chapter 3
1229 Words
I don't move.
Nikolai waits. His grey eyes don't blink. He's looking at me like I'm a puzzle he's already solved but wants to watch me figure out.
“I said,” he repeats, slower now, “take off the dress.”
My fingers find the zipper. They're shaking so badly I can't grip it.
Nikolai sighs.
He turns around.
“Fix it. Then tell me when you're decent.”
I stare at his back. Broad. Scars I can't read in the dim light. He's giving me privacy. My husband. The man who bought me.
I don't understand anything.
The zipper finally gives. The dress pools at my feet. I'm standing in nothing but a thin silk shift that ends mid-thigh. The bruises on my ribs are visible. The old burn mark on my shoulder. The scars.
“I'm… decent,” I whisper.
Nikolai turns.
His eyes travel down my body. Slow. Clinical. Like he's inspecting livestock.
Then he stops at my ribs.
The bruises are from last week. Chloe pushed me down the stairs. My stepmother said I fell.
Nikolai's jaw tightens.
“Who?”
“No one.”
“Don't lie to me.”
His voice is quiet. That's what makes it terrifying. Lev burns hot. Nikolai burns cold. Both will consume you.
“I fell,” I say.
Nikolai steps closer. His fingers hover over the bruises. He doesn't touch. Not yet.
“I know everything about you, Ria,” he says. “I know your mother died. I know your father remarried within a year. I know your stepmother locked you in the basement when you were twelve because you broke a vase.”
My throat closes.
“I know,” he continues, his fingers finally making contact, featherlight, “that these aren't from falling.”
His thumb traces a scar on my rib.
“I know someone hurt you.”
I can't breathe.
“And I'm going to find out who.”
***
He doesn't kiss me.
He doesn't touch me anywhere else.
He pulls the blanket back and gestures to the bed.
“Sleep.”
“That's it?”
Nikolai's mouth twists. Not quite a smile.
“What were you expecting?”
I don't answer. I was expecting worse. I was expecting hands and teeth and the kind of pain I've learned to survive.
Lucien reads my face like a book.
“I don't hurt women,” he says. “I destroy men who do.”
He walks to the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To make a phone call.”
He pauses at the threshold. Looks back at me, small and bruised and wearing a shift that's practically see-through.
“Sebastian will try to come to you tonight,” he says. “Let him. Or don't. That's your choice.”
“My choice?”
“Don't sound so surprised. I bought you. I didn't break you.”
The door closes.
I stand there for a long time.
Then I crawl into the bed and cry until I have nothing left.
***
Midnight.
The window opens.
I'm awake before the latch clicks. I've slept in basements and closets and floors that creaked. I know every sound.
Lev climbs through the second-story window like it's nothing.
“Locked the door,” he says, brushing dirt off his shirt. “Nikolai thinks I don't have keys.”
“What are you doing here?”
He crosses the room. Sits on the edge of the bed. His weight dips the mattress toward him.
“He didn't touch you.”
It's not a question.
“No.”
“Good.”
Lev lies down beside me. Fully clothed. Shoes still on. He stares at the ceiling.
“He won't touch you until he's sure you want it,” Lev says. “Nikolai's patient. I'm not.”
“I noticed.”
He laughs. It's a broken sound.
“You can hate us both,” he says. “You should hate us both. We bought you. We're keeping you. There's nothing romantic about that.”
“Then why are you here?”
Lev turns his head. His grey eyes are dark in the moonlight.
“Because you're not a thing,” he says. “And I've never wanted to share anything in my life. But you?”
He takes my hand. Laces his fingers through mine.
“You're different.”
***
We lie like that for an hour.
Maybe two.
He doesn't try to kiss me again. He doesn't touch my body. He just holds my hand and breathes and exists in the same space as me.
No one has ever stayed.
No one has ever just been with me.
“I can't do this,” I whisper.
“Do what?”
“Care about you. Either of you. You're not, this isn't…”
“A fairytale?” Lev finishes. “No. It's not. But you've never had one of those, have you?”
Tears slide down my temples into my hair.
“You don't know me.”
“I know you flinched when I said bought but not when I touched you. I know you hate your family but you still feel guilty. I know you're terrified and brave and you haven't had a single genuine smile in years.”
His thumb traces circles on my palm.
“I know you deserve better than both of us.”
“Then let me go.”
Lev is quiet for a long time.
“I can't,” he finally says. “And the worst part? I'm not sure you want me to.”
***
I fall asleep holding his hand.
When I wake up, he's gone.
The door is locked. The window is closed. There's no evidence he was ever here except…
Two black velvet boxes on the nightstand. I open the first one.
A thin gold band. Simple. Elegant. The kind of ring a wife wears to dinner parties and family portraits.
The note inside says: “For duty.” — N.
Nikolai
I open the second box.
A silver ring shaped like thorns. Sharp edges. Dangerous. The kind of ring that draws blood when you hold on too tight.
The note inside says: “For when you want to draw blood.” — L.
Lev.
I stare at both rings.
One means obligation. One means war.
I don't know which one scares me more.
***
Shouting echoes from downstairs.
I slip out of bed. Press my ear to the door.
Two voices. Identical. Fighting.
“We can't both keep her, Lev”
“Watch me.”
“She's not a toy.”
“I know what she is.”
“Do you? Because last night…”
“Last night I held her hand while she cried. What did you do, brother? What have you ever done for anyone?”
Silence.
Then Nikolai's voice, quieter now. Deadly.
“I destroyed the stepmother's investment accounts this morning. The father's company is next. And the sister?”
Pause.
“She'll wish she never touched what's mine.”
What's mine.
Not ours.
Mine.
I press my hand to my chest. My heart is racing. I shouldn't feel this. I shouldn't want this.
But I look down at the two rings in my palms.
Gold. Silver.
Duty. Blood.
And I realize…
I'm not sure which brother I'm more afraid of losing.
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