“…make him pay for what he did to our operations…”
Artyom. The name registers dimly. Petrov. One of the families Aleksandr mentioned once in passing, rivals he’d dealt with.
This isn’t random. This is retaliation.
And I just walked right into it.
The last thing I see before darkness takes me completely is the ring on my finger, catching light one final time.
His ring. His claim.
The chain I couldn’t break after all.
***
I wake to voices and nausea so intense I think I might vomit.
My head pounds. My ribs ache where they hit me. My wrists are bound behind my back with zip ties cutting into skin.
I’m sitting in a chair—no, slumped in it. Concrete floor beneath my feet. Bare bulb overhead. The smell of mildew and rust and old blood.
Warehouse. I’m in a warehouse.
“She’s awake,” someone says.
Footsteps approach. I force my eyes open despite the nausea roiling through me.
Three men. Two standing guard near the door, one crouched in front of me. Older, maybe fifty, with cold eyes and a scar running from his temple to his jaw. His face is angular, aristocratic almost, but there’s cruelty in the set of his mouth.
“Elena Sharov,” he says in accented English. “Welcome. I’m Artyom Petrov.”
Petrov. The name triggers distant memory—something Aleksandr mentioned once about rival families, territorial disputes. Operations that were dismantled, people who disappeared.
“What…?” My voice is hoarse. “What do you want?”
“What every sensible person wants when they acquire valuable leverage.” He smiles without warmth. “To negotiate.”
“I’m not leverage. I was leaving. I was escaping!”
“We know. We’ve been watching for weeks, waiting for you to try.” He stands, circles behind me. “Your husband made a very unfortunate decision recently. Eliminated some of our key operations. Killed people we valued. This—” His hand settles on my shoulder, heavy and possessive. “—is how we respond.”
“I don’t care about Bratva politics.”
“He cares about you.” Artyom’s grip tightens. “Doesn’t he? The wife he married, the woman he keeps so carefully guarded. You matter to Aleksandr Sharov. Which makes you matter to us.”
I try to pull away, but the zip ties and his hand keep me pinned. “He won’t negotiate. He doesn’t—I’m not—”
“Oh, I think he will.” Artyom moves back around to face me. “See, we learned something interesting recently. About why he married you so quickly, why the security is so intensive, why you have medical appointments scheduled you don’t control.”
My stomach drops.
“You’re not just his wife,” Artyom continues, smile widening. “You’re his future. The mother of his heirs. The vessel for Sharov bloodline continuation. Losing you doesn’t just costhim a wife—it costs him succession. Legacy. Everything men like him value more than their own lives.”
“That’s not—” The words stick in my throat.
It’s true. All of it true. The medical appointments, the emphasis on heirs, the strategic importance of our marriage.
I’m not a person to either of them. Just a resource to be used or leveraged.
