Aliyah didn’t run. She pushed the mahogany door open and stepped into the salon, holding Victor’s gaze with every ounce of defiance she possessed.
“You’re out of your mind,” she said, her voice echoing in the quiet room. “You think I’m going to a mob summit with you? To the Charlestown docks?”
Lev stiffened, his hand twitching toward his waistband, offended by her insolence. But Victor held up a single, gloved finger, and the enforcer instantly melted back into the shadows.
Victor walked toward her. He had shed his waistcoat; his linen shirt was open at the throat, revealing the hard, hollow line of his collarbone. Up close, the sheer physical gravity of the man was suffocating. He smelled of rain, cedar, and an underlying scent of danger that made her pulse flutter wildly against her ribs.
“Connor O’Sullivan believes I have grown weak,” Victor said, stopping an arm’s length away. “He believes the ghost of my wife has made me soft, careless, and vulnerable to extortion.”
“Aren’t you?” she challenged, crossing her arms over the soft cashmere sweater. “A man who isolates himself in a tomb for twelve years isn’t strong, Mr. Malenkov. He’s terrified of feeling anything again.”
Lev let out a sharp, choked gasp from the corner. No one spoke to Victor Malenkov in that tone. People who raised their voices to the head of the Boston syndicate usually ended up weighted down with iron chains at the bottom of the harbor.
Victor didn’t reach for his gun.
Instead, a slow, mesmerizing smile touched the corners of his lips—a rare, dangerous smile that transformed his harsh, predatory features into something breathtakingly handsome.
“You have a venomous tongue, Miss Brooks,” he murmured. “I find it refreshing.”
“I’m glad my impending death amuses you.”
“You will not die,” Victor said, his voice dropping into that deep, irrevocable certainty that made her breath catch. “Tomorrow night, Connor O’Sullivan expects to meet a broken widower clutching a memory. Instead, he will see me standing beside a woman who looks at danger without flinching.”
He reached out. His knuckles brushed against the soft wool of her sleeve, tracing the line down to her bandaged hand.
“If you appear at my side tomorrow, Connor will realize that the Malenkov empire is not crumbling. He will see that I have found an heir to my protection. And while his attention is locked on you… Lev’s tactical squads will seize the Charlestown rail terminal from behind.”
Aliyah pulled her hand back, her hazel eyes narrowing in disgust. “You’re using me as bait.”
“I am using you as a shield,” Victor corrected softly. “And in return… your brother’s medical trust will be funded with ten million dollars in an irrevocable offshore account. He will receive the bone marrow transplant from the top oncology team in Zurich. He will live a long, healthy, ordinary life.”
The room seemed to tilt beneath Aliyah’s feet.
Ten million dollars.
A life for Leo. A future where her brother didn’t wake up shivering from fever, where she didn’t have to count quarters to buy generic antibiotics, where the shadow of death was finally lifted from their door.
“And what happens to me?” she whispered, her voice trembling. “After tomorrow night? What do I become to you?”
Victor stared down at her, his pale gray eyes darkening until they looked like storm clouds over the Atlantic.
“You become whatever you choose to be, Aliyah,” he whispered. “A free woman with enough wealth to buy any life she desires… or the queen of this fortress.”
He didn’t wait for her answer. He turned to Lev.
“Call the atelier on Newbury Street,” Victor commanded. “Tell Madame Laurent she has twenty-four hours to produce an evening gown fit for a sovereign. Color: emerald green. Fabric: heavy silk.”
He looked back at Aliyah, his gaze lingering on her dark hair and pale skin.
“Emerald complements her eyes.”
The next evening, the rain had turned into a thick, suffocating sea fog that rolled off Boston Harbor like white smoke.
In the master dressing suite, Aliyah stood before a gilded triple-mirror, staring at the woman looking back at her.
The transformation was terrifying.
Madame Laurent’s team had worked through the night. The gown was a masterpiece of architectural couture: dark emerald silk that sculpted tightly to her waist, sweeping down to the floor in heavy, liquid folds. The neckline was cut low enough to be daring, yet structured like armor across her collarbones. Long, fitted sleeves concealed the sterile bandage on her right palm.
Her dark hair had been swept up into an intricate, elegant chignon, secured with antique emerald and diamond hairpins that caught the chandelier light like glittering stars.
She looked nothing like the exhausted nursing student who scraped dried beer off wooden tables.
