Page 76 of Arrow

It looked less like kink than orthopedics for criminals. Natalya let the objects speak for themselves, watching me for a second so long and deliberately that it became a threat.

“Arrow said you’d be more entertaining this way.” She flipped the steel collar so it shone in the moonlight. “But if you want to save everyone the trouble, just bite your tongue off now. I’ll even help.”

She flashed that yellow smile again, and stalked off toward the kitchen, leaving the arsenal like breadcrumbs in case I wanted to test the limits of her mercy.

Clearly, she had no idea who I was.

I gathered my spine and followed her. By the time I reached the kitchen, she’d already unscrewed one of Arrow’s hidden vodkas, poured two shot glasses, and was toying with the knife at her thigh like it was an anxious tic.

She pushed a glass toward me. “Drink or don’t, I don’t care. But if you pass out, I’m not babysitting.”

I drank. Because what else do you do when your jailer invites you to the table?

“You think you’re special?” she asked, toeing a barstool out for herself and lounging like a girl who’d never waited for anything in her life. “You’re not. You’re just the newest installment. Two families, hundreds of years, same playbook every fucking time.”

My glass met the counter with a loud thunk. There was courage in the burn, or at least enough for me to meet her stare without looking away.

“And yet, here you are, playing nursemaid for the next girl in line, like a good little dog.”

Natalya’s smile could have cut glass. “I like to see a Virelli mouth try to talk its way out of a steel collar—makes the morning less boring.”

Her attention flicked to the row of kitchen knives beside my hand, the message implicit. Try it, and she’d be on me before the first artery opened.

“I’m not going to run,” I lied. “I just want to know what happens in the morning.”

She sighed, disgusted by the lack of originality. “Arrow gets home, you eat breakfast, maybe you get to hear him brag about business deals while you try not to bleed on the rug.” Natalya sniffed, studying me as she rolled the steel collar between her palms. “You know what’s fucked? He doesn’t like hurting women. Not even the ones that beg for it.” She shot me a sidelong look, filing away any flicker in my expression. “He’ll punish you, sure. But he’ll never love you, if that’s what you’re after.”

My laugh crawled up my throat, damp and mean. “That’s the last thing I’d want. I need him like a cat needs a leash.”

Natalya poured another shot, this one fuller than the last, and tipped it over her tongue.

“That’s cute. Virellis always think their bloodline is special, but you’re not the first to bleed for a cause that doesn’t give a shit about you. If you want my advice? Find a way to make your misery interesting.” She snorted, putting the bottle to her mouth, ignoring the glass, before she continued. “They don’t want to admit it, but the old guard is dead. The Romanovs are a dying breed—only a few of us are left. And the ones that are can’t get over the past. Arrow is the future of this family. I know it, your father knew it, and that’s why he practically begged Arrow to take you off his hands. And Arrow, being the kind of man he is, decided he would show mercy to the Virelli whore, and chain her up in a glass palace instead of the river.”

She bent the collar open, exposing the raw, shorn edges, then thunked it onto the counter next to the vodka.

“So, what happens after the wedding?”

Natalya shrugged, lining up spare objects in feathery rows. “If you’re lucky? You become a statue, a warning for future generations. If you’re unlucky, Arrow gets bored and leaves you in a cage somewhere nice until you rot.”

She sipped again, watching me.

“Whatever you’re thinking, don’t.” She cocked her head, almost pitying. “He’s a Romanov. He always wins.”

There was no answer to that. Not one worth the risk, anyway. So I drank more vodka, and let the burn anesthetize the part of me that still wanted to believe in rescue. Natalya watched, smiling to herself.

After a while, she went to the living room, threw her boots onto Arrow’s couch, and turned on the TV to a late-night cooking show, volume up so loud it bled through the glass walls.

I drifted to the guest room, winced at the collision of moonlight on the empty sheets, and sat on the edge of the bed and waited. For an hour, I paced the small square of floor, listening for movement downstairs. Pulling on a sweatshirt, I tiptoed downstairs.

A blue glow from the TV flickered across Natalya’s sleeping face, her mouth half-open as if in the middle of laughing at the punchline of her invincibility. I cautiously approached her and kicked her leg to see if she’d wake up. She didn’t.

While Natalya was busy trying to engage in a dick-measuring contest, I made my move. My father had taught me something, and that was: you do just enough to make your enemy comfortable, before you strike. Vodka shared like two friends swapping stories, then the handful of crushed pills—taken from the prescription bottle in the foyer. A gamble, sure, but her ego did the rest.

Moving through the dark with the hush of a mouse, I went into the kitchen and opened the silverware drawer. There were no knives—Natalya must have swept them first—but I found a mallet, and a bottle of wood glue. I pocketed the tubing, then doubled back, my footsteps feathering softly along the cold marble.

If Arrow’s security system were as phobic as his cousin, there’d be a camera on every door and an alarm on every window, but humans always leave seams. And I would prove that, even in a Romanov citadel, there were atoms of permissiveness.

There had to be.