The Midnight Silk:
Alexander didn't ask me to attend the Volkov Memorial Gala; he commanded it. He wanted to parade the "Secret Heiress" in front of the lions who had devoured her family.
But as he zipped up the back of my midnight-blue silk dress, his cold fingers lingering on my spine, I realized he wasn't just parading me—he was using me as live bait.
The bedroom was silent, save for the rustle of the expensive fabric. Alexander's reflection in the mirror was a study in lethal elegance. He wore a tuxedo that cost more than my foster parents' house, his movements precise and predatory. He leaned down, his breath ghosting against my ear.
"Tonight, Ava, you aren't a waitress from the East End. You are the ghost of Viktor Volkov. Make them bleed with your silence."
"They'll kill me the moment I step out of the car," I whispered, my heart hammering against my ribs.
"They'll try," Alexander corrected, his hands moving from my zipper to my shoulders, his grip grounding. "But I didn't spend millions keeping you hidden just to watch you fall in a ballroom. Look at yourself."
I looked. The girl in the mirror was a stranger. The blue silk hugged my curves like a second skin, and the Volkov diamonds—a necklace Alexander had retrieved from a vault—sparkled like frozen tears around my neck.
"You look like an Empress," he murmured. For a split second, the ice in his eyes thawed into something darker, something hungry. His thumb brushed the hollow of my throat, a lingering touch that felt like a brand. "Now, let's go remind them who owns the city."
The drive to the Savoy was a blur of neon lights and unspoken tension. When the car door opened, the flashbulbs were blinding. The "Volkov Memorial Gala" was supposed to be a celebration of the empire's absorption into the Romanov Syndicate. My appearance was a declaration of war.
As we stepped onto the red carpet, the roar of the crowd died instantly. It was a silence so heavy it felt like physical pressure. Alexander didn't hesitate. He slid a possessive arm around my waist, pulling me flush against his side.
"Keep your head up," he commanded under his breath. "Let them see the fire in your eyes."
He scanned the room of shocked oligarchs and corrupt politicians, his gaze a cold warning. To the world, he was saying: She is back. And she belongs to me.
The Serpent's Sip:
The ballroom was a sea of gold-plated masks and hidden agendas. Every eye followed me. Men who had toasted to my father's death now stood frozen, their champagne glasses trembling.
"Stay here. Don't move from this spot," Alexander whispered after an hour of intense networking. He had spotted a high-ranking Romanov official near the balcony. "I'll be back in two minutes."
He left me near a towering ice sculpture of a phoenix—a cruel irony. Almost immediately, a waiter appeared with a tray of crystal flutes.
"A toast to the return of the Volkovs, Miss?" the waiter said, his voice strangely flat.
I took the glass. The liquid was a deep, sparkling crimson. But as I raised it to my lips, the years of working in cheap diners kicked in. I smelled something—a faint, bitter almond scent that didn't belong in expensive vintage wine. Cyanide.
I didn't scream. I didn't drop the glass. Instead, I looked the waiter in the eye and smiled—a slow, dangerous smile I'd learned from watching Alexander.
"Actually," I said, my voice steady. "I prefer the wine my father used to keep in the cellar. Why don't you take a sip first? To prove it's worthy of a Volkov."
The waiter's face went pale. He fumbled, trying to pull the tray back, but I gripped his wrist. I wasn't the trembling girl from the diner anymore. I was the girl who had survived the "Root of All Secrets."
"You have five seconds to tell me who sent you before I make you drink the whole bottle," I hissed.
He panicked, shoving the tray at me and bolting toward the service exit. I didn't follow him. I knew the layout. I slipped through a side door into a narrow, dimly lit hallway leading to the powder rooms.
I caught him near the heavy oak doors. He turned, pulling a jagged folding knife from his jacket.
"You should have stayed dead, little girl," he snarled, lunging for my throat.
