While the issue of my safety was very valid, I knew it went beyond that now.
When I emerged wrapped in a towel, Alexei was still asleep. I dressed quietly in jeans, a soft cashmere sweater in dove gray, and my most comfortable boots. Then I slipped out of the room before he could wake and look at me with those hazel eyes that see too much.
**********
The estate was already awake in a way that had nothing to do with breakfast or morning coffee.
I wandered through the halls, trying to orient myself in this maze of wealth and violence. Every corridor was beautiful—marble floors, oil paintings that probably belonged in museums, fresh flowers in crystal vases. But underneath the elegance, there was something else. A humming tension, like the air before a thunderstorm.
Guards nodded as I passed. Big men with cold eyes and guns I was not supposed to notice but couldn’t help seeing. They treated me with a careful respect that was more unsettling than if they’d ignored me completely. Because their deference wasn’t for me—it was for what I now represented.
Alexei’s wife. Lobanov property. Something to be protected.
I heard Russian in low, urgent tones coming from behind a closed door. I didn’t speak the language beyond a few phrases, but I recognized the cadence of it. Sharp consonants, rolling r’s, words that sounded like they were designed for giving orders and making threats.
The world I’d stumbled into was older than I realized. An empire of blood and loyalty that does not break, does not bend, does not forgive. And I married into it.
I found myself in what must be a library—floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with books in multiple languages, leather furniture that looked like it had never been sat in, a fireplace big enough to stand in. It was beautiful and completely impersonal, like a stage set for a life no one actually lived.
I pulled a book at random—Tolstoy, in Russian, of course—and flipped through pages I couldn’t read. My hands were shaking slightly, and I realized I was more rattled than I wanted to admit. Last night, in the dark with Alexei’s hands on my skin, everything made a kind of terrible sense. But here, in the cold light of morning, I felt like a porcelain doll dropped into a war zone.
Fragile. Out of place. Likely to shatter.
“There you are.”
I nearly dropped the book. Anya swept into the library like a beam of sunlight, all golden-brown hair and easy smile, completely at home in this world of beautiful violence. In her designer jeans and a silk blouse, she looked effortlessly elegant as always.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” she said, linking her arm through mine like we were still just college friends meeting for coffee. “Come on. I’m going stir-crazy in this place, and the greenhouse is the only spot where I can actually breathe.”
I let her pull me along, grateful for the familiar anchor of her presence. Anya was the friend who made everything seem normal, even when it absolutely wasn’t. She never treated me like I was beneath her, even though there were dozens more zeros in her bank account than mine. She just… liked me.
I’d never been entirely sure why.
The greenhouse was on the far side of the estate, accessible through a covered walkway that was probably stunning in summer but felt drafty now. Inside, though, it waswarm and humid, filled with plants that should have no business surviving in winter. We were surrounded by orchids and jasmine, lemon trees and something tropical I didn’t recognize.
Anya immediately started fussing with a tray of seedlings, chattering about normal things like they were the most important topics in the world.
“So Vissarion wants to have the wedding in Moscow, but I’m thinking maybe the South of France? Somewhere warm. And his mother is being completely impossible about the guest list—apparently, we can’t have fewer than three hundred people, which is insane. I wanted something intimate, you know? But try telling that to a woman who thinks anything under two hundred is basically eloping…”
I listened, letting her words wash over me like white noise. She talked about everything from wedding dresses and travel plans to her fiancé, with the easy enthusiasm of someone who had never had to question whether love and danger can coexist. Of course, Vissarion was entirely different from Alexei—softer, less weighted down by whatever darkness made my husband’s eyes go cold. And then there was the fact that Anya knew how to navigate this world better than I did.
“Mila? You’re not listening.”
I blinked, focusing back on my friend’s face. She was watching me with those sharp eyes, and I realized—not for the first time—that Anya was far more perceptive than she let on.
“Sorry,” I uttered. “I’m just… tired.”
“Uh-huh.” Anya set down her watering can and crossed her arms. “Tired. Is that what we’re calling it?”
Heat flooded my cheeks. “Anya—”
Yup. Perceptive.
“Relax. I’m not asking for details about my brother’s sex life. That’s a level of trauma I don’t need.” She grinned, but thenher expression softened. “I just want to make sure you’re okay. I know this whole situation is… a lot.”
A lot. That was one way to describe being married off to prevent a gang war and then falling into bed with a man who terrified and heated me in equal measure.
“I’m fine,” I insisted.
