chapter 4
1238 Words
I put on neither ring.
Instead, I hide both velvet boxes under the mattress and dress in the clothes the maid left. Black slacks. A cream blouse. Nothing that looks like a bride.
When I open the door, a servant is waiting.
“Mr. Stroganov requests your presence at breakfast.”
Which one?
I don't ask.
***
The breakfast room is smaller than the dining hall. Intimate. A table for four, but only two places are set.
Nikolai sits at the head. Dark suit. Tie already knotted. He looks like he's been awake for hours.
He looks up when I enter.
“Sit.”
I sit.
The place across from him is empty. I don't ask where Lev is.
“You didn't wear either ring,” Nikolai says.
No greeting. No how did you sleep. Just the ring.
“I'm not sure I want either.”
Nikolai's mouth twitches. Almost a smile. Almost.
“You're honest. I didn't expect that.”
“You bought a person. What did you expect?”
The words hang in the air. Too sharp. Too true.
Lucien sets down his coffee cup. His grey eyes pin me in place.
“I expected compliance. Silence. Gratitude.” He pauses. “I didn't expect you to fight.”
“I'm not fighting. I'm surviving.”
“Same thing.”
***
The door opens.
Lev walks in looking like he hasn't slept. Same dark circles as Nikolai, but messier. Hair uncombed. Shirt untucked.
He sees me.
He smiles.
“Morning, wife.”
“I'm not your wife.”
“Yet.”
He drops into the chair across from me. The empty place. Of course it was his.
Nikolai's jaw tightens. “You're late.”
“You're early. Different preferences.”
They stare at each other. A whole conversation happening in silence. Possession. Warning. Challenge.
I pick up my fork just to have something to hold.
***
Breakfast is suffocating.
Lev talks. Nikolai watches. I eat exactly seven bites so no one can say I didn't.
“The stepmother is crying,” Lev announces. “Apparently her credit cards stopped working.”
Nikolai doesn't react.
“That was you?” I ask.
“She touched what's mine.” Lucien's voice is flat. “They all did.”
Mine. Singular again.
Lev's fork pauses mid-air. “Ours.”
Nikolai looks at him. “We haven't agreed to that.”
“We will.”
“You don't know that.”
Lev sets down his fork. Leans across the table toward his brother. “I know that you watched her sleep last night. I know you stood outside her door for an hour before I climbed through the window. I know you're not as cold as you pretend.”
My breath catches.
Nikolai watched me sleep?
Nikolai's face doesn't change. But his hand, his hand curls into a fist on the table.
“Finish your breakfast, Sebastian.”
“I'm finished.”
He stands. Walks around the table. Stops beside my chair.
“Tonight,” he says quietly, “the family is hosting a dinner. You'll meet the rest of the Stroganov. They're worse than us.”
He leans down. His lips brush my ear.
“Wear the thorns.”
He leaves.
Nikolai and I sit in silence.
***
“He's not wrong about them,” Lucien says finally. “The family. My mother. My uncles. They'll test you.”
“What kind of test?”
Nikolai stands. Walks to my side of the table. He doesn't touch me, but he stands close enough that I have to tilt my head back to see his face.
“They'll look for weakness,” he says. “They'll ask about your family. Your past. The scars.”
“And what do I tell them?”
Nikolai reaches down. His fingers brush my collar bone, where the shift didn't cover last night. Where the oldest scar lives.
“Tell them the truth,” he says. “That you survived. And that anyone who tries to hurt you now answers to both of us.”
Both.
Not me. Not Lev.
Both.
***
The morning passes in a blur.
I'm shown the house. The grounds. The wing that's supposedly mine. A sitting room. A library. A bedroom connected to a bathroom bigger than my father's entire house.
At noon, a phone appears on my nightstand.
No contacts. No messages.
It rings.
I answer.
“Hello?”
“Ria.” A woman's voice. Cold. Familiar. “You think you've won something. You haven't.”
My stepmother.
“How did you get this number?”
“How do you think? Your husband gave it to me. He wants me to beg.”
I grip the phone tighter. “Why are you calling?”
“Because I know things about you. Things the Stoganovs would find… distasteful.”
My blood turns to ice.
“Meet me. One hour. The café on Stroganov Lane. Come alone, or everyone finds out what you really are.”
The line goes dead.
***
I shouldn't go.
Every instinct tells me to tell Nikolai. Or Lev. To let them handle it.
But my stepmother knows things.
Things I've never told anyone.
I put on shoes. A jacket. I slip out a side door no one showed me.
The café is three blocks away.
She's waiting in the back corner. A table for two. Coffee already poured.
“Sit,” she says.
I sit.
“You look terrible,” she says. “Marriage agrees with you.”
“What do you want?2
My stepmother smiles. It's the smile she wore the day she told me my mother's things had been thrown away.
“I want you to get me back what your husband took. My accounts. My cards. My status.”
“I can't do that.”
“You can. You will. Or I tell them about the fire.”
The fire.
I was nine. The basement. A space heater. My stepmother said I started it. She said I was dangerous. My father believed her.
But I didn't start it.
She did.
“Tell them,” I say quietly.
My stepmother's smile falters. “What?”
“Tell them. I don't care anymore.”
I stand.
“I've survived worse than your lies. And now I have two men who would burn this city down for me.”
I lean down. Meet her eyes.
“Try me.”
I walk out.
***
I’m halfway back to the mansion when a car pulls up beside me.
The window rolls down.
Lev.
“You left without telling anyone,” he says. Not angry. Not yet.
“I handled it.”
“Did you?”
He opens the door. I get in.
“Your stepmother,” he says as the car pulls away. “She's leaving the country tonight. Nikolai arranged it.”
“What?”
“She threatened you. She doesn't get to stay.”
I stare at him. “You can't just…”
“We can.” Lev's hand finds mine. “We're not good men, Ria. We're not safe. But we're yours.”
The car pulls up to the mansion.
Lev doesn't let go of my hand.
“Tonight,” he says, “you'll meet the family. They'll try to break you. Let them try.”
He lifts my hand to his lips. Kisses my knuckles.
“And then watch what we do.”
- Writer
