Page 68 of His Contract Queen

He says nothing to that. I can picture him—motionless in that high-backed chair, fingers clenching tightly around one armrest, the other holding the phone up to his ear, ice-gray eyes fixed on nothing while he runs every single slight I’ve ever made against him.

I swallow again. “I need help?—”

He cuts me off. “You were warned. Multiple times.”

I breathe in slowly through my nose. “I was.”

“And yet here we are.”

“I’m not calling to argue semantics,” I tell him. “This isn’t just my problem anymore. The gala footage is everywhere. Every major outlet was there when it happened. With my name being mentioned, they’ll start connecting the dots. If you help me take Borchin down, we can stop this before it gets worse.”

His voice grows cold, the first shred of anger leaking through. “You think you can bargain with me now? After disregarding everything I said would happen?”

“I think you want him neutralized as much as I do,” I counter. “He’s a liability. The documents I gathered proved that. If he isn’t dealt with, the news will keep cycling. Every time they replay that clip of Katerina on stage, my name will be brought up and it will only encourage them to dig deeper. They’ll find us eventually.”

“This is your own mess to deal with, Aleksandr. You will not have the Pact behind you. I told you that from the start. I will not change my mind about it now. Instead, I will be cleaning up the mess you dragged us all into. All of our main contacts have been calling me. You’ve turned a private indiscretion into a public spectacle. And now you want me to hand you resources I don't have to fix it?”

My grip on the counter tightens until my knuckles ache. “All I’m asking for is enough manpower to find her and get her out. Once that happens, we can bomb the whole goddamn street for all I care.”

“No,” he growls.

That single syllable feels like a door slamming shut in my face.

“But—”

The line goes dead.

I pull the phone back slowly, staring at the screen as it dims to black. The spiderweb of cracks fractures my reflection into jagged pieces. Bloodshot eyes stare back at me, sweat-slicked hair clinging to my forehead in uneven patches. The face staring back at me doesn’t belong to the Pakhan who has maintained an empire with unshakeable control.

All I see now is someone desperate.

No Pact.

No safety net.

None but my own men to use.

Sasha watches me silently.

For the first time in my entire life, the power I’ve cultivated, the influence that once could bend entire systems to my will, means nothing against what I’m about to lose.

The most terrifying part isn’t that I’m outmatched.

It’s that I have nothing left to help me get her back.

18

KATERINA

It takes half a day for my father to finally come to see me.

Being brought to my childhood home shouldn’t have come as a shock to me when the SUV finally pulled up to the front gates.

I should have expected as much.

My father, as easily as he’d gotten rid of me the first time, would never want me out of sight now that he knows what I’m capable of. The moment I stepped onto that stage and opened my mouth, I stopped being his obedient daughter and started being a walking, talking piece of evidence that could unravel everything he’s spent decades building. So of course he brought me back to the place he has always felt the most in control.

I hear his footsteps before I see him, the same measured tread he’s had since I was small, announcing his arrival like a judge entering a courtroom. The rhythm never changes, not through birthdays, through reprimands, not even during the nights he came to my room to comfort me through an illness. It was the sound that used to make me sit up straighter in bed, hoping fora goodnight kiss and settling for whatever positive gesture he happened to be in the mood to give me.