Chapter 4

LUNA's POV 

Sleep didn’t come.

Not because I was afraid.

But because every time I closed my eyes, I saw his.

Cold. Calculating. Curious in the way a man studies something he intends to break.

He hadn’t touched his wine. Hadn’t asked Gabriela a single question.

But when I got up to leave the dining room, his gaze had followed me like a thread tightening around my throat.

Misha Petrov hadn’t come for small talk.

He came to measure what was his.

The problem?

He looked at me like I already belonged to him.

I gave up trying to lie still. 

My limbs felt restless. My thoughts louder than the silence.

Gabriela had cried herself to sleep. The sound haunted the corners of my mind, soft and fractured.

But it wasn’t what drove me to leave the room.

It was him.

Sitting at our table like a ruler surveying conquered land.

Looking at me like I was something he’d lost once—and would burn the world down to possess again.

Barefoot, I slipped out. The tiles were cool against my skin, the air thick with tension.

Guards avoided the guest wing. Even they didn’t like lingering near his door.

I found him in the small study at the end of the hall. The door cracked open, golden light spilling into darkness like it had escaped something feral.

My heart kicked.

Earlier, I thought I could face him, say what needed to be said and leave with my spine intact. But standing in the doorway now, watching the quiet stillness in him, I realized something unsettling.

This wasn’t a man you cornered.

This was a man who made people disappear. And even in my father’s house, I wasn’t sure I’d leave the room breathing if he decided I shouldn’t.

A cold spike of dread crawled up my spine.

I turned. Quietly. Slowly.

I would fight for Gabriela. But not like this. Not alone. Not tonight.

I needed noise. People. Somewhere I could forget the way his eyes made me feel like prey.

La Cima was a bad idea.

But it was the only one I had.

***

The moment I stepped inside La Cima, the heat, bass, and scent of tequila wrapped around me like a bad decision I didn’t want to walk away from. I needed distraction. 

Strobe lights flickered over designer drugs, silk shirts, and Bratva soldiers in fitted blazers pretending not to be watching everyone.

Yuri leaned against the VIP bar, a drink in hand, his smirk too polished, like he’d rehearsed it. A girl clung to his arm, her lipstick smudged, but his eyes locked on me. He shoved her aside, not gently, and the flicker of cruelty in his gaze made my stomach twist. “Thought you weren’t coming,” he said, pulling me close, his fingers digging into my waist a shade too hard.

“I was bored,” I said, forcing a smile, but his touch felt wrong, like a lie I’d been ignoring.

He laughed. “There’s my girl.”

I wasn’t. Not really. But it was easier than correcting him.

We sat at one of the side booths. Dark leather. Bottle service. The kind of place where people made deals with devils and pretended not to notice the blood on the walls.

“Your father’s not going to like you sneaking out,” Yuri said, pouring me a drink.

“He doesn’t like when I breathe. Nothing new.”

My father built our house like a prison—but he forgot I’d grown up inside it. I knew which cameras were dummies. Which guards could be distracted with a bribe or a favor. 

He slid closer. His hand found my thigh.

“Maybe you just need someone else to remind you you’re still wanted.”

I didn’t pull away fast enough.

Because right then, I felt it.

A shift in the air.

Like a predator had entered the room.

I glanced over my shoulder, and there he was, Misha Petrov, standing near the far side of the bar, half-shadowed, expression unreadable. 

How the hell was he here?

I’d left him in the study not even thirty minutes ago—but maybe that was the point. He’d let me see him. Let me think I was alone. But Misha Petrov didn’t follow. He waited. And he was always one step ahead.

He didn’t move toward me. Didn’t speak.

But he was watching.

Not Yuri.

Me.

Yuri was still talking, still touching. His hand rose to my shoulder. His mouth too close to my ear.

“You don’t have to keep playing the obedient daughter,” he whispered. “Your sister’s the bride, not you.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what is?”

I didn’t answer.

Because that’s when someone else slid into the booth beside me.

Not Yuri. Not a friend.

A man with sharp cheekbones, silver rings on every finger, and a serpent tattoo curling from his neck to his jaw.

Bratva.

One of Misha’s.

“You’ve got balls, coming here after what you pulled,” he said, too casually.

I raised an eyebrow. “Do I know you?”

“You should. I was the one holding my boy’s jaw in place after you broke it.”

Yuri stiffened beside me.

“This is neutral ground,” I said.

“Nothing’s neutral when it comes to Petrov,” he replied, voice dropping. “You think you’re untouchable because of your daddy? Petrov doesn’t forget.”

“Maybe he should get over it.”

That earned me a dangerous smile.

“We don’t get over things, muñeca. We settle them.”

He leaned in, close enough that I could smell blood and vodka.

And then, just like that…

He was yanked backward by the collar and slammed into the mirrored column behind our booth.

The club music didn’t even pause.

But the Bratva soldier did.

Because the man who dragged him off me wasn’t a bouncer.

It was Misha.

“Enough,” he said, voice like sharpened ice. “She’s not your concern.”

The soldier stammered. “Boss, I was just…”

“I don’t care what you were just.” His eyes didn’t move from mine. “Out. Now.”

The man nodded, shaken, and disappeared into the crowd like smoke.

Misha turned to me, finally.

His expression unreadable. Cold. Gorgeous. Dangerous.

“Stay out of my business, Luna,” he said. “Before you become part of it.”

I should’ve been furious. Or afraid. But all I could feel was heat—the kind that settles in your bones and makes you wonder if danger is the only thing that’s ever really seen you.

I swallowed. 

Hearing my name from his mouth affected me in a way it shouldn’t.

Yuri’s fingers twitched on his glass. I could see the fight in his jaw. But he didn’t move. Not when Misha was there. Not when survival was still on the table.

Misha didn’t even glance at him.

Then he turned and left, just like that.

Leaving silence in his wake.

Yuri exhaled slowly, tension falling from his shoulders.

But I wasn’t looking at him.

I was still watching the space Misha left behind.

And I hated that it felt colder without him in it.