CLAIMED BY THE RUSSIAN TYRANT

14

/Seven Years Ago/

Russia | The Sokolov Mansion

“You are to marry the Mikhailov boy next Saturday in the family chapel,” Maximo said, sparing only a fleeting glance at his eldest daughter, Marina, before focusing back on his evening meal.

The Mikhailovs were the chief rivals to the Sokolovs, their mines generating billions each month. To ensure the Sokolovs didn't fall behind, Maximo had offered Marina to the Mikhailovs' eldest son to secure an alliance with the most powerful family in Russia.

Anastasia, only seventeen and deemed too young to speak at the dinner table, watched her sister. Marina’s hands were clenched so tightly against the wood that her knuckles were white. She was in pure distress.

Suddenly, Marina slammed her hands on the table and stood up, her face tight. “I can’t do this anymore, Papa.”

Everyone froze, including the servants pouring the tea.

“What did you just say?” Svetlana, their mother, sneered, dropping her newspaper.

“You heard me. I’m not marrying Andrei Mikhailov.”

Maximo leveled a cold glare at her. “Sit down, young woman. You think you have a say in this?”

“I’m a person, Papa! I have feelings. I have dreams—”

“You have Sokolov blood,” Maximo interrupted, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “That is more than enough. It is your duty to see this family continue to flourish. Or do you want the Mikhailovs to surpass us? Their mines are already outperforming ours. Do you want Russia to laugh at us? To laugh at your mother?”

Marina laughed bitterly, shaking her head. “So that’s what this is. You use me like livestock for your company's gain. If I were a man, I’m sure you’d show me a shred of respect, but because I’m a woman—”

“Shut up and listen to your father, Marina!” Svetlana hissed.

Marina ignored her mother entirely. “I will not marry Andrei. The boy is a fool. He touches himself whenever we go out on dates, which is always in the back of his truck. He doesn’t care about me, doesn’t care about my likes or dislikes. All he wants Is to f**k me so I can breed heirs for his family like a human cow!”

“Watch your foul tongue in front of your sister!”

“No, Mother!” Marina spat back. “I’m in love with someone else. Someone who cares about me. Someone who sees me beyond my family name. We are in a relationship.”

“Break it off,” Maximo commanded.

“I cannot break it off. I am pregnant with his child, and he is an American tourist.”

The moment those words left Marina’s lips, a suffocating silence fell over the room. Everyone in Russia knew how deeply Maximo loathed Americans. If Marina was telling the truth—and not just trying to spite him—she was completely done for.

Anastasia knew this better than anyone. Tears rimmed her eyes as she tried to find the words to speak up on her sister’s behalf, but Maximo wasn't having it. Neither was Svetlana, who was already calling the family doctor to have Marina locked in her room until they could forcibly abort the "bastard" from her womb.

Later that night, Anastasia slipped into the darkness of the mansion.

“Is it true?” Anastasia whispered.

Marina gasped, spinning around in her locked bedroom. “What are you doing here? If Mama and Papa find out—”

“Shh,” Anastasia cut her off, dangling a stolen ring of keys. She had managed to sneak past the guards and the servants to free her sister. “I’ve come to let you out.”

Tears spilled down Marina’s cheeks as she threw her arms around Anastasia, burying her face in her sister's neck.

“Is it true?” Anastasia whispered against her shoulder. “Are you pregnant? Am I... am I going to be an auntie?”

Marina smiled sadly, gently brushing Anastasia’s red hair from her face. “You’ll be an auntie, alright. But I’m afraid I have to go.”

“Go? Go where?”

“America. Alex is waiting for me outside the estate gates right now.”

“No... no, you can’t leave me,” Anastasia wept, suddenly dreading the freedom she had just handed her sister. The thought of some unknown American tourist taking her sister away terrified her. “I need you.”

“I have to go, Stasia.” Marina’s voice trembled.

“What if Papa forces me to marry Andrei instead?”

