Tomorrow, the distance ends.
I don't know what comes after that. I've planned for every threat and contingency I can name, and I have no plan for what happens when she's living in my space.
What happens on quiet evenings?
Long nights with a woman who sleeps with a knife under her pillow and carries pepper spray disguised as lipstick. A woman who has spent three years making herself untouchable. And now she's going to be sleeping under my roof. The restraint required for that is a different kind of discipline entirely.
I will not touch her.
Unless she asks.
17
Sofia
I stand in front of the full-length mirror in the bedroom of the penthouse and stare at my reflection. The dress is black—deliberately, defiantly black. Not the ivory gown I used to dream about when I was little. Not the flowing white dress my mother and I would talk about when we planned my princess wedding. The wedding that definitely included me marrying a handsome prince.
That was back when I believed in good men and happily ever afters.
And then she died. I was assaulted. And everything after that night has been about staying alive.
This isn’t that wedding.
This is a strategic alliance wrapped in legal paperwork and empty vows.
So I wear black.
The dress is simple. Elegant, I suppose, if I’m being generous. It hits just above my knees, fitted through the bodice with long sleeves that cover my arms. Modest. Appropriate for a woman entering a marriage that has nothing to do with love and everything to do with survival.
I’m wearing the simple, easy to run in black ballet flats I picked out. They’re symbolic. I’m ready to run up until the moment I step into this marriage.
I reach for my mother’s earrings. The small diamond studs she wore every day. The ones my father gave to me after she died. It was one of the only things of hers I was allowed to keep. My father had her things cleared out before the funeral. Including most of the pictures of her.
My hands shake as I put them in.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I whisper to my reflection. “This isn’t what we talked about.”
I can almost hear her voice. Soft. Kind. So different from my father’s harsh commands.
It’s okay, sweetheart. You do what you need to do to survive.
Would she understand? Would she hate that I’m marrying a man I barely know? A dangerous man from the world she tried to keep me out of.
Or would she be relieved that someone is finally protecting me the way my father never did?
I blink back the tears that threaten to fall. I don’t have time for this. I don’t have the luxury of grief or sentimentality. I made my choice. Now I have to live with it.
I take one last look in the mirror.
The woman staring back at me looks older than twenty-one. Harder. The scared girl who got dragged into an alley three years ago is gone. In her place is someone who knows how to fight. How to survive.
How to make deals with devils.
I leave the bedroom and walk into the main living area. The penthouse is quiet. Very un-wedding like.
Sergei is standing with Kirill. They’re both wearing dark suits. Sergei’s is perfectly tailored, fitting his broad shoulders and tall frame like it was made for him. Which it probably was. His back is to me. He looks tense. He holds himself like a man preparing for battle.
Maybe he is.