Mag-log inChapter Twenty-One: The Shape of a CrownEmma VolkovEngagement didn’t feel like celebration.It felt like architecture.Everything rearranged itself around a future that had not yet arrived, beams sliding into place with a quiet inevitability. Invitations weren’t sent so much as anticipated. Security protocols multiplied. Schedules braided together until it was impossible to tell where my authority ended and Lucas’s began—by design, not accident.Alignment, after all, was about shared load-bearing.I woke early most mornings now, before the house fully stirred. The ring caught the first light, a thin circle of certainty against my skin. I had expected it to feel foreign. It didn’t. It felt… intentional.The first test came a week after the announcement.Not with violence.With ceremony.---They called it a summit. Neutral ground again—Zurich this time—where bankers wore power better than soldiers ever had. The agenda was mundane on paper: shipping insurance, asset freezes, legal gra
Chapter Twenty: The Weight of YesEmma VolkovPower announces itself long before it settles.I felt it the morning after the engagement talks went public—not in the calls or the messages or the sudden politeness of men who had once dismissed me, but in the way silence shifted around me. People waited now. Measured. Calculated. As if my eventual decision had become a kind of weather system—unavoidable, capable of rearranging landscapes.I didn’t rush it.Rushing was for people who needed certainty to survive.I needed truth.The villa moved differently these days. Guards were more alert, not because danger had increased but because significance had. Maids whispered less. Advisors spoke more carefully. Every choice was weighed for implication.And Lucas—Lucas watched everything with a stillness that told me he understood the cost of patience.We didn’t speak about the ring.Not once.That restraint did more to sway me than any declaration ever could.---The test came from an unexpected
Chapter Nineteen: Terms of a CrownEmma VolkovTime did not slow down for my decision.If anything, it accelerated—as if the world sensed hesitation and leaned in closer, waiting to see which way I’d fall. News traveled fast in our circles, even without confirmation. A delayed answer was an answer in itself, and everyone was already rewriting it to suit their agendas.I didn’t announce anything.I watched.That was my advantage.The villa in Geneva became quieter in the days that followed. Lucas respected my space in the way only powerful men who weren’t afraid of losing control could. No pressure. No reminders. No lingering looks weighted with expectation.Which, perversely, made the choice heavier.I spent long hours walking along the lake, replaying every version of the future I could imagine. In some, I returned to Moscow, took my place beside my father, and let the Volkov legacy continue unchallenged. In others, I stayed in Italy as Lucas’s ally—but not his wife—always provisiona
Chapter Eighteen: A Question Sharper Than a BladeEmma VolkovMarriage, I learned, is a word that sounds different in rooms where men decide wars.It isn’t romantic there. It isn’t soft. It’s strategic, sharpened, measured by what it costs and what it secures. I’d heard it all my life spoken like a contract, like a weapon wrapped in silk. My mother used to say that love and power rarely shared a table—but when they did, someone always paid.I didn’t expect that someone might be me.Geneva ended without bloodshed, which in our world counted as a miracle. The lake reflected calm skies while beneath the surface, alliances rewired themselves quietly. We stayed two more days, enough time to let the image of unity sink in. Enough time for whispers to grow teeth.I felt them everywhere—in lingering looks, in pauses that lasted half a second too long.Emma Volkov.Lucas Moretti.Together.The rumor mill worked faster than any intelligence network.On the third evening, Lucas asked me to join
Chapter Eighteen: A Question Sharper Than a BladeEmma VolkovMarriage, I learned, is a word that sounds different in rooms where men decide wars.It isn’t romantic there. It isn’t soft. It’s strategic, sharpened, measured by what it costs and what it secures. I’d heard it all my life spoken like a contract, like a weapon wrapped in silk. My mother used to say that love and power rarely shared a table—but when they did, someone always paid.I didn’t expect that someone might be me.Geneva ended without bloodshed, which in our world counted as a miracle. The lake reflected calm skies while beneath the surface, alliances rewired themselves quietly. We stayed two more days, enough time to let the image of unity sink in. Enough time for whispers to grow teeth.I felt them everywhere—in lingering looks, in pauses that lasted half a second too long.Emma Volkov.Lucas Moretti.Together.The rumor mill worked faster than any intelligence network.On the third evening, Lucas asked me to join
Emma VolkovPeace is never silent.It hums.It settles into the cracks left behind by violence, vibrating with all the things that haven’t happened yet. That was what I felt in the days after Venice—not relief, not victory, but a low, constant awareness that the world was holding itself together with careful hands.We stayed coastal, moving north in measured increments. Each place was temporary by design: a converted farmhouse with a view of vineyards; a modern villa tucked into a cliffside; a narrow townhouse in a city that pretended not to notice us. Lucas rotated men constantly. Routes changed. Patterns broke before they could form.Control without complacency.I watched him work and understood why people followed him—not out of fear alone, but because he made decisions that kept them alive.The quiet gave me space to think.Which was dangerous.---One evening, after a long day of briefings and half-sleep, I found Lucas alone in a study that smelled of paper and dust. Maps were sp