“Oh, don’t be scared. You’re betrothed to Dmitri, remember? He will protect you.” Marina held her tightly, her voice hardening with an intense gravity. “Whatever you do, promise me you’ll never give up ballet. Keep dancing.”

“How can I possibly—”

“Promise me,” Marina repeated, leaving no room for argument.

Feeling cornered and entirely overwhelmed, Anastasia nodded. “I promise.”

Marina squeezed her so tightly Anastasia could barely breathe, whispering a final secret against her cheek. “There is so much I want to tell you. So much I wish I could explain... but you’re still too young.”

Pulling away, Marina reached into her drawer and pulled out a slip of paper with an international number scribbled on it. “Call me the moment you come to America.”

Anastasia stared at the paper as if it were a bomb. All she had to do was scream, and the guards would come running. She could keep her sister here. But she saw the sheer desperation and longing in Marina’s eyes. Whoever this Alex was, her sister loved him enough to abandon the Sokolov wealth. Enough to abandon her.

With a heavy heart, Anastasia turned her back, refusing to watch her sister drop out of the bedroom window into the snow.

That was the last day she ever saw Marina.

The search that followed was brutal, but Marina had vanished. Four weeks later, Maximo inexplicably announced that Marina had been spotted in New York with a white man thereby disowned and never to be spoken of in the Sokolov mansion.

For years, Anastasia tried calling the number, but it never went through. And when she finally made it to New York for her ballet career, her searches turned up absolutely nothing.

It was as if Marina had vanished from the face of the earth.

•••

/Present Day/

“Sister?” Marina echoed, her brow furrowing in genuine confusion. “What is this hooker talking about?”

“Ummm Honey, this is Anastasia Sokolov. She didn’t mean what she said. You just really reminded her of her sister. She’s a business partner of mine you see,” Alexei said, finally turning to face Anastasia. His expression perfectly calm, as if he hadn't just shattered her entire reality. “Anastasia, meet Marina Morozov. My wife.”

A suffocating silence fell over the courtyard.

Then, Marina blinked, a vacant almost naive smile returning to her face. “Oh! Then you must forgive me, Miss Sokolov. It’s just this pregnancy—it gives me dreadful mood swings. That, paired with the fact that Kegan here is never home. It’s almost like he’s keeping me locked up in this massive house...”

“Alright, sweet madam,” the two elderly soot-stained workers interrupted awkwardly, quickly stepping forward to take Marina by the arm. “Let’s get you inside before you exhaust yourself. Remember what the doctor said about the cold.”

“Please, come in for tea,” Marina called back over her shoulder. Then, her eyes drifted to the car. “Xander? Is that you? And Ambrose! Oh my goodness, you’ve gotten fat!”

Ambrose offered a tight, forced chuckle.

Anastasia stood entirely stock-still, paralyzed like a statue as she watched her sister kiss Alexei on the cheek, muttering some remarks about his injury before waddling back into the mansion.

No. No. That couldn’t be Marina Anastasia thought bitterly. Her sister was a force of nature… not whatever this person had become.

But no matter how much she wanted to deny it, convince herself it’s merely a bad dream, the pounding in her chest and the way her throat was tightening was very much real.

Sliding her gaze away from the shut door, Anastasia looked at the three men standing before her. Ambrose had the decency to look down at his shoes in absolute guilt. Xander remained stoic.

Alexei, however, wore that same unreadable mask. The mask that would have made her cower back when he had his beard, back before she knew what he looked like. But the mask didn't frighten her anymore. Not while a hot, volatile rage was screaming through her veins.

“Anastasia, It’s not what you think—” Alexei started, stepping toward her.

“You filthy, lying monster!” Anastasia screamed, voice broken.

She tore across the gravel space between them, ducking right past Xander’s intervening hand. Before Alexei could raise an arm to defend himself, her palm connected brutally with his face.

The sound of the slap cracked through the freezing Siberian air like a gunshot, pulling violently at his fresh stitches.

“What the hell did you do to my sister?!”