Page 32 of The Pakhan’s Stolen Bride

"Via?" Ekaterina’s small hand touches my arm, her face shadowed with concern. "Are you okay? You went completely pale."

"I'm fine," I whisper, forcing a small, shaky smile onto my face as I pull myself out of the memory. I wrap my arm around her shoulders, pulling her side against mine. "I just... I realized something. Our mothers would have liked each other. They both had terrible taste in men, but they were very good at making beautiful daughters."

Ekaterina lets out a soft, wet chuckle, her head coming to rest on my shoulder. "Ilya says we’re cursed. He says the Kovalevskii name only brings blood."

"Ilya is a grumpy giant who needs to spend less time in a basement and more time in the sun." I squeeze her shoulder, my own defensive sarcasm finally softening into something real. Something warm. "We aren't cursed, Ekaterina. We’re survivors. And we’re going to find a way to be happy in this house, even if we have to drag your brother kicking and screaming into the light."

She looks up at me, hope flickering in her dark eyes. "Do you really think so?"

"I know so." I stand up, brushing the dust off my leggings, and offer her my hand. "Now, come on. Let’s get out of this dusty parlor before we both start sneezing. I promised I’d teach you how to do winged eyeliner, and I intend to keep my word. Your brother’s eyeliner is terrible anyway—he just uses soot and intimidation."

Ekaterina laughs, a bright, genuine sound that seems to push back the heavy, dark shadows of the old parlor. She takes my hand, letting me pull her to her feet, the silver frame clutched tightly against her chest.

"Thank you, Via," she whispers as we walk toward the door.

I look back at the room one last time, the white dust sheets gleaming like ghosts in the amber light. "We’re family now, Ekaterina. You don't have to thank me."

As we walk back down the corridor, the heavy hand of the Kovalevskii name doesn't feel quite as suffocating anymore.

I still hate Ilya. I still hate the bruises on my hips and the way he forced my signature onto that marriage contract.

But as I look at the young girl walking beside me, her tear-stained face finally brightened by a small, tentative smile, I realize my sunshine isn't gone.

I’m Viallentinka Kovalevskiia now.

And if I have to burn this entire fortress down to keep this girl safe, I will do it with a smile on my face.

12

ILYA

The blue light of the security monitors reflects off the glass surface of the war room table, throwing cold shadows across the map of the northern territory.

I trace the red line marking the east perimeter fence with my pen, the plastic casing clicking rhythmically against my thumbnail.

The timestamps on the logs don't lie. The security feed for the east gate didn't fail due to an electrical surge. It was manually looped for exactly four minutes, just long enough for Petr’s strike team to cut through the chain-link barrier and slip into the tree line without triggering the silent alarms in the guardhouse.

Dmitri stands across from me, his arms crossed over his chest, his face cast in grey shadow. He tosses a thick manila folder onto the glass.

"The log-in credentials used to access the secondary server belonged to Grigori. He was scheduled for the west tower patrol, but the gate logs show he checked out three hours early. His locker was empty. His service rifle was left in the armory, but his personal vehicle was still in the lower lot."

I don't open the folder. I know what's inside. Grigori has been on my payroll for six years. He’s a quiet man, an enforcer who never complained about the cold shifts or the low-level security details on the docks. But quiet men are cheap to buy if you find the right pressure point.

"Where is he?"

"In the cellar under the west wing. Lev found him trying to slip through the drainage canal behind the greenhouse. He had fifty thousand dollars in cash zipped into a waterproof duffel bag."

I stand up, the heavy leather of my holster creaking in the quiet room. "Bring the iron tray. We’re going to need the heavy tools."

The basement beneath the west wing is older than the rest of the estate, a damp, limestone cellar built during the old cold war era. It smells of wet cement, mold, and the sharp, chemical tang of the rust-inhibitor spray we use on the pipes. It’s a dead space, completely insulated from the world above. A man could scream in here for three days, and the maids in the kitchen wouldn't even notice a vibration in their teacups.

Grigori is secured to a heavy oak chair bolted to the floor, his left hand clamped flat inside a massive, cast-iron machinist’s vise that is bolted directly to the heavy steel workbench. His face is a swollen, purple mess, his nose broken so badly that every wet, rattling breath he draws sprays a fine mist of red onto the cold metal of the table. He’s been here for three hours, the steel jaws of the vise resting cold against the skin of his knuckles.

I slowly turn the lead screw of the vise, the heavy iron handle groaning as the pressure begins to build.

Grigori thrashes against the leather straps holding his chest to the chair, his head shaking violently. "Ilya, please. I didn't have a choice. The underground casino on Fourth... they were going to take my hands. They had my markers. They were going to kill me."

I don't look up from the vise. I slide a flat, black-handled scaling scalpel from the leather roll on the table. "Your hands belong to me, Grigori. Every circuit you patch, every security wire you loop. You sold the encryption key to my estate to pay off a bad hand of blackjack."