Page 9 of His Contract Queen

He turns fully then, finally facing me head-on. His gaze softens, the hard edge dulling just enough to feel almost kind. “Everything.”

I wait because there has to be more. There must be context or some explanation that will soon soothe me from my overthinking. Something that will make this cold fear in my chest feel like an overreaction. My fingers curl tightly together in my lap again, nails biting deep into my palms.

But what comes next is not what I braced for.

“I need you to marry him,” he finally says.

The room tilts. My ears ring.

Marry him?

He continues talking as though he hasn’t just completely turned my world upside down. “You’ll live in his home. Learn his routines. Who his associates are. What his vulnerabilities are. You’ll report back quietly, and when the time is right, we’ll use what you’ve gathered to dismantle him from the inside out.”

I stare at him—a long, heavy stare—while my heart pounds so violently, I’m convinced he must hear it. “What?”

His expression doesn’t change. It doesn’t even flicker. “I need you to gather intel on him while you’re living there, Katerina, under the guise of being his new wife.”

“You… want me to spy on him,” I say, the words feeling unreal on my tongue.

“I want you to help me protect this country,” he corrects, tone flat and maddeningly certain.

I shake my head slowly, trying to realign my thoughts. “You’re talking about marriage… About living with him. That’s not… that isn’t just intelligence gathering. You want me to pretend to be his wife. Isn’t that dangerous?”

“He won’t suspect you. You’re intelligent. I wouldn’t ask this of you if there were another way,” he says calmly.

Part of me wants to argue, to scream that this is insane. That he’s asking me to legally tie myself to a man who has always been whispered to have the power to dismantle the entire governmentif he so chose. Asking me to walk willingly into a predator’s den under the guise of domesticity sounds not only reckless, but impossible.

I open my mouth to say exactly that, but nothing comes out.

All I can feel is the rush of blood in my ears and the icy clamp of fear around my heart as the dawning realization that he’s not asking at all settles over me.

Duty, patriotism, purpose… All are virtues my father heavily values. They are the pillars my father has built his entire life around, ideals he taught me to admire, respect, and prioritize above comfort and fear. Above even myself. I’ve heard them woven into bedtime stories, into speeches at state dinners, into quiet lectures meant to mold me into something worthy of the Borchin name.

And now he’s telling me the role I will be forced to play for the greater good.

“You’re the only one I trust with this,” he adds. The softness in his voice is almost worse than the command itself.

I swallow hard.

“What if something goes wrong?” I ask, the question slipping out before I can stop it. My hands curl in my lap, nails pressing into my palms hard enough to hurt. “What if he realizes what I’m doing?”

My father doesn’t hesitate. He never does. Not when the stakes are this high.

“Katerina,” he says, crossing the room at last. His steps are unhurried, like he knows exactly where this conversation is headed. He stops in front of me and lowers himself to eye level,placing a hand over mine. His grip is firm. “You were raised for this. I trust you will be exactly what this country needs.”

I look up at him, searching his face for doubt, for hesitation, for…somethingthat tells me this is too much to ask of a daughter.

But there’s nothing.

He smiles and for a moment, he looks like the man I used to know. The one who used to kneel beside my bed at night and ask me what I learned that day at school. Who listened to my answers with patient pride and praised my grades, my discipline, my composure during tests and competitions and situations that would have made other children crumble.

This man who would always tell me again and again that I was exceptional. That I was built to handle more, that I had a mind sharper than most adults’ and a backbone that could carry what others could not.

That same warmth flickers now in his eyes, softening the steel beneath. It’s disarming, dangerously so. For a moment, I want to reach for that memory like a lifeline and anchor myself to it so I don’t drown under the weight of what he’s asking.

“You understand what needs to be done,” he continues softly. “You always have.”

The certainty in his voice slides under my skin like a hook catching on a fish’s mouth.