CHAPTER 4

NIKOLAI VOLKOV

AT DAWN…

Consciousness returned like a blow—brutal and sudden. My head pounded while the world spun around me.

My eyes opened to an unfamiliar room. And then I felt it—the warmth of a soft body against mine. The weight of someone else's arm over the sheet.

What I saw made my blood run cold instantly. A woman. She had her back to me and was completely naked, her shoulders thin, her skin delicate and pale. Dark hair spread across the pillow.

My instinct, still dulled by the drug, was one of alarm. "Who the hell is that?" As if she felt the weight of my gaze, she moved. A sigh, a shiver. And then she turned.

In that moment I felt my world stop—on her face, an enormous scar.

A violent line that snaked from her temple to her mouth, a mark of brutality immortalized on delicate features. She was a young woman. And I didn't know her. Had no idea who she was.

Our eyes met. Hers, green, widened in horror. She opened her mouth to scream.

"Shut up, you damn woman!" I growled, my voice a rough roar that echoed through the silent room.

The fright silenced her but did not calm her. She shrank back, pulling the sheets to cover her naked body, an uncontrollable tremor running through her.

"Who are you?" she whispered, her voice a thread of horror. "What are you doing in my bed? Naked?"

Before I could answer, the door burst open with violence.

And there they were. Victoria in front, with a vengeful smile. Behind her, the Harringtons—Richard with his look of fake disappointment, Elizabeth with her hand on her chest, feigning shock.

"My God!" Elizabeth exclaimed, her voice pure theater. "Nikolai… you… you have dishonored my daughter! And my poor daughter Angeline was… raised in a boarding school!"

Old Richard stepped forward, his steely gaze piercing me. "You have corrupted her purity under my roof! In our tradition, you know the price. You will take responsibility and marry her. A man of your standing must set an example!"

And then Victoria. Her blue eyes gleamed with triumphant hatred as they swept over the scene: me, still dazed in bed, and her sister, the "deformed" one, trembling like a leaf.

She laughed, a cold sound. "Who would have thought, Nikolai? You resisted me because you have such… peculiar tastes. Like the freak show, do you?" Her eyes turned to her sister. "And you, little sister? Raised like a saint, and in the end… you're a whore."

"No!" the girl shouted, desperate. "That's not true! I've never slept with him, I don't even know him! Why is he in my room?"

She cried, trembled, seemed on the verge of an attack. And I… I almost fell for that act. Almost.

But I wasn't that stupid. The obvious was right there before my eyes. The final piece of that damn trap was precisely the fake innocence, the choreographed desperation. She was in on the game, just like all the Harringtons. They were accomplices in binding me to this… thing.

It wasn't a mistake. It was a trap—perfect and sadistic.

The roar of the limousine engine shutting off pulls me from the past. I'm back. Before my new prison. With the woman who was the instrument of my downfall.

I look at Angeline, still huddled in her corner. The veil is a symbol of all this: a cover for a filthy truth. And I was the fool who fell for their rotten fairy tale.

I had barely crossed the threshold of the main hall of the mansion, pulling Angeline along like a burden at my side, when I came upon that grotesque scene. My father, Ivan Volkov, and the other lords of the clan, as well as the Harringtons, were already waiting for us.

Looking at the triumphant face of Victoria and her parents, my blood boiled, but I controlled myself.

My father's icy gaze still reminded me of the damn shame I felt later, when I arrived at the Volkov mansion and had to tell my father in his study.

"It was a trap, Father," I explained, my voice loaded with contained rage. "They drugged me. They put that woman in my bed."

Ivan Volkov, the Old Bear, looked at me, his face marked by wrinkles and suspicion. His silence was more frightening than any shouting.

"And you fell, son," he finally said, his voice a low growl. "Fell like a rookie. Now you're tied to that damn family—tied to the… Harringtons."

"I'm not tied to anything," I retorted, my eyes fixed on his. "The marriage is just a piece of paper. And it will be the perfect excuse to destroy them."

He studied my face for a long moment, the disappointment in his eyes slowly giving way to a glint of dark resignation.

"I hope you know what you're doing, Nikolai," he muttered, turning to the window. "You are the Pakhan now. Your decisions affect all of us."

"I know exactly what I'm doing, Father," I answered, the image of Victoria smiling burning in my mind. "Exactly."

And I did. I organized that idiot wedding myself. To them, it was my surrender. To me, it was the first shovel digging their grave. No one plays with Nikolai Volkov.