I laugh once, empty and sharp. “Of course you do.”
“Listen to me.”
“No. I already listened once. I listened when you told me marrying Dmitri would secure our future. I listened when you said the Volkovs valued loyalty. I listened when you acted like my life becoming a transaction was normal.”
“Anya, please, you have to help me.” Tears roll down his face.
I look away, disgusted.
“All you have to do is get married. It’s a small price to pay for my life.”
I think about Dmitri, how cruel he can be. He’ll never let me be in peace ever again.
There is a point where exhaustion becomes stronger than fear. Where the body gives up before the mind does. I sit on the edge of the hotel bed, staring at my father, and realize I don’t have the strength to keep fighting him in this room.
My feet hurt. My head hurts. There are bruises on my arm, dried blood under one fingernail, and a dress in the bathroom that will never be clean again.
How long can I run? Maybe I can look the other way when Dmitri steps out on me. I won’t be the first women in history to do that.
“What does he want with me?” I ask.
Sergei looks away too quickly. “He wants to speak.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
I don’t believe him. But I also don’t know what else to do.
So I get dressed. Not in the black dress. I refuse to put it back on. I change into yesterday’s clothes instead, the ones I wore under my coat before Marina dragged me into Venera. A plain sweater. Dark skirt. My old shoes. My hair is a mess, but I twist it back with shaking hands and tie it badly at the nape of my neck.
The girl in the cracked mirror looks nothing like a bride.
Good.
I hate her less that way.
Sergei waits by the door, too tense to sit, too nervous to speak. His eyes keep moving to the hallway as if someone might appear there at any second and drag him away before he can finish selling whatever piece of me remains.
I sit beside my father in the back seat of a car. The city slides past the window in gray morning light. Shops opening. Street cleaners pushing dirty water toward drains. Women carrying bags. Men smoking outside cafés. Everything ordinary. Everything moving forward as if I have not spent the last few days falling out of my own life.
I lean my head against the cold glass.
I tell myself this is temporary. I tell myself I will listen, understand what Dmitri wants, and then find a way out.
The thought sounds weak even inside my own head.
After twenty minutes, I realize we’re not driving toward the main Volkov estate.
I sit up slowly.
The roads are wrong. The houses are wrong. The gates we pass are unfamiliar, taller, more private, hidden behind old trees and high stone walls. There are no wedding flowers here. No rows of white chairs. No pretty lake where guests can pretend they are not surrounded by armed men.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
Sergei doesn’t answer.
“Papa.”
