Chapter 1 - THE GRAVEYARD OF DEBTSThe silence that followed Alexei Volkov’s words was heavy enough to crush bone.
Victoria stared at the man standing at the head of the mahogany table, her chest burning as if she had swallowed hot coals. Carol. Her own flesh and blood. The woman who had taken her in when her parents died in a mangled heap of metal on the highway. The woman she had spent five years supporting, paying for insulin, paying for rent, tipping every extra dollar from Quinn’s Diner into a black hole of medical bills and hidden vices.
"You're lying," Victoria whispered, her voice shaking with a fury so intense it turned cold. "My aunt loves me. She raised me."
Alexei tilted his head, his winter-blue eyes locking onto hers with terrifying clarity. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. In a room full of apex predators, the biggest monster never had to roar.
"Love is a luxury item, Victoria. Your aunt operated on credit," Alexei said, gesturing to a silver folder lying beside his coffee cup. He opened it with a flick of his index finger, sliding a crisp, legal document across the polished wood. "Carol accrued four hundred thousand dollars in gambling debts over three years. She borrowed from the Bratva. When the interest compounded, she offered the only collateral of value she possessed."
Victoria’s gaze dropped to the paper. Her own signature at the bottom.
Except she had never signed it.
Her breath hitched. A forgery. A terrifying, meticulous forgery executed with enough precision to fool a bank.
"She traded me," Victoria breathed, the realization shattering whatever was left of her twenty-first birthday. "She sold me to pay off her markers."
"Not sold," Alexei corrected smoothly, standing up to his full, intimidating height. "Consolidated. You aren't a prisoner, Victoria. You are a transaction completed in full. And by the laws of my world, a contract signed in blood—or in this case, forged by a desperate relative—is binding until death or fulfillment."
"I am walking out of here," Victoria said, her voice dropping an octave as she backed toward the grand double doors.
Two armed guards in identical charcoal suits materialized from the shadows, blocking her path without drawing a weapon. They didn't need to. Their silence was absolute, their posture lethal.
Alexei walked toward her, slow and unhurried, like a wolf closing in on a cornered doe. He stopped a foot away, the scent of expensive cedar and rain clinging to his skin. He reached out, his thumb gently brushing a stray lock of black hair behind her ear. She flinched, but he didn't pull back.
"You can try," Alexei murmured, his breath brushing her temple. "And out there, the city will eat you alive. The police belong to me, the streets belong to me, and your aunt is currently living in a secure medical facility where her dialysis depends entirely on whether or not you play your part as my wife."
May you like
He leaned down, his lips brushing the shell of her ear.
"Welcome to your new life, Mrs. Volkov. Let’s see how long you survive."
