Page 107 of Gilded in Sin
Vladimir’s jaw shifts. “I told you I wouldn’t interfere again.”
“And I’m telling you what that means,” I answer.
Boris scoffs quietly under his breath, barely audible, but loud enough that I catch it. I turn my head and look at him, slowly, and his smirk dies.
“If you ever raise a weapon near her again,” I say, voice low, steady, “you won’t get another chance to regret it. I want the alliance to stay exactly as it’s always been, but neither me, nor my brother, are getting involved in your human trafficking operation, understood?”
His throat tightens. His eyes flick to my father, but Vladimir doesn’t move.
I straighten off the desk, stepping closer to them so they both have to shift their weight, even if neither wants to show it.
“I don’t care about your opinions,” I tell Boris. “And don’t attempt to manipulate anything,” I tell Vladimir. “I’m giving youa solution because at least one of us cares about preventing a pointless war over your fragile egos.”
My father narrows his eyes, not sharply, just enough that the lines at the corners deepen the way they do when he’s trying to measure how deeply a decision has rooted itself in me, and for a moment he looks like he wants to test the edges of what I’m willing to tolerate, but the memory of what happened in the park hangs between us like a quiet warning and he finally exhales through his nose and lets it go.
“If this is your decision, then the alliance will hold,” he says, clasping his hands behind his back again, shoulders settling into a posture that pretends he had any part in choosing this outcome.
“It will,” I reply, keeping my voice steady while I shift my weight slightly, shoulders squared, one hand resting on the edge of the drafting table behind me as I make it clear I’m not moving and I’m not bending. “But you don’t speak to Mikhail. I do.”
Vladimir’s jaw tenses for a brief second, the smallest tightening under the skin. “And when will he be told?” he asks, his gaze flicking briefly toward the window as if calculating timelines and consequences.
“When he returns from Italy,” I say, straightening slightly, my fingers tapping once against the wood before I still them, refusing to let him see anything that looks like hesitation.
Vladimir looks down for a moment, then lifts his chin slightly, studying me as though he’s trying to understand where this version of me came from.
“I hope he agrees with you,” he says.
“He will,” I say. “Because I will give him every reason to.”
“And if he refuses?” Boris mutters under his breath, adjusting his sling like the weight of it suddenly grew heavier.
I look at him again, holding his gaze long enough for him to read what’s behind mine. “He won’t.”
Vladimir exhales, slow, controlled. “Then it’s settled.”
I step forward and reach for the handle of the studio door. “You can leave.”
Boris moves first, shoulders rigid, muttering something under his breath that he doesn’t have the courage to say clearly. Vladimir steps past me slower, calmer, but the tension in his spine tells me he didn’t expect to walk away from today without a fight.
They step into the hallway.
“Father.”
He pauses.
“I don’t want to see you in my home,” I say. “Unless I send for you.”
He doesn’t turn fully, only shifts his head enough that I see the profile of a man who suddenly understands he has lost access to something he always believed was his.
“I understand,” he says, walking away.
I shut the studio door behind them. The silence afterward is different from the one that filled the room before they came, full of things I can’t control yet.
I rub a hand along the back of my neck, exhaling slowly, trying to let the tension leave my body, but something cold stays lodged under my ribs.
A slow, tight breath leaves my chest. I look at the window, the pale morning sun cutting across the concrete floor of the studio, and for the first time since the park, I feel something that isn’t anger or exhaustion or decision.
I feel dread. Mikhail is supposed to be home in two months.
Their love is sealed. Their future finally within reach. But as Artyom and Kira step into the life they fought for, another story quietly begins to take shape—one tied by blood, family, and a different path forward.
