Page 78 of His Contract Queen

“Keep that in mind when you go home,” I say.

Sasha huffs out a quiet snort.

“I will.”

The conversation ends there, both of us filing the information away for another time when we’re not about to storm a fortified estate.

The next hour and a half passes quickly. The war room dissolves into controlled chaos as orders are finally issued and men begin to mobilize and move out. I stand at the edge of it all for a moment, watching the machine come alive around me. My side throbs under fresh bandages, a dull, persistent reminder that I’m far from whole, but adrenaline has already begun to drown it out.

Outside, the snowfall has gotten worse.

Thick, heavy flakes drift down in slow spirals, turning the estate grounds into a beautiful, almost peaceful, sight. This weather is always perfect for muffling sound and swallowing footprints. It’s the perfect cover to disappear someone right out from under their captor’s nose.

Sasha appears beside me without warning. He doesn’t speak at first, just stands there with both hands in the pockets of his dark coat, watching the flakes drift down in lazy spirals. Then, he claps me once on the shoulder hard, the impact jarring in its sincerity when he squeezes.

“Let’s go get your wife back.”

21

KATERINA

Iwake to violence.

Rough hands clamp around my upper arms and rip me out of sleep so fast, my body doesn’t have time to catch up and fight them off. The world tilts violently as I’m hauled upright, my sheets tangling around my legs like ropes as my body leaves the mattress. For one disorienting second, my brain refuses to understand what’s happening.

In that blinding moment of confusion, I’m certain I’m still dreaming—that I’m back at the gala, reliving the moment the entire ballroom went silent and the military police dragged me off the stage while I screamed Aleksandr’s name before they shoved me into the car.

But the grip on my arms is real.

Painfullyreal.

Fingers dig hard into my skin, bruising, rough, and completely devoid of restraint.

Panic explodes in my chest like a live wire when my vision finally adjusts enough to see the multiple men crowding around me inside my room. They’re dressed head to toe in black tactical gear that absorbs the faint light bleeding from the single lamp I left on over by my desk. Balaclavas conceal their faces completely, leaving only their eyes visible through narrow slits.

The FSB.

It has to be.

My father’s debts have finally caught up with him in a way he can no longer dismiss as the delusions of his “mentally unstable daughter”. Someone higher up the chain must have finally decided to look into the claims I’d been screaming about and noticed the classified accounts have been bled dry. Now they’ve come to collect, and I’m the easiest piece to pick up first.

My stomach drops as one of the men jerks my arms behind my back, forcing my wrists together while another begins stripping the tangled sheets from my legs so I can stand.

I don’t scream.

Instead I twist hard, wrenching one arm free, and lunge for my desk. My fingers close around the lamp, its base solid, its cord ripped out of the wall in the same motion, and I swing it like a club. The first blow catches the man on my left square in the side of the helmet. He staggers back from me, not at all expecting the blow. I swing again, this time at the one trying to reach for me on my right. The lamp connects with his forearm. I feel the bone give before he roars and jumps away from me.

Two seconds, maybe three. That’s all I get before they’re on me again.

I kick backward, heel connecting with a shin. Someone lets out a low, guttural curse and drives a knee into the back of my thigh to force my legs to buckle. Then they haul me upright and march me toward the door.

Outside my room, the hallway is in utter chaos.

People are everywhere.

Staff I’ve known since childhood are being herded down the corridor like livestock, shoved along by masked men with rifles slung across their chests. Their voices echo through the house with panic as they plead with confusion, mixing with the heavy thud of boots against the polished floors.

One of the maids who used to braid my hair when I was little shrieks when a masked man rips her phone from her hands. He doesn’t even hesitate before smashing it hard against the wall. Plastic explodes across the floor in a spray of shattered pieces.