She looked down at the phone, then toward the hall, as if distance could put her brother where her eyes could reach him.
“Gennady sent that to make you run,” I said. “He wants you panicked, ashamed, and willing to trade yourself again because he believes fear teaches women to bargain downward.”
Nadia’s jaw set. “He’s going to be disappointed.”
“He’s going to be educated.”
A breath left her. It wasn’t quite a laugh. It was too sharp and too tired for that, but it carried enough of her dry edge to make the anger in my chest settle into something colder.
Lev looked toward the hall. “Irina is outside. She has clothes for Mrs. Sorin.”
Nadia’s head turned fast.
Lev didn’t correct himself.
Neither did I.
A flush rose along Nadia’s throat, then steadied beneath the robe’s deep blue edge. “I’m not Mrs. Sorin yet.”
“You will be before anyone can make the mistake of believing otherwise.”
Her eyes came back to mine. “Is that a romantic proposal or a threat to the paperwork?”
“Both, if necessary.”
This time, the sound she made came closer to a laugh, but it broke before it softened her mouth.
“I don’t want to hide upstairs while men decide whether I was worth enough money to fight over,” she said.
“I know.”
“I don’t want Petya dragged into a room and humiliated until he agrees he ruined my life.”
“He won’t be.”
“I don’t want you using him against me.”
She didn’t whisper. She didn’t apologize. She stood in my robe with my come still inside her and told me the line I wouldn’t cross.
My cock tightened at the sight of her courage, but the hunger stayed where it belonged. I would have her trust, or I would have nothing worth keeping.
“I won’t use your brother against you,” I said. “Not for sex, not for obedience, not for silence. Petya will answer for what he did because he’s a grown man and because he almost got you sold to Kask. He won’t answer as leverage over you.”
Her eyes searched mine.
I let her look.
I’d spent most of my life surrounded by men who believed a woman’s doubt was disrespect. They wanted soft eyes, lowered voices, and agreement delivered before they’d earned it. Nadia looked straight at me as if she would tear the truth out with her teeth if I tried to bury it.
My wife would ask questions. I wanted her teeth sharp. I wanted every man in my world to understand that before he opened his mouth near her.
Nadia finally put her hand in mine.
I closed my fingers around hers. “Gennady is forcing a public answer. If I pay him, he lives with the story that I compensated him for taking his property. If I ignore him, he keeps reaching through Petya. If I kill him in an alley, the Kasks make him a grievance before I’ve stripped the grievance from their hands.”
“So you’re going to make him say it in front of people who matter.”
“Yes.”
