Page 53 of Gilded Shackles
I nod into his chest, the weight of his promise settling somewhere deep. Warm and heavy and solid.
I don't say anything right away, but in my head, I make a quiet promise back: I will earn my place here. Not just as Nikolai's wife, but as a part of this strange, dangerous, fiercely loyal family. I will be someone they choose to keep, not just someone they were forced to accept.
We stay like that for a while. Steady breathing and warmth between us. The kind that doesn't ask for anything except to exist.
Eventually, I feel myself start to drift, feeling safer than I ever have in all my life.
14
NIKOLAI
My phone buzzes at 7 AM like a drill sergeant with a death wish.
I peel my eyes open, find Elle's hair spilled across my chest, and freeze.
Elle's in my bed.
Elle's in my bed.
Elle is in my goddamn bed.
She's curled on her side, hair a messy halo on my pillow, breathing even. Peaceful. I want to stay right here, hold her until she wakes, but my phone screams urgent.
Careful not to wake her, I reach for it.
When I see the messages from Uncle Viktor, my blood goes cold. If he wants to meet right now, without wasting a second, somewhere in the world, shit's hit the roof.
I extract myself from Elle's arms, shower in ten minutes, dress in five. No coffee yet, and not nearly enough patienceto be screamed at by a seventy-year-old Bratva king with a temper and an aversion to reasonable volume. But there's no time.
I drive to his office. Walk in without knocking.
He doesn't look up. Just gestures for me to close the door.
"Tell me what's wrong."
He finally raises his eyes, and there's that look. The same one I saw when he found out a trusted soldier had been leaking intel to a rival crew in Brighton Beach. That guy lost a kneecap. I might lose something worse.
"What the fuck is this about?" I ask, slower this time.
"Gayle." Viktor's voice is flat. "She fucked us."
He tosses a manila folder toward me. It slides across the desk like a death certificate.
I open it. Property maps. Legal filings. Land disputes. Court cases, over a handful of them, already reeking of trouble.
"She sold us a bleeding asset," he hisses. "Two of the three parcels are in active litigation, and the third has a goddamn sinkhole forming under it."
"Are you serious?" I flip a page. Zoning issues everywhere. "How did we miss this?"
"We didn't miss it. She hid it."
"But fixing the sinkhole would cost..."
"Triple what we paid." Viktor slams his hand on the desk. "That bitch knew. She had to."
The facts line up in my head like dominoes. Gayle Donovan, the queen of control. She kept her daughter locked away like treasure to be bartered, and she sold us property the same way: wrapped in silk, rotting underneath.
I knew she signed off too fast. Too easy.
