Bohdan is waiting for me outside, his silhouette leaning against the car with a cigarette dangling from his lips as the smoke curls into the cold air. For twelve years, he has been my right hand and the only man alive who can speak freely to me without weighing the consequences of his honesty.
“Well?” He pushes off the frame as I approach, his eyes tracking my movement. “How’s the father-in-law?”
“Pathetic,” I reply, sliding into the leather interior of the backseat while Bohdan follows, settling himself across from me. “The man was practically trembling before I even uttered a single word.”
“Can you blame him? The Georgians have been bleeding his operations dry for months, so he likely assumed you were arriving to finish the job.”
“He assumed wrong.”
Bohdan studies my expression as the car pulls away from the warehouse, the tires crunching over the gravel. “So…the girl. Is she really the one you’ve been looking for?”
“She is the one.”
“And she remains entirely oblivious to the situation.”
“She has no idea,” I confirm. “Apparently, her father paraded her around the Germans often enough that she assumed she was headed for their son, never realizing the truth of her own heritage.”
Bohdan snorts at the irony of it. “Smart girl, but she reached a remarkably wrong conclusion.”
“She fled to Russia, thinking she was escaping an arranged marriage, only to sprint directly into my territory. Fate has a strange sense of humor.”
“Or perhaps she simply has terrible luck.”
“They are often the same thing.”
We drive in silence for a few minutes while the Ukrainian countryside rolls past in a blur of dead fields and bruised, gray skies that suggest winter is arriving early this year.
“What do you truly think of the father?” Bohdan asks eventually.
“I think he’s a coward who would sell his own mother to save his skin. He’s been skimming from his own operations for years and blaming the losses on misfortune, while his wife seems less distraught about a missing daughter than she is about losing a meal ticket to a good marriage.”
“Then why not just seize the ports? You could kill him and be done with the entire mess.”
“Because I require leverage,” I say, meeting his eyes to ensure he understands the gravity of the plan. “Artem is weak, but he remains connected to buyers across Europe that would take me years to rebuild. More importantly, he has a daughter who doesn’t trust me, doesn’t like me, and will undoubtedly vanish the moment she realizes the reality of her situation.”
Understanding finally dawns on Bohdan’s face. “You need him alive to keep her in line.”
“I need him alive and terrified. A father whose entire operation depends on my goodwill and whose life hangs by a thread I can cut at any second. That is the kind of man who will help me convince his stubborn daughter that this marriage is her only viable option.”
“And if she still refuses?”
I think of the fire in Zoya’s eyes and the way she looks at me like a puzzle she wants to both solve and destroy in equal measure.
“She won’t refuse. She might rage or even attempt to stab me, but in the end, she’ll stand beside me and say the words because the alternative is watching everyone she cares about suffer for her pride.”
Bohdan shakes his head slowly. “You’re a cold bastard, Alexei.”
“I’m a Romanov. There is no difference between the two.”
The car turns onto the road leading to the private airstrip where my plane waits on the tarmac, its engines already warming for the flight to Moscow.
“One more thing,” Bohdan says as we pull up to the stairs. “The Georgians. Dato has been making aggressive moves while you were out of the country, and word is he’s looking for leverage against you.”
“Let him look.”
“I’m serious. Something is off because he’s acting with a level of confidence that suggests he knows something we don’t.”
I consider the threat of Dato Janelidze, a young, reckless man who has inherited an empire he isn’t ready to lead. He makes mistakes, overreaches, and consistently underestimates his opponents.