The world seemed to tilt. I gripped the cold stone of the railing until my knuckles turned white, the faceted diamonds of the ballroom lights blurring into a smear of mocking brilliance.
"You're lying," I hissed, the words feeling like shards of glass in my throat. "Yuri saved me. He took a bullet for me on that road. I saw his blood."
"He took a bullet for a password, Jessy," Viktor countered, taking a predatory step closer. I could smell the stale tobacco and the cold scent of the sea clinging to him. "If you open that vault for him, you are signing your own death warrant. He doesn't need a fiancé once he has the Ledger. He needs a ghost who can't talk to the feds."
He reached into his inner pocket and pulled out a small, encrypted burner phone. He slid it across the marble railing toward me.
"When you realize he's lying to you—and you will—press the only contact in that phone. I can get you and your mother out. I don't want the Ledger, Jessy. I just want to see the Volkov empire turn to ash."
"And why should I trust a snake like you over a wolf like him?"
Viktor smiled, a slow, ugly movement that didn't reach his eyes. "Because a snake only bites when it's hungry. A wolf kills for sport. Think about it, Jessy. Ask him about the 'accident' again. Ask him why the brakes on that transport didn't just fail—ask him why the lines were severed with a Volkov-issued blade."
He vanished back into the shadows of the ballroom before I could catch my breath.
I stared down at the phone. My heart was a frantic bird trapped in a ribcage. Was Yuri the monster who broke me just so he could be the one to stitch me back together? Was the collision his own surgical strike?
I tucked the burner phone into the hidden fold of my dress, opposite the brass key, and walked back inside. The lights felt too bright, the music too loud, the laughter sounding like the sharpening of knives. I found Yuri standing by the bar, looking regal and untouchable. When he saw me, his expression softened—a look that used to make me feel protected, but now made my skin crawl with the suspicion of a well-laid trap.
"You're pale," he said, his hand reaching for mine. His touch was warm, possessive. "Did something happen on the balcony?"
I looked at his hand—the hand that held me in the hospital, the hand that had likely commanded the strike that nearly ended me.
"I'm just tired, Yuri," I said, forcing a smile that felt as fragile as spun sugar. "I want to go home. To your home."
"Of course," he said, signaling for Miller and the security detail.
As we drove back in the armored silence of the sedan, I stared at his reflection in the dark window. I realized I was caught between two predators. One wanted to own my soul, and the other just wanted to use my blood to start a fire.
I reached into the folds of the blood-red silk and felt the two objects: the brass key from my father, and the burner phone from his enemy.
The war wasn't just in the streets anymore. It was inside the very walls of my mind.
The return to the estate didn't bring peace. Mikhail Volkov, Yuri's elder brother, had arrived earlier than expected, waiting for us in the grand foyer. Mikhail was everything Yuri was not—loud, erratic, and dripping with a cruel, gin-soaked charm.
He cornered me near the library later that night, the scent of expensive botanicals trailing after him like a foul perfume.
"So, you're the one," Mikhail sneered, his eyes roaming over me with a hunger that made the red dress feel like it was made of paper. "The little key. Do you even know what your father did, Jessy? He didn't just build a ledger. He built a map of the world's sins. And now you're holding the match that could burn us all to the ground."
"Maybe I like the fire," I replied, my voice steady despite the way my knees threatened to buckle.
Mikhail laughed, a dry, rattling sound that echoed off the marble. "Yuri thinks he's saving you. But he's just keeping the matchbox close to his chest so no one else can strike it. Tell me, little key... what happens to the match once the fire is already lit?"
He leaned in, his voice a poisonous whisper. "He's not protecting you from us. He's protecting his investment. And investments are liquidated the moment they stop being profitable."