My phone buzzes in my coat pocket.
I pull it out and the screen is lit up like a Christmas tree. Fourteen missed calls from Diomid. Twenty-six text messages, escalating in tone fromWhere are you?toAnswer your phone NOWto a single message in Russian that is nothing but profanity.
I should have called him from the car. I should have called him the second I walked through Saoirse's door. But I didn't, because I knew he'd tell me to turn around, and I wasn't willing to hear it.
The phone buzzes again in my hand. Diomid. I swipe to answer before I can talk myself out of it.
"Before you start yelling," I say.
"Too late." His voice is low and furious in a way that tells me he's already past yelling and into the cold, controlled anger that's actually worse. "Where the hell are you, Anya?"
"I'm at the Orlov estate. Liam called you, I know he did."
"Liam called me and told me my sister showed up at their estate begging to marry one of his brothers. So yes, I'm aware." A pause. Something slams in the background. "Do you have any idea what you've done? You left the house. You drove forty minutes across open road with no security, no escort, no one knowing where you were. The Baron has people everywhere, Anya. Everywhere. If one of his men had seen you, if they'd followed you, if they'd pushed you off the road—"
"But they didn't."
"But they could have." His voice cracks on the word, just barely, and that's what makes my chest tighten. Diomid isn't furious because I disobeyed him. He's furious because he's been sitting in his office for the last hour imagining every terrible thing that could have happened to me between our house and this one.
"I know," I say quietly. "I know, and I'm sorry. But I couldn't stay in that house one more minute, Diomid. I couldn't sit in my room and wait for you to come tell me it didn't work. I heard the call. I heard what the contact said. The Baron doesn't want your money or your territory. He wants me. And you're running out of time to stop it."
Silence. The kind that stretches and aches.
"You heard that," he says.
"I was outside the door."
He exhales, long and ragged, and I can picture him exactly. Standing behind his desk with one hand on the back of his neck, jaw tight, eyes closed. My brother carries every burden like it's his alone to shoulder, and the weight of this one has been crushing him for weeks.
"Liam says you've agreed to marry Connor," he says finally. His tone has shifted. Still tight, still angry, but there's somethingelse now. Something careful, like he's trying to read me through the phone. "Is that true?"
"Yes."
"Do you even know him?"
"No. But I know his mother. And I know what the alternative is."
"Anya." He says my name like a warning and a plea at the same time. "This isn't... you can't just throw yourself at the first man who—"
"I'm not throwing myself at anyone. He offered. I accepted. And, I'm sure."
"You've known him for five minutes."
"I've known the Baron for five weeks and he has three dead wives. I think five minutes with an Orlov is a better foundation than that."
Diomid goes quiet again. I sit down on the edge of the bed and press my free hand against my knee to stop it bouncing. The adrenaline is gone now, and what's left in its place is something shakier, something that feels a lot like the aftermath of a car crash where you walk away uninjured but your body hasn't caught up yet.
"Tell me about him," Diomid says. "Connor. What did you see?"
I close my eyes.
What did I see?
I saw a man fill a doorway. That's the first thing. He didn't walk into the room, he occupied it. Tall and broad and built like the kind of man who doesn't need a weapon because he is one. Dark hair, strong jaw, shoulders wide enough to block the light from the hall behind him. The sort of man who makes a room feel smaller just by standing in it.
And then I saw the scar. The ruined eye. The way he held himself like he was bracing for impact, chin up, shoulders squared, every line of his body daring me to react.
"He's big," I tell Diomid. "Tall. Strong. He has a scar on his face, through his left eye. The eye doesn't work."
