Page 44 of The King's Pawn
My father paid him to.
The words repeat in my head, relentless, merciless. Two monsters wearing different skins. Two betrayals intertwined so tightly, I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. I had believed, maybe stupidly and naively, that whatever cage I’d been locked inside here existed because Sasha Sokolov wanted something from me.
But now I know the truth.
I was bought.
Traded like a piece of meat.
And for what? Personal gain?
My father carved my fate long before Sasha ever laid eyes on me. Long before the bombing, long before the escort details and the suffocating rules and the gilded prison that was eventually traded for another one. I was always currency. Always an asset waiting to be liquidated.
And now I’m here.
Outside the windows, snow drifts down in slow, gentle spirals. It’s soft and peaceful. The world continues as if nothing has happened. As if this estate isn’t standing atop graves of secrets and blood-soaked agreements. As if my heart isn’t coming apart one jagged piece at a time.
Suddenly, a new fear blooms, worse than the ones that came before.
If my father sold me once, he will do it again. If Sasha eventually grows tired of me, he’ll return me back to my father. And next time, there may very well be a monster worse than Sasha Sokolov hiding in the shadows waiting, unrestrained by his own twisted sense of ownership. Next time, there will be men who won’t hesitate to pay whatever it takes. Men who won’t pretend that protection or boundaries or rules are what is stopping them from claiming me.
I pull my knees to my chest, curling inward, clutching the photograph.
I have to get out of here before that happens.
9
SASHA
By the time the storm rolls in over the hills, the entire estate rumbles with unease.
The wind slams against the eaves with enough force to make the old bones of the house groan, a deep, resonant sound that carries through the walls like a warning. Sleet pelts the windows in sharp, relentless bursts. Somewhere deeper in the infrastructure of the estate, the generator hums unevenly, the overhead lights flickering just enough to be irritating without fully giving out.
I sit behind my desk with my jacket discarded over the back of a chair, sleeves rolled to my elbows, hands braced against the edge of it. Supply ledgers are open in front of me, ones I’ve been staring at for nearly an hour.
I know exactly what they say. I could recite the totals from memory if pressed. These numbers represent shipments rerouted, accounts balanced, favors called in and debts postponed. It is the language I have spoken fluently since I was old enough to understand what money means.
Yet none of it sticks.
My eyes keep passing over the same columns without comprehension, blinking like reading a foreign language. Every time I try to force my focus back into place, my mind slides away again, pulled backward by something far more corrosive than exhaustion.
Yesterday.
Alina sitting there with her hands shaking as she held those papers. The way her face had drained of color when she realized what she’d discovered. The way her eyes had lifted to mine in disbelief, somehow expecting me to laugh and tell her it was a misunderstanding.
I drag a hand down my face and exhale slowly through my nose, trying to force the memory back into its cage.
I see her again when the folder slipped from her fingers, papers scattering across my desk like fallen leaves. Photographs sliding free of her mother’s face staring up at me, smiling in that way people like her always do when they still believe the world is fundamentally fair.
I had known that moment would come one day. I had simply never expected it to be like that.
And I also never expected it to… affect me as much as it has.
That is the part that irritates me most.
Pain is an indulgence I cannot afford. Regret is a luxury reserved for men who have the option of walking away from their past. I do not. Everything I am is built on decisions that cannot be undone, blood that cannot be unspilled.
You killed her.
