We eat in silence for a few minutes. The food is perfect, but I can barely taste it. I can feel him watching me. Not like a predator watching prey, but like a man trying to solve a puzzle.
“I didn’t bring you here just to check on the boy, Lena,” he says suddenly, putting his fork down.
I feel my heart rate climb. “Then why? If this isn’t about business, what is it?”
Razvan leans forward, his dark eyes locking onto mine with an honesty that unnerves me. “St. Petersburg, the hotel, the night Theo got sick. Everything has changed. At least for me.”
I shake my head quickly, looking down at my plate. “Nothing has changed. We have an agreement. You forced me into this, Razvan. You used my son to trap me here. That is all this is.”
He shakes his head, his voice dropping an octave. “No. It’s not. I’m tired of the force, Lena. I’m tired of the forced marriage and the walls you build every time I walk into the room. I don’t want the arrangement anymore.”
I feel like the air has been sucked out of the room. “What are you saying?”
Razvan reaches across the table, though he doesn’t touch me yet. “I want you,” he says plainly. There’s no arrogance in his voice, no demand. Just a simple, devastating truth. “I don’t want the Pakhan’s wife. I wantyou. Specifically. I want this to be real, Lena. Not a bargain. Not a debt. I want you to want to stay.”
I feel my eyes prickle with heat. I pull back, the emerald silk of my dress rustling as I create distance. I won’t explain it to him. I won’t tell him that I can’t look at him without seeing my father’s ghost standing in the corner. I won’t tell him that every time I feel a spark of love, it feels like I’m betraying my own soul.
“I can’t do this,” I whisper, my voice breaking. “Don’t push me tonight, Razvan. Please. Just let it go.”
He watches me for a long time, his expression a mix of frustration and a strange, deep longing. He looks like he wants to reach out and pull me into his arms, but he stays where he is.
“Fine,” he says softly. “I won’t push. Not tonight. But I’m not giving up.”
I don’t stay for dessert. I turn and flee the room, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
I reach my bedroom and lock the door, leaning my back against the wood. My breath is coming in short, jagged gasps.
He wants me. He wants it to be real.
The words should be a victory. I should be happy that the powerful Pakhan is at my feet. But instead, it feels like a death sentence.
I walk over to the bed and collapse onto it, burying my face in the pillows. The scent of him is still there, faint but present, and it makes me want to scream. I roll onto my back, staring up at the dark ceiling, the silence of the room pressing in on me.
I know why I pulled back. I know why I can’t give him what he wants.
It sits in my chest like a heavy, jagged stone I’ve been carrying since the night I was dragged from my home. It’s the weight of a thousand memories, all ending in the same bloody image.
How can I fall in love with him?
How can I look at the hands that held the gun that killed my father and want those same hands to hold me? How can I listen to the voice that ordered my captivity and want that voice to whisper my name in the dark?
“I’m sorry, Papa,” I whisper into the empty room.
The tears start then. They aren’t the quiet, ladylike tears I’ve shed in public. They are raw, ugly sobs that tear through my throat and leave me gasping for air. I curl into a ball, clutching the silk sheets, my body shaking with the force of my grief and my guilt.
Every time I feel a spark of affection for Razvan, I feel like I’m spitting on my father’s grave. Every time I enjoy his touch, I feel like I’m a traitor to my own blood. I’m falling in love with a murderer, and the shame of it is a physical pain, a burning in my heart that won’t go out.
He’s not just a murderer,a small voice in my head whispers.He’s the man who saved your son. He’s the man who stayed awake all night holding you when you were scared. He’s the man who wants you for who you are, not what you bring.
“It doesn’t matter!” I sob out loud, my voice muffled by the blankets. “It doesn’t change what he did!”
I cry until my eyes are swollen and my throat is raw. I cry for the life I lost, and for the life I’m trapped in. I cry because I’m a Sokolova, and my father taught me that loyalty is everything but my heart is a traitor that doesn’t care about bloodlines.
I think about the way Razvan looked at dinner. The vulnerability. The way he dropped his guard and asked me to see him. He’s trying so hard to be the man I need, but I’m the one holding the knife now. I’m the one keeping us apart because I can’t let go of the past.
I stay awake for hours, the moon tracing a slow path across the floor. My chest feels hollowed out, as if the crying has emptied me of everything but the cold, hard truth.
I’m in love with him.