His hair is dark, almost black, thick and slightly tousled in a way that suggests he either ran a hand through it recently or simplydoesn’t care enough to fix it from rolling out of bed this morning. When the light hits it, hints of deep mahogany glint beneath the near-obsidian strands.
But his face…
God forbid anyone ever forget it.
High, sharp cheekbones cut in angles too perfect to be accidental. A straight, aristocratic nose. A jawline so precise, it couldn’t have been drawn more perfect than perhaps by a doctor holding a scalpel. His mouth is neutral, the lower lip fuller than the upper, giving him an unintentional sensuality that contradicts the coldness of the rest of him.
And then there are his eyes.
Dark. Not brown butdark. Near black. They don’t just look at you. They dissect you. Weigh you. Strip you down to your last secret.
Sasha studies my father first, then he looks at me.
The world stops.
His gaze pins me in place, unblinking. Assessing, not with curiosity but like he’s cataloging me,memorizingme. There is an expression there, fleeting and indecipherable, but it makes my pulse trip all the same as if it had been locked on me for hours.
Papa clears his throat, but his voice cracks when he speaks. “I brought her. As agreed.”
My blood runs cold.
As agreed.
The words hit me harder than the explosion did.
Sasha’s face doesn’t shift.
“So I see,” he answers, his voice low and smooth sounding, too calm for my nerves to handle. “Right on time.”
He descends down the staircase one step at a time. His movements, while slow, are fluid. When he finally reaches the bottom, he doesn’t stop. I feel Papa tense next to me like a wire stretched too tightly the second Sasha crosses the distance between us.
“You and I have business to attend to,” he says quietly.
Papa opens his mouth, maybe to protest, but Sasha lifts one hand. It’s a simple gesture, but it somehow feels more threatening than a gun pointed at his head.
Papa falls silent immediately.
My heart slams painfully against my ribs when two of Sasha’s guards peel away from the wall and head for me. I don’t fight or protest when my bag is taken from me, nor do I turn around and beg my father to change his mind when I’m gestured to follow.
I know better than to think whatever plan is happening, whatever deal has been struck, can be that easily changed.
When I catch his eyes, Sasha’s attention flicks to me again, his expression remaining unreadable.
“Alina,” he murmurs, tasting my name on his tongue. “Welcome.”
I’m taken to a room on the east side of the estate, far away from the foyer and my father, and far away from the man whose roof I’m now going to be living under for the foreseeable future.
The walk feels endless.
Long corridors stretch beneath chandeliers made of cut glass, scattering fractured light across marble floors. Every footstep echoes, swallowed by the vastness of the place. The walls are lined with framed maps, oil portraits of unfamiliar men with stern eyes, and sconces that flicker with amber light like the estate is trying to replicate warmth but can’t quite get it right.
The guards stop at the last door on the right. One turns the handle. The other gestures for me to step in first.
The room is larger than the one back home. Actually, it’s nearly three times larger, maybe more. It’s all cream and gold, gleaming softly under the warm lighting coming from the chandelier inside. A four-poster bed sits elevated on a slight platform, draped in pale silk that looks impossibly smooth. Delicate gold threading runs through the canopy like constellations trapped in fabric.
It’s beautiful.Toobeautiful. It reminds me of the kind of beauty that feels curated in magazines, staged intentionally to look as opulent as possible.
Both men enter behind me and set my bags down onto the bed.
