Page 77 of Santa Daddy
The ride back to the penthouse was a silence thicker than the falling snow. Christmas lights blurred past outside in streaks of white and gold. Somewhere, people were stumbling out of midnight mass, warm and tipsy, arguing about pie.
Up here, in the leather cocoon of the SUV, I could feel his gaze on me like a weight.
Now comes the real performance.
The wedding night.
We stepped into the penthouse foyer, the heavy door thudding shut behind us with a finality that felt less like home and more like a cell.
I barely had time to exhale before my back hit the door.
His hands landed on either side of my head, caging me in. The dress rustled between us like whispered applause.
“We’re married now,” he said. His voice was low, that faint Russian edge turning the words into something rougher. “No more pretending.”
“No more pretending what?” I shot back, anger finally clawing past exhaustion and fear. “That this isn’t just another business transaction? That you give a damn about anything besides how I look on your arm?”
His mouth curved. Not soft. Sharp.
“No more pretending you don’t want this,” he said. “That you don’t want me.”
Arrogant bastard.
“You want to know what I want?” I shoved at his chest. It was like pushing a wall. “I want to know whatkroshkameans. I want to know who you were talking to. I want to know how many women you’ve played this little game with before you plucked me out of a tree lot.”
His eyes darkened. Annoyance. Calculation. Maybe something that looked like hurt for half a second, but I didn’t trust my read on him anymore.
“You are my wife now, Dani,” he said. “That is all you need to know.”
Wife.
His possession. His thing.
“What happens now?” I demanded. The question came out sharper than I expected, stuffed full of all the fear and fury curdling in my chest. “What do you actuallyplanto do with me, Konstantin?”
He didn’t hesitate.
His hands slid from the door to my face, framing it again in a way that would look tender from a distance and felt like a collar up close. His fingers were warm, rough from guns and knives and God knew what else.
“Now,” he said, eyes on mine, voice soft and lethal, “we find out what kind of wife you are going to be.”
Like there were categories.
Like I was auditioning.
Behind him, forty floors below, the city hummed under a Christmas Eve sky. People walked home from church, from bars, from family dinners. They wrapped presents. Argued about cranberry sauce. Left cookies for a man in a red suit who didn’t exist.
Up here, I stood pinned against a door by a man who did.
Tonight, I belonged to him.
Tomorrow, I might belong to no one.
The realization slid through me like a blade and a promise.
Because I was starting to understand that belonging to Konstantin Zverev might very well be a death sentence.
And the most terrifying part?
