For a moment, I remember being her. Not exactly, but close enough.
I remember sitting beside Dmitri at dinners, watching him toss money at waiters, drivers, jewelers, anyone who could make me feel chosen. I remember thinking expensive gifts meant affection. I remember forgiving him because diamonds were easier to accept than apologies he never truly gave.
Yaromir’s hand rests against my back. He lifts his paddle again.
“Three hundred thousand.”
A woman nearby inhales softly.
Dmitri’s eyes cut to us. His jaw is tight. The bruising near his mouth has darkened slightly under the lights, and there’s something almost satisfying about seeing his beauty damaged.
Katya leans close to him. I can’t hear what she says, but I know anyway.
She looks at him same way I must have looked at him once.
The thought should hurt.
It does, but not as much as I expect.
Dmitri raises his paddle. “Three hundred and fifty thousand.”
The auctioneer’s voice grows more high-pitched. He can smell blood in the room now. “Three hundred and fifty thousand. Do I hear four?”
Yaromir doesn’t even glance at the platform. He looks at me. “Do you still not want it?”
My throat tightens.
The necklace glows under the auction lights, heavy emeralds laid against black velvet. I imagine Katya wearing it. I imagine Dmitri fastening it around her throat while everyone claps for them, like he wasn’t about to be married last week.
I just look at him. He already knows the answer.
His gaze darkens with approval. He raises his paddle.
“Five hundred thousand,” the auctioneer says.
The room reacts properly this time. Heads turning. A few whispers that come too quickly to hide. Even the string quartet seems to fade under the weight of the number.
Dmitri goes still. Katya turns to him, her face suddenly less certain. He stares at Yaromir.
Yaromir only watches me.
It’s obscene, almost. The amount of money. The stillness in him. The way he makes it clear to the room that this is not about emeralds.
Dmitri lifts his paddle halfway. Then stops.
His father’s voice cuts across the silence from somewhere behind him. “Enough.”
Dmitri’s hand lowers.
Katya’s face drains.
The auctioneer waits, eyes moving between the two Volkov brothers like a man who understands he’s standing near something explosive and would still like his commission.
“Five hundred thousand,” he says. “Going once.”
No one moves.
“Going twice.”
