The hand around my throat isn’t choking me. Not yet. But the threat is there. In the way his thumb presses against my pulse, counting. In the way his eyes — blue ice, winter in Moscow, death — track every terrified beat of my heart like he owns it. Because he does now. “Say it,” Kieran Volkov says. His voice is smoke and sin and every bad decision I’ve never made. Russian accent thick, cutting through the abandoned warehouse like a blade. Expensive. Lethal. Behind him, my brother Dmitri hangs from the ceiling by his wrists. Blood drips from his broken nose onto the concrete. One… two… three… The sound is a metronome counting down his life. “I won’t,” I whisper. But my voice shakes. Betrays me. Kieran’s grip tightens. Not enough to bruise. Not yet. Just enough to remind me who controls the air in my lungs. “Your brother stole two million dollars from me, Alina. The Bratva takes fingers for a thousand. He took two thousand times that.” “Please.” The word tastes like ash. “He’s nineteen. He’s stupid. He didn’t know—” “And you’re twenty-two.” His other hand comes up. Traces the line of my throat down to my collarbone. The touch is feather-light. Possessive. A claim, not a caress. “Old enough to understand debt. Old enough to pay it.” A blowtorch hisses to life behind him. Dmitri screams. The sound tears through me. “Stop!” I lunge forward. Kieran’s hand at my throat becomes an iron band, holding me in place. “God, please, stop!” Kieran doesn’t even look at Dmitri. His eyes stay on me. Studying. Cataloguing my panic like it’s data. “One year, _milaya_.” The Russian endearment is a curse in his mouth. “You wear my ring. You live in my penthouse. You sleep in my bed. You tell the world, my enemies, my mother, that you are mine. In exchange, your brother lives. With all his fingers.” My knees want to buckle. “You want me to be your… what? Your whore?” His jaw ticks. Once. “My fiancée. The Bratva doesn’t take whores to galas. They take wives. Fake or not.” “And after a year?” “After a year, you walk away. Rich. Alive. With a brother who still has hands to hold yours.” He leans in. I smell him now — whiskey, cedar, and something dark. Gunpowder. “Refuse, and I start with his right hand. Then his left. Then we see how many pieces a man can be in before he stops screaming.” Another scream rips from Dmitri. The smell of burning flesh hits my nose. “STOP!” I’m sobbing now. Ugly, gasping sobs. “I’ll do it! I’ll do whatever you want! Just don’t hurt him anymore!” Kieran makes a gesture. The blowtorch cuts off. Silence, except for Dmitri’s whimpers. “Good girl.” Kieran’s thumb wipes a tear from my cheek. The tenderness is more terrifying than the violence. “Now. Say it. So my men hear. So your brother hears. So _you_ hear.” He waits. I look at Dmitri. His head hangs. Blood pools under his sneakers. I look at Kieran. The Devil of Moscow. Heir to the Volkov Bratva. Man who has killed more people than I’ve met. I close my eyes. “I…” The word is sandpaper. “I am yours.” “Louder.” His grip on my throat is a promise. “Like you mean it, Alina. Like you’ll bleed for it.” My eyes fly open. Hate and terror war in my chest. “I am yours!” I scream it. The warehouse echoes. “Okay? I’m yours! Are you happy now?” Kieran’s lips curve. It’s not a smile. Predators don’t smile. They bare teeth before the kill. “Very.” Then his mouth is on mine. It’s not a kiss. Kisses are soft. Kisses ask. This is a conquest. His lips are hard, punishing, furious. His teeth scrape my bottom lip until I gasp, and he swallows the sound. One hand stays fisted in my hair, yanking my head back to give him better access. The other wraps around my waist, pulling me flush against him. I feel everything. The steel of his chest. The gun at his hip digging into my stomach. The knife strapped to his thigh. The sheer, overwhelming _maleness_ of him. He’s six-foot-four of pure, uncut danger, and I’m drowning in it. His tongue sweeps into my mouth, and I taste whiskey and wrath. I should bite him. I should fight. But my body betrays me. My hands fist in his black shirt. Not to push him away. To keep from falling. When he finally rips his mouth from mine, we’re both breathing like we ran a marathon. My lips are swollen. Swollen and stinging. His eyes are black now, the blue gone. Dilated. Hungry. He stares at me for three heartbeats. Then his thumb comes up. Wipes a smear of blood from my bottom lip. His blood or mine, I don’t know. He puts his thumb in his mouth. Sucks the blood off. And watches me while he does it. My stomach flips. “Again,” he orders. Voice gravel. “For the room.” I can’t. I can’t do it again. But Dmitri makes a pained noise, and I break. “I am yours, Kieran Volkov,” I say. Clear. Dead. “I belong

