the street—has been since I got home from the restaurant. Two men in suits, sitting patiently, watching my house.
My prison guards, courtesy of Konstantin Belov, BratvaPakhanand my future husband.
Oh God.
“Think, Bella, think,” I hiss, resuming my pacing. The hardwood floors creak under my feet in a house too empty, too quiet.
Julian had barely looked at me when I told him about the “scholarship opportunity.” Just silently packed his things, his shoulders tight with suspicion.
“This is about that guy, isn’t it?” he’d asked. “The one who bailed us out.” When I didn’t answer fast enough, he just nodded, like I’d confirmed everything. “Whatever, Bells. Do what you gotta do.”
Lila, on the other hand, had not been quiet.Not at all.
“You’re shipping us off like unwanted pets!” she’d screamed, mascara streaking down her face. “This is supposed to be our home! Together!”
Her words echo in the empty space.Our home. Together.
I stop in front of Lila’s room, with its half-empty closet and the constellation of glow-in-the-dark stars still stuck to her ceiling. On her desk sits the framed photo of all of us—me, Julian, Lila, Mom, and Dad—at the beach. The last vacation we took together before the accident.
My throat tightens. I pick up the photo, tracing their faces with my finger.
