Page 65 of The Pakhan’s Stolen Bride

I’m afraid of the one waiting outside the gates.

"He’s coming, Ilya," I whisper into the dark, my voice so quiet it barely carries over the sound of his breathing.

Ilya’s hand pauses in my hair. He doesn't ask who. He doesn't need to. He slowly leans down, his lips pressing a warm, lingering kiss to the top of my head, his grip around my waist tightening until I can barely move.

"Let him come," Ilya growls, his voice a low, terrifying vibration in the quiet bedroom. "I’ve already killed him once, Via. I’ll make sure he stays in the ground this time."

26

ILYA

Something is very wrong.

Last night, she was shivering in my arms, clutching my shirt like she was trying to merge her skin with mine. She whispered that he was coming, her voice carrying a raw, physical terror I've never heard from her. She tried to brush it off as a nightmare, but she’s a terrible liar. She left the bed early this morning to go to the garden with Ekaterina, but she was still pale, her shoulders carrying that stiff, defensive tension.

My gut is screaming. Something happened, and she is keeping a secret from me.

I start searching our bedroom, tossing her side of the closet and her drawers, hunting for whatever triggered her panic. I finally stop by her vanity, my fingers brushing against a silver hairpin she left on the polished wood. The room still smells like her—lavender, sweet vanilla, and the warm scent of her skin from the night we spent locked in each other’s arms. My shoulder is stiff, the bandage tight under my shirt, but I barely feel the ache as I pull open the vanity's velvet-lined drawer.

My hand pauses on a small, silk-lined jewelry tray tucked near her perfume bottles.

Resting right in the center of the delicate glass dish is a thick band of bright, polished platinum.

The pear-cut diamond catches the morning sun, throwing a cold, blinding spark against my palm as I pick it up. My blood instantly turns to solid ice, a heavy, suffocating weight dropping into my chest so fast, I can't draw air.

I know this ring.

It’s the proposal ring. The one Mikhail gave her before I turned his wedding into a slaughterhouse.

Next to the ring, resting on a small, clean handkerchief, are a few dry, crushed white petals. A dried lily.

He was here. That fucker was here!

My fingers clench around the platinum band, the diamond biting deep into my palm until it draws blood.

He bypassed my guards, my cameras, and my thermal sensors, and he left his mark right on my doorstep.

And she hid it.

She found it, she brought it into our bedroom, and she tucked it away in her jewelry tray like a quiet, dirty secret she didn't want the warden to see.

I spin on my heel, my boots heavy and loud on the hardwood floor as I storm out of the bedroom and slam the doors behind me.

Dmitri is standing at the bottom of the grand staircase, his tablet in hand, talking to Lev. They both stop when they see my face, the smiles instantly vanishing from their jaws as they step back into the shadow of the archway.

"Blackout," I growl, the word dropping into the quiet foyer like a heavy iron weight. "Now."

Dmitri’s brow furrows, his hand dropping to his side. "Ilya? The Vostok transfer is clearing⁠—"

"I don't care about the transfer!" I close the distance between us, grabbing him by the collar of his jacket and dragging him into my space. My voice is a flat, freezing whisper that makes Lev step back toward the door. "Lock the gates. No one leaves. No one enters. Put five men on Ekaterina’s door, and if I see a single enforcer looking at their phone instead of the tree line, I will put a bullet in their head myself. We are under a total security blackout. Do it now."

Dmitri looks at the silver ring clenched in my fist, his eyes widening as he realizes the reality of the threat. He doesn't ask questions. He nods once, his face turning into a hard, static mask. "Lev, get the sweepers. I want the entire southern wall cleared by noon."

They disperse immediately.

I turn back toward the stairs, my boots taking the steps two at a time. The protective, quiet warmth I’ve been carrying in my chest since the garden is completely gone, burned to ash by a raw, primitive rage.

I kick the double doors of our bedroom open, the heavy oak slamming against the wall with a deafening crack that echoes through the high ceiling.