The worst part is that I was starting to want it. Starting to soften toward the man who destroyed my life. Starting to believe that maybe—just maybe—I could matter beyond strategic value.
Now I know the truth.
I turn on the shower, not because I’m dirty, but because the sound will cover the crying I can’t quite suppress.
If this is all I am to him—if heirs and bloodlines and legacy are all that matter—then he won’t get my fear or mylonging or any of the softness I’ve been stupid enough to develop.
He’ll get cooperation. Compliance. The bare minimum required.
Nothing more. Not my heart. Not my trust. Not even the pretense that this marriage means anything beyond biological function.
If he wants an heir, he’ll get one eventually, but that’s all he’ll get from me.
Ever.
Chapter Twenty - Aleksandr
The anomaly appears three days after Elena overheard the conversation about heirs.
I’m reviewing quarterly reports when a name catches my attention. Buried in a subsidiary’s transaction logs, easily overlooked—Artyom Petrov. Listed as a consultant for a shell company that purchased one of the Lawrence family’s European properties six months ago.
Petrov.
The name triggers memory. Not recent—years old. A mid-level operative in a rival faction, someone I’d flagged as a potential threat but never acted on. No reason to. He operated quietly, stayed in his lane, never challenged Sharov interests directly.
So why is his name on a Lawrence property transaction?
I pull the full file. Dig deeper into the purchase history, the financial trails, the documentation supporting the seizure. The more I uncover, the less sense it makes.
The tax violations that triggered the Warsaw property seizure? Filed by a firm with Petrov connections. The regulatory pressure on the logistics subsidiaries? Originated from officials on the Petrov payroll. The investors who pulled out? All received intelligence from sources I can now trace back to Petrov operations.
My chest tightens.
I call Viktor. “Get me everything on Artyom Petrov. Everything. Five years back minimum.”
“Sir?”
“Now.”
The files arrive within an hour. I spend the next six hours reading, cross-referencing, pulling intelligence reports I buried years ago because they seemed irrelevant at the time.
The picture that emerges makes my blood run cold.
The Lawrence betrayal—the cooperation with authorities, the testimony that brought down Bratva operations—wasn’t Walter Lawrence’s decision. It was coerced. The Petrov faction had leverage: falsified evidence of Lawrence’s involvement in murders he didn’t commit, threats against his legitimate children, a carefully constructed trap that left him with two choices. Cooperate or watch his family destroyed.
He chose cooperation. Gave minimal information, protected as many people as he could, and withdrew from Bratva associations completely.
It should have ended there.
The Petrovs wanted more. Wanted Lawrence resources, wanted his European holdings, wanted him completely destroyed. So they fed me information. Carefully curated intelligence suggesting Lawrence was still cooperating with authorities, still providing testimony, still a threat to Bratva stability.
They made me the weapon. Pointed me at Walter Lawrence and watched me dismantle his empire piece by piece.
I never questioned it. Never dug deeper. Never verified the intelligence beyond surface confirmation.
I accepted the narrative because it fit my worldview: betrayal requires consequences, weakness invites destruction, mercy is liability.
The Petrovs knew that. Used it. Manipulated me into doing their work while they stayed safely in the shadows.
