Page 41 of His Contract Queen

My voice stays level. “So you fed her a lie. Sent her into my house with a fake mission to keep her occupied. Told her she was some soldier waging a noble war against me. And when she sent you report after report—trusting you, believing you were guiding her—you went silent. You abandoned her the moment it was convenient for you to do so.”

He looks away.

The fire in the hearth snaps, the only sound in the room.

I lean forward again, elbows on my knees. Something inside me hardens.

He took everything she loved about him—his integrity, his service, his supposed honor—and twisted it into a leash. He sent her into my home believing she was serving her country, believing she was protecting something greater than herself.

He turned her patriotism into a blade and aimed it inward.

That is a sin I cannot forgive.

I stand.

The look on his face tells me he understands what is about to happen. His eyes widen, his body tensing as instinct finally screams the warning his pride always seems to favor ignoring.

I hit him hard enough that the sound echoes through the room like a gunshot, sending him sprawling backward, the chair under him crashing to the floor as he lands in a heap of broken dignity.

I round the desk slowly, giving him no time to crawl away and call for his security team to intervene before I’m on him again. Every strike is fueled by a single, relentless truth that burns fire inside my veins—that someone should have protected her and stood between her and this man who would sell her soul just to save his own skin.

I don’t stop when he begs me to. I will only do so when there’s nothing left of him that still resembles the person she trusted most in this world.

There is no restraint in beating him to near death, no measured discipline in the delighted satisfaction I feel once I finally feel the bones in his face give way and shatter. There is no lesson to be taught here because this isn’t meant to be a reprimand. It’s contempt given form.

Every blow is for a different sin. For lying to her, for feeding her patriotism like poison and pretending it was the exact opposite, for turning her loyalty for him into leverage that he used to abandon her. For daring to call himself her father while selling her and presenting it as a noble cause.

He tries to crawl away when I lift myself off him to shed the jacket hindering my movement, but I don’t let him. I drag him back by the ankle and beat him until his pleas blur into wet, meaningless noise. Until the man who thought himself untouchable understands exactly how small he truly is and the medals on his walls will do nothing to protect him from me.

She loved him enough to sacrifice herself despite never knowing the true reason. Agreeing to marriage because she truly thought he would rescue her when the time came. Now she is forever bound to me.

By the time I stop, my knuckles are slick with blood and my breathing is harsh and chopped. Ramil Borchin lies broken on his own floor, a ruined heap of flesh. He’s alive but stripped of whatever power he thought he once held.

I look down at him once more as I rise to my feet, disgust settling in where rage once burned bright. “This is what you’ve earned. Be grateful for your daughter. She is the only reason I will not kill you today. I’ll leave that decision in her hands.”

I leave him there without another word

He is not worth another second of my fury.

When I returnto the estate, she’s already outside waiting for me.

Katya stands on the front steps, small against the backdrop of the massive entryway. Her gaze locks onto the drive long before my car rounds the final bend, unflinching as if she’s been standing there for hours. Her hands are folded in front of her, fingers knitting together to hide the slight tremor I notice even from this distance.

Her posture is calm but too rigid to look natural. Her chin is lifted slightly with that defiant tilt I’ve come to find endearing. Strangely, though, she doesn’t look at all happy to see me. Which is odd considering how her body clung to mine just hours ago up in her bedroom.

As soon as I park the car and kill the engine, it hits me immediately. She thinks I found something. She thinks I know.

I remain seated for a moment, leaning forward slightly to watch her through the windshield. She shifts her weight but doesn’t move from where she’s standing, her shoulders moving visibly while she pulls in a deep breath.

She thinks I’ve come back to punish her… and yet she’s outside waiting for me, anyway, meeting my arrival head-on.

There is a courage in her—an instinctual bravery, rather—that has nothing to do with whatever training her father forced upon her before giving her to me. The same stubborn, unyielding determination that drove her to spy on me in the first place, the same fire that made her slap me and the same fearlessness that made her pull me into her bed, is the exact personality type of woman I should hate.

Yet the burning in my chest feels the exact opposite.

For the first time since holding that burner phone in my hand, I feel the weight of the situation flicker toward somewhere more volatile. Even knowing she tried to take me down from the inside, believing it to even be possible, the sight of her standing there waiting for me shapes the anger I hold for her father into something much more possessive.

I push the door open and step out into the late afternoon air.