The silence that followed was absolute. The ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall sounded like a hammer against an anvil.
Mila pulled her hands away, shrinking back into the sofa. She looked at me as if I had suddenly sprouted horns. “You… you’ve lost your mind. I don’t even know you. Tonight was the second time we met, or even spoke to each other.”
“Yes, but we already kissed,” I said, not failing to notice how her face filled with color and her eyes looked to the side. It made me warm inside, and I wondered if she would let me kiss her again. But there was more serious matter to address than my aggravating hunger for her lips.
Standing up to my full height and looming over her, I told her, “If you are my wife, an attack on you is an act of war against the entire Lobanov Bratva. The Morettis are bold, but they are not suicidal. As a Lobanov, you will have a small army at your back. As Mila Petrov, you are a dead woman walking.”
“I won’t do it,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “You’re just… you’re using this to trap me. Why do you even care?”
I took a step closer, invading her personal space until she had to tilt her head back to see me. I could smell the faint scent of her floral perfume beneath the acrid smell of smoke. It was intoxicating.
“I care because I decided to,” I said. It was the only truth I could give her—the raw, ugly reality of my own sudden obsession. “In my world, Mila, there is no room for negotiation.You can walk out those doors and be dead or worse by midnight. Or you can stay here, put on a ring, and live.”
I reached out, my thumb brushing her jawline. She shivered, but she didn’t pull away this time. She was trapped, and she knew it.
“I’m not asking for your love,” I uttered. At that moment, I didn’t know what I wanted from her, only that I wanted her. “I’m offering you a life. But make no mistake—if you say yes, you are mine. Completely. Irrevocably.”
She stared at me, her eyes searching mine for some hint of mercy, some sign that this was a joke. She found none. Then she looked at the door and back at me. I saw the moment she broke. I saw the moment the reality of her situation crushed the last of her resistance.
I turned and walked out of the room without looking back.
I had a war to plan and a bride to own.
Chapter Three
Mila’s POV
The walls of Anya’s bedroom were covered in silk, a delicate champagne color that should feel soothing but it didn’t. The walls felt like a cage to me.
I paced the length of the Persian rug, my bare toes digging into the intricate weave. Every few seconds, I glanced at the heavy oak door, half-expecting to see the shadows of armed guards passing by in the hallway. In this house—this fortress—every shadow carries a weapon.
It was the morning after my best friend’s ruined party, and my restlessness had kept both of us awake since dawn.
“Mila, please. You’re going to wear a hole in the floor.”
I stopped to look at Anya. My best friend was sitting on the edge of the bed, her engagement ring—the reason we were all celebrating before the world turned to ash—glinting under the chandelier. She looked exhausted, yet there was a calmness in her eyes that frightened me. It was the calmness of someone who had grown up in a house where the sound of gunfire was just another part of the ambiance.
“He wants to marry me, Anya,” I whispered. “He didn’t ask. He didn’t suggest. He told me.”
“He’s trying to save your life,” Anya said softly, rising to walk toward me. She reached out, taking my cold hands in hers. “Yes, he’s a Lobanov. He’s cruel when he needs to be, and God knows he’s a tyrant when he wants something, but he’s a good man. He’s a good brother. He knows how to protect what belongs to him.”
I pulled my hands away, a sharp laugh escaping my throat. “That’s the problem, Anya! What belongs to him. I am not a car. I am not shipping territory in the Mediterranean. I am a person. I don’t want to belong to anyone.”
“If what we hear is true, the Morettis don’t see you as a person,” Anya countered, her voice gaining a hard edge. “They see you as a target. A way to settle a ten-year-old debt. If you leave this house as Mila Petrov, you won’t make it to the end of the block.”
I turned away from her and walked to the window. The estate was sprawling, manicured, and terrifyingly silent. I thought about my father. Lev Petrov. The man I thought was a simple construction worker until I caught him with a gun, and he told me he helped punish bad people. The man who suddenly disappeared without so much as a goodbye, knowing fully well that I didn’t have anyone else in the world. All those years without closure, of mourning a man who didn’t exist, only to find out he had painted a target on my back before he died. A ghost who left a trail of blood that eventually led straight to my door.
“I’ve seen this world, Anya,” I said, my voice trembling. “My dad got into it, and it consumed him to the point of disappearing without a trace. I had to assume he was dead, Anya. And then, somehow, I entered the professional orbit of the Bratva again. I audited the books for the Lobanov charities. I saw the ‘donations’ that came from nowhere. I saw the way the numbers moved to hide the bodies. I quit that job because I wanted peace. I’m getting my Master’s of Psychology so I can help people heal, not… not join a dynasty built on breaking them.”
Anya came up behind me, resting a hand on my shoulder. “If there is anyone who has the spine to handle all of this, it’s you, Mila. You’ve always been the strongest person I know. You’re the one who kept me grounded when my family’s world got too loud.”
“I don’t want to be strong,” I whispered. “I just want to be invisible.”
But as the words left my lips, a memory flashed behind my eyes. The balcony. The smell of smoke and expensive cologne. The way the masked man’s grip had bruised my arm before Alexei arrived. The fear that overwhelmed me and the sharp relief that wrapped around me when he rescued me.
And then, I thought back to the heat.
Before the explosions, before the screaming started, when Alexei had found me on the balcony. When he had looked at me with those sharp hazel eyes and kissed me. It was the taste of whiskey and darkness, and it had made my bones feel like they were melting. Even now, through the terror, my skin hummed where he’d touched me.
