SAY YOU ARE MINE

SAY IT TO ME

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 w***e?”

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 to you.”

He nods. Once. Like I passed a test.

Then he turns to the six men lining the walls. All in black suits. All pretending they didn’t see their Pakhan kiss a girl like he wanted to devour her.

“She’s mine now,” Kieran announces. His voice fills the warehouse. God’s voice. Devil’s voice. “Alina Sokolov is under Volkov protection. Anyone touches her. Looks at her. Breathes near her without my permission…”

He pulls a gun from his hip. Not to point it. Just to hold it. To remind everyone it’s there.

“…dies.”

He tucks the gun away. From his pocket, he pulls a ring box. Black velvet. He flicks it open with his thumb.

Inside is a monster. Black diamond, at least ten carats, set in platinum. It throws shards of light across the concrete. It’s beautiful. It’s a shackle.

He grabs my left hand. My fingers are ice. He slides the ring onto my fourth finger. It’s heavy. Cold. Too big, but it won’t fall off. Like he knew it. Like it was made for me.

“There.” He lifts my hand. Examines the ring like it’s a work of art. Like _I’m_ the work of art. “Now everyone knows.”

He drops my hand. Turns back to his men. “Cut him down. Get him to a doctor. If he loses a finger, you lose a hand.”

Two men rush to obey.

Kieran looks at me again. Really looks. From my red hair, to my cheap black dress, to my bare feet. I ran out of our apartment without shoes.

“Welcome to hell, Alina,” he says softly. So soft only I hear. “You’re going to love it here.”

He offers me his arm. Like we’re at a gala. Like he didn’t just buy me with my brother’s blood.

“Walk with me. Or I carry you. Your choice.”

I look at Dmitri. He’s being lowered to the ground. Alive.

I look at the ring. _Mine_, it says. _His_, it screams.

I take Kieran’s arm.

His muscle is steel under the expensive fabric. He covers my hand with his. Possessive. Final.

And we walk out of the warehouse. Into the Moscow night. Into my new life.

END CHAPTER 1