The air in the ballroom was getting thinner, choked by the scent of lilies and the underlying rot of false pleasantries. Dimitri moved through the crowd with the grace of a shark, his hand never leaving the small of my back.
"Dimitri," a woman's voice sharp as a diamond called out.
A woman in her fifties, draped in silver silk with hair pulled back so tight it looked painful, stepped into our path. Her eyes were clever, assessing.
"Katya," Dimitri acknowledged, his voice warming by a single, cautious degree. "Maya, this is Katya Volanova. She keeps the books for the northern territories. She is the only person in this room I trust to count my money."
Katya didn't smile. She took my hand, her skin like cold parchment. "So, you are the one he plucked from the Sokolov ruins. You have the look of your mother, Maya. Let's hope you have more steel in your spine than your father did."
"I'm learning," I said, meeting her gaze.
Katya leaned in, her voice a dry whisper that bypassed Dimitri entirely. "Be careful, child. Volkov wives have a habit of dying young. Be smarter than the last one he brought to a gala like this. The throne is made of glass, and it breaks easily."
The blood drained from my face. *The last one?* Before I could ask, Katya was gone, swallowed by a group of oligarchs. I looked at Dimitri, but his jaw was set, his gaze fixed on the far wall. He had heard her.
"I need air," I whispered. "I'm going to the powder room."
"Yuri will wait outside the door," Dimitri said, his tone clipped. "Five minutes, Maya. No more."
I practically fled. The bathroom was a cathedral of marble and gold, silent and empty. I splashed cold water on my face, staring at the stranger in the mirror. The emeralds at my neck felt like lead. *Who was the last girl?* Dimitri hadn't mentioned a fiancée, or a wife.
The heavy door creaked open. I expected a socialite. Instead, a woman walked in who looked like a darkened mirror of myself. She was tall, Italian, dressed in a gown of blood-red lace that left nothing to the imagination.
Giulia Romano. Marco's sister.
She didn't use the stalls. She walked straight to the vanity, leaning against the marble next to me.
"You have his mother's necklace," Giulia said, her voice dripping with venom. "A bit ironic, don't you think? Putting a noose made of jewels on a girl whose father died begging for his life."
"If you have something to say, Giulia, say it," I snapped, reaching for a paper towel.
She moved with a viper's speed, her hand slamming against the mirror beside my head. "I'm saying you're a placeholder. You think marrying the Ice Pakhan makes you royalty? He couldn't even protect Sofia. He watched her bleed out on a sidewalk three years ago because he was too arrogant to see the Romanos coming. You're just the new bait."
My heart hammered. "I am not Sofia."
"No," she sneered, her eyes flashing. "You're much more expendable."
She reached out, her long, manicured nails aiming for my cheek—a mark, a scratch, a claim of her own. I didn't think. I grabbed her wrist, twisting it back with a strength I didn't know I possessed, slamming her hand down onto the marble counter.
"Touch me again," I hissed, leaning into her space, "and I'll show you exactly why Dimitri chose me over a Romano."
Giulia's eyes widened in shock. She opened her mouth to scream, but the door swung open. Yuri stood there, his presence filling the room. He didn't say a word; he just looked at Giulia's pinned wrist and then at me.
"The Pakhan is waiting," Yuri said.
I let her go. Giulia stumbled back, rubbing her wrist, her face twisted in a mask of fury. "You're a dead woman, Sokolova!"
I didn't look back. I walked out, my heels clicking like a countdown on the marble.
The ride home was silent, but the silence was different now. It was a pressure cooker. I sat as far from Dimitri as the SUV allowed, staring out at the blurred lights of the Brooklyn Bridge.
"What did she say to you?" Dimitri asked. He was leaning back in the shadows, his eyes unreadable.
"She said your last woman bled out on a sidewalk," I said, my voice shaking with the adrenaline crash. "She said I'm a placeholder. Bait."
Dimitri's hand shot out, grabbing my waist and pulling me across the leather seat until I was flush against him. He didn't let go.
"Do not speak her name," he rasped, his face inches from mine. "Sofia was a mistake of my youth. You are the reality of my future. There is a difference."
"Is there?" I challenged, my hands bunching in his tuxedo jacket. "Or am I just the next target for the Romanos to hit?"
Dimitri's gaze dropped to my mouth. The anger in him was warring with something else—something raw and hungry. The danger of the night had stripped away his control.
"You survived tonight," he murmured, his thumb tracing the line of my throat where Katya's warning still rang. "You stood your ground against Marco and Giulia. You looked like a queen, Maya."
"I felt like a victim," I whispered.
"Not when you looked at me," he said. "When you looked at me in that ballroom, you looked like you wanted to burn the world down with me."
He leaned in, his lips grazing mine, but he didn't kiss me. He stopped, the heat between us so intense it felt like a physical weight. We were at the gates of the mansion. The tires crunched on the gravel.
"Tonight was a battle," he said, his voice a low vibration. "And you won. But the war is coming, Maya. And when it does, I need to know if you're standing behind me... or beside me."
The SUV stopped. Yuri opened the door. Dimitri let go of me, the loss of his heat making me shiver.
I looked at the dark silhouette of the mansion. I had survived the gala. I had survived the Romanos. But as I looked at the man who had just claimed me in front of the world, I realized the most dangerous part of the night was just beginning.
Because tonight, I didn't want to sleep in a separate room.