Airport announcements are scientifically designed to end lives. “Final call for Emirates Flight EK 785 to London Heathrow. All remaining passengers must proceed to Gate B12 immediately.” Translation: Amira Hassan, your career is officially over. Twenty-three minutes earlier, I’d been a fully employed cabin crew member with a dental plan and a delusional sense of stability. Now I was standing in Terminal 3 with a termination letter, a suitcase, and $4.32 to my name. The reason? A passenger in seat 2A, Mrs. Victoria Pemberton-Wells the Third, accused me of destroying her limited-edition handbag with champagne. I don’t drink. I don’t even like grapes. But when someone’s handbag costs more than your annual salary, their word becomes legal testimony in Dubai. “Miss Hassan?” Airport security had the sympathy of a parking meter. He tapped my navy blazer with one finger. “Your crew visa expires at 18:00. That’s four hours from now. You cannot remain airside after that.” I adjusted my scarf and gave him my best customer service smile. The one that said _I’m fine_ while my life was actively on fire. “Understood, sir. I was just on my way to purchase a private jet. With my $4.32.” He blinked. “This is a serious matter.” “So is my bank account, but here we are.” He walked away, probably to report me to the humor police. I couldn’t blame him. Desperation makes people say strange things. I dragged my suitcase past the gold souk displays. Not the real souk, the airport version, where tourism and bankruptcy hold hands. Floor-to-ceiling glass cases showcased gold bars, gold coins, and jewelry that probably had its own security detail. The exact gold coins from your cover were there, stacked in a pyramid like a dare. I did the math. One coin could pay my rent for two years, settle my mother’s medical bills, and still leave enough to buy the airport a thank-you card. Instead, I had $4.32 and a growing resentment toward capitalism. I was calculating whether airport tap water was technically free when Gate A12 exploded into drama. Not a literal explosion. Dubai Airport frowns on those. This was the human kind: loud, expensive, and instantly viral. A man stood at the center of it. He wore a white kandura and a ghutrah that had been arranged by someone who understood geometry and power. Tall. Broad shoulders. The kind of jawline that made you question every romantic decision you’d ever made. He looked like the _after_ photo in a “how to become a billionaire” advertisement. Across from him was a woman in a black abaya embroidered with crystals. She had the posture of someone who had never heard the word _no_ and the diamonds to ensure she never would. “You WILL marry me, Zayed Al-Futtaim!” Her voice could have stripped paint. “Your father promised me to you before he died! The contracts are signed!” Zayed. So that was his name. It suited him. Short, sharp, and expensive to pronounce. He glanced at his watch. It was probably worth more than my future. “My father also promised I would enjoy my breakfast,” he said, his voice calm and cold. “That was three engagements ago. As you can see, his promises were aspirational.” A strangled laugh escaped me before I could stop it. Several heads turned. Zayed’s eyes flicked to me for exactly one second. It was like being scanned by a satellite. Then he looked away, dismissing me as irrelevant. Fair. I was irrelevant. I was also unemployed, soon to be homeless, and currently a spectator at the Super Bowl of rich people problems. The woman, who I would later learn was Fatima, took a step forward. Her rings caught the light. “You cannot dishonor your family name! The merger with my father’s company depends on this marriage! If you refuse, your uncle gets everything!” Uncle. Merger. Family name. The words floated around the terminal like expensive perfume. This wasn’t just a breakup. This was succession war with a side of international business. Phones were out now. Every angle of Gate A12 was being recorded in 4K. A child had stopped crying to watch. Two flight attendants from Qatar Airways were pretending not to film while definitely filming. Fatima raised her hand. The diamonds on her fingers could have funded a small nation. “If you will not take responsibility, Zayed, then—” My body moved before my brain approved the memo. Maybe it was the $4.32 in my account. Maybe it was the injustice of being fired for something I didn’t do. Maybe it was the universal instinct to stop a person from getting hit, even if that person was a stranger who owned half of Dubai. I dropped my suitcase and stepped between them. The slap was not meant for me. It landed anyway. The sound was extraordinary. It echoed off the marble floors .