I didn't cower. I stepped into his guard, using the weight of my silk dress to trip his momentum, and slammed my heel into his instep. As he gasped, I grabbed a heavy brass vase from a pedestal and swung.
The sound of the impact was sickening. He slumped to the floor, blood pooling on the white marble.
"Ava!"
Alexander burst through the doors, his gun drawn. He looked at the man on the floor, then at me, standing over him with the brass vase still in my hand, my blue dress stained with a single drop of the assassin's blood.
The Cruel Guardian's Mercy:
Alexander didn't look relieved. He looked feral.
He walked over to the unconscious assassin, his boots clicking rhythmically on the marble. He didn't ask if I was okay. He knelt over the man, grabbing his hair and slamming his head back against the floor to wake him up.
"Who?" Alexander's voice was a terrifying whisper.
The man groaned, spitting blood. "Go to hell, Sterling."
Alexander didn't hesitate. He took the man's hand and snapped two fingers with a sickening crack. The man's scream was muffled by Alexander's gloved hand.
"Alexander, stop!" I cried out.
He ignored me. He was in a trance of calculated brutality. "I'll ask one more time. Was it Petrov? Or the Syndicate board?"
"Petrov," the man wheezed, his eyes rolling back in his head. "He's... he's in the penthouse."
Alexander stood up, his face a mask of cold, unadulterated violence. He looked at the man as if he were a piece of trash. Without a word, he signaled his security team who had appeared in the shadows. "Clean this up. And find Petrov. I want his head on a silver platter by dawn."
He turned to me then. The darkness in his eyes hadn't faded. He stepped toward me, forcing me back against the cold stone wall of the hallway. He placed his hands on either side of my head, pinning me there.
"You could have died," he rasped, his voice thick with a strange mixture of rage and something that felt dangerously like fear.
"You knew they would try," I challenged, my chest heaving. "You used me! You left me alone to see if the snake would strike."
"I used you to see if you were worth protecting," he admitted, leaning closer until our noses touched. "I needed to know if you had the Volkov steel in your blood, or if you were just a ghost I was chasing. And tonight, Ava, you proved you're worth the war I'm about to start."
His gaze dropped to my lips. For a long, agonizing moment, the air between us was electric, charged with the adrenaline of the kill and the heat of the gala. He didn't kiss me. He simply breathed me in, as if I were a prize he had finally won.
The Shadow in the Car:
The ride back to the estate was suffocatingly quiet. The city lights blurred past the tinted windows of the Maybach. Alexander sat in the corner of the leather seat, half-shrouded in shadow, a glass of scotch in his hand.
The silence was a battleground.
"You put a target on my back," I finally said, my voice cracking. "All those people... they saw me. They know I'm alive. I can never go back to being no one."
"You were never 'no one', Ava. You were just a sleeping lion." Alexander didn't look at me. "Tomorrow, the shipping routes will begin to revert to your name. The Romanovs are in chaos. You've won your first battle."
"At what cost? You're turning me into a monster like you."
Alexander looked at me then, his winter-sea eyes reflecting the passing streetlights. "I'm not turning you into anything. I'm just giving you the throne your father built. If that makes you a monster, then at least you'll be a monster with a crown."
Just as the car pulled into the gates of the Sterling Estate, my phone vibrated in my clutch. It was a burner number. No name. No history.
I opened the message. My breath hitched.
"The man beside you is the one who started the fire twenty years ago. Don't trust the guardian. He didn't save you; he's just waiting for the right time to finish the job."
I looked at the screen, then slowly turned my head toward Alexander. He was staring out the window, his profile sharp and regal. The man who had protected me. The man who had just tortured a human being for my sake.
Was he my savior, or was he the arsonist who had burnt my world down just so he could rebuild it in his image?
"Ava?" Alexander asked, noticing my sudden stillness. He reached out to touch my hand.
I pulled away.
The "Golden Cage" had never felt more dangerous.
The End
Akifa,
The Author.