Page 63 of Bound in Possession

I extend my right hand, palm open. Dmitri instantly places a sleek, black-handled combat knife into my grip. I turn the blade in my hand, the polished steel catching the dim light of the basement bulb. I step forward, raising the knife.

"Start speaking, Finn. Or I break every bone in your body before I let you bleed out," I say softly, the metal dragging along the floor with a terrifying screech.

Broken by the silent monster standing over him, Finn completely collapses.

"Alright! Alright! Fuck, I'll tell you!" he howls, tears streaming down his face. "Viktor isn't just trying to cut your supply lines, Maksim! He knows he can't beat you in a direct war!"

"Then what is his play?" I ask, my voice dropping an octave, deadly and still.

"He wants to break your image!" Finn gasps out, clutching his shattered fingers. "He wants to hit your household—to prove to the Bratva elders that you can't even protect the woman beside you! If he can show them that the Pakhan is soft, that his estate is weak, the elders will question your strength and strip your territory! That's the plan! To make you look powerless!"

Silence descends over the damp basement, thick and suffocating. A challenge to my authority through the one thing they think is my vulnerability: Camilla.

My expression locks into a slate of total, unreadable stone—the pure, unadulterated mask of a Bratva executioner.

I step up to Finn. Without a word, without a second of hesitation or a flicker of emotion in my eyes, I reach out, grab his jaw with one hand, and twist his head violently to the side.

A sharp, loud SNAP echoes off the concrete walls.

Finn’s body goes completely limp, his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling as the life drains out of him instantly. I let go, letting his corpse slump uselessly against the iron pillar.

I wipe my hands on a cloth Dmitri hands me, never taking my eyes off the door.

"Dmitri," I say, my voice icy enough to freeze the air in the room. "I want the estate on total lockdown. If these bastards want to take anything from me, they must go through me first.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CAMILLA

It’s been two agonizing weeks since Maksim put the mansion on total lockdown. No one is allowed in, no one is allowed out, and the guards have doubled at every perimeter, standing like motionless black sentinels at every corner of the esta te.

I have tried to be patient. I have tried to remind myself that he’s doing this because Viktor is circling like a vulture, waiting for a single crack in his armor. But as day fourteen bleeds into the night, the walls of this grand, marble fortress are beginning to shrink around me, suffocating me inch by inch.

It feels too much like the auction. It feels like being locked in a cage by powerful men who think they can make every decision for my life under the guise of keeping me safe.

To keep from pacing the halls like a trapped animal, I’ve been spending my afternoons in the mansion’s massive library with Nastya.

"How are you liking that one?" Nastya asks softly from across the room, peering over the top of her own book.

I look down at the heavy hardcover in my lap, the words blurring into meaningless ink. I’ve never actually been much of a fan of books, only picking this one up out of sheer, soul-crushing boredom. But Nastya is so sweet, so genuinely kind, that I force a warm, polite smile onto my face.

"It's really nice," I say, keeping my tone gentle.

Nastya offers a soft, contented nod before dipping back into her pages.

I know she’s technically trapped in this house too, but her cage has a much longer leash. Over the past two weeks, she’s been allowed out of the mansion multiple times, as long as Dmitri is with her to guard her. But for me? Maksim has been so suffocatingly strict that I haven't even been granted that simple leeway. I am grounded, completely and entirely.

I hold it together for another two minutes before my patience completely snaps.

Slap!

I slam the book onto the leather couch, the sharp sound shattering the quiet room. Nastya blinks in surprise, but I’m already on my feet.

“Excuse me, Nastya.” I smooth down my clothes, my pulse humming with a hot, restless irritation as I march straight out of the library and down the grand hallway toward Maksim’s study.

If he thinks he can keep me locked in here like a golden prisoner while everyone else comes and goes, he has another thing coming.

I push open the heavy double doors of the study, ready to confront him, but the high-backed leather chair behind the oak desk is empty. Only Dmitri stands by the side cabinet, pouring a glass of amber liquor.