CLAIMED BY THE RUSSIAN TYRANT

2

The ten-hour flight from JFK to Sheremetyevo was a blur of muffled sobs, sniffles, and screaming infants. For the first time in her life, Anastasia wasn’t sitting in the plush leather of first class. Her card had been declined, forcing her into economy, squeezed between a mother of three who reeked of sour milk and a man who snored against her shoulder.

Her knees ached, and her mind replayed Dmitri and Philip. How she’d packed and fled Billiard’s academy, she couldn’t remember. She thought she should feel more…pain, jealousy…but she didn’t. She felt exhausted though, broke, and utterly alone.

At the hospital, she found her mother crying just outside the ward doors. Spotting her, she ran to hug her but her mother stopped her with a hot slap on her cheeks.

“Mama?” she gasped, clutching her face.

“Don’t Mama me, you fool! Do you have any idea what you have done to this family? The shame you have brought us?”

“What did I do?”

“Go inside,” her mother spat. “Your father wants to see you. If he even survives the sight of you.”

Inside the ward, she panicked At the sight of her father, the great Maximo Sokolov of Russia’s biggest gold company, connected to giant machines that beeped. He looked frail now and on the verge of collapse. But as his blue eyes snapped open, taking her in, he grimaced.

“You’re here!” he croaked.

“Oh, Papa…” She rushed toward him, guilt at not believing he was sick in the first place crushing down on her. She tried to hug him but he turned his face to the other side.

“How could you, Anastasia? I raised a daughter, not... whatever it is you have become in that godless city.”

“What do you mean? Papa, I don’t understand—”

“Why did you cheat on Dmitri?” he spat, the effort causing the heart monitor to spike. “With an American, no less. To disgrace your betrothal is one thing, but to drag the Sokolov name through the mud for a commoner?”

“Papa…I didn’t…Dmitri is the one who—”

“Dmitri is the one who saved our pride by telling us the truth!” her father roared, then collapsed into a fit of rattling coughs. “Because of your ‘American fling,’ his family has pulled every ruble out of Maximovich Aurum Holdings.”

“But Maximovich is a giant. We can survive one investor pulling out.,” Anastasia whispered, her head was spinning.

Dmitri hadn’t just betrayed her, he lied about everything when she had no intentions of ever exposing what she saw.

“We have been bankrupt for months!,” her mother interrupted from behind. “What do you think was responsible for landing your father in this bed?”

Her mother stood there, looking at her with a gaze that held no love, only disgust.

“We have no investors. No one is willing to partner with us. The Mirovs were our lifeline. That marriage was the only thing standing between us and the gutter. But you ruined it. You had one job…to be a virtuous Sokolov, and you decided to spread your legs for a foreigner.” She let out a jagged sob. “If only my son had survived. If only I had a man to rely on instead of a disappointment.”

The mention of her late brother, dead since infancy, was a familiar dagger.

Turning to her father with a determined raised voice she asked. “Surely there’s something that can be done? A loan from the bank—“

“The banks won’t touch us,” her mother countered. “We haven’t even paid the interest on the last one. We are finished, Anastasia. Finished i tell you. Russia will laugh at us. Oh! all my jewelries!”

Anastasia couldn’t take it anymore. Her mother was full on crying now.

She turned to her father with desperation. “Papa please! Say something! Tell me there is something i can do to make everything better.”

The father sighted, gaze fixed on the ceiling. “I want you to go to Alexei Morozov and beg him for a loan on my behalf.”

Anastasia froze. She wasn’t expecting that. At all.

The name felt like a physical blow. Alexei Morozov…the "Siberian Wolf." A man rumored to have built his bullion gold empire on the bodies of innocent people. Her father’s greatest enemy. A tyrant who never shaved his beard.

She had only seen him once, two years ago at at an elite sports club. She remembered only the broad, intimidating line of his back and the way his armed guards moved like a wall around him. Even from a distance, he had felt like the monster her father warned her about.

“No!” She laughed, throat dry. “You cant seriously expect me to go to that man father. You must be joking surely.”

He wasn’t. Maximo’s face remained expressionless.

Her eyes widened. She glanced between both parents, realization dawning on her. “You’re serious! You really want me to meet that criminal? Alone?”

“You think this is easy for us?” Maximo’s blue eyes flashed with a sudden, desperate fire. “You think I sent you to America for nothing? I wanted you protected from the vileness of this city. I wanted you to have a life away from people like him! But now...” He coughed violently. “I have no choice. You ruined everything. You must fix this.”

“But he’s your enemy, Papa!” she stammered, tears blurring her vision again. “He tried to kill you more than once! Who’s to say he won’t hurt me when i get there?”

“Oh, so now you’re scared?” her mother’s voice cut in, sharp as a blade. “What for? Your non-existent virtue?”

Anastasia turned to her father with desperation. Her next statement would upset him greatly, but now wasn’t the time for pride. “What about miranda Papa. She’s doing well in New York. I could call her and. Oh or maybe my dance, billiard could offer us a loan. You’ve been a generous contributor so far…”

That statement was all it took for Maximo’s face to contort. The machines in the room suddenly began to beep violently as he clutched his chest.

“Ah!” he gasped, his body arching off the bed. He looked at her with a terrifying, wide-eyed stare. “Anastasia...you’re going…to be…the death of…me”

“Papa!” Anastasia lunged forward, but her mother was faster.

With a strength fueled by panic and rage, her mother shoved Anastasia back. Her shoulder hit the hard plastic of the medical cart with a dull thud.

“Look what you’ve done!” her mother shrieked over the sound of Doctors and nurses bursting through. “Get out! Go outside before you kill him!”

“Mama, please! I didn’t mean—”

“If you know what’s good for you,” her mother snapped, her face inches from Anastasia’s, “you will do exactly as we say. You will save this family from the ruin you created.”

Before Anastasia could speak, she was hauled back, the door slamming shut in her face.