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“You can’t force me to marry you.”

He inches away. “I’ll beg to differ. Your father gave me access to everything he owns, including you.”

My eyes widen. What is he actually saying? “He can’t do that.”

“Oh, but he did.”

“I’d still need to sign that contract,” I shoot back. These madmen could do anything, but there are some things they can’t change.

“Finally, we’re on the same page.” His answer throws me. “Yes, you do need to sign.”

“And I won’t.”

“Yes… you will.”

Something that sounds like a strangled laugh falls from my lips. “What makes you think I’m going to sign anything?”

He presses a finger to my lips, and every nerve in my body scatters like darkness being chased away by light. “You’re not listening to me, are you, printsessa?”

“I heard you.” My voice is barely there.

“You heard me, but you aren’t listening.” He searches my eyes and moves his head further away so we’re level. “Let me break it down to you. I. Own. Everything. Including… the forty-percent stake your father owned in your mother’s family business. And the full financial power of attorney your father had to manage her company through her illness. Meaning I now control your mother’s company and every fucking cent funding your mother’s care.”

My stomach drops, falling right through the earth. “What?” I breathe out the word, my voice a notch above a whisper.

“You heard me, printsessa. So, guess who pays for your mother’s treatment now? Or not.”

I suck in a sharp breath just as the blood drains from my body, leaving me cold and faint.

No. This can’t be happening.

Mama has lived with advanced pulmonary arterial hypertension for nearly ten years. There’s no cure, but with the right medication and specialist care, it can be managed. Papa has always controlled the money that pays for both. Now Lev controls it.

And what is he saying to me?

Or not?

As in, if I don’t sign the contract, the treatment keeping my mother alive disappears?

“You bastard.”

“Bastard, asshole, those are the only two things you’ve got right since you’ve been here. You’d do well to remember what I am.” He pushes away from the wall, but his presence is still suffocating me.

He walks back to the desk and holds up the contract and a pen. “Sign the contract, and your mother continues receiving her treatment. Refuse and… well.”

Heartless and cruel. Soulless.

That’s him.

I’m not even sure if he was ever human.

My mother is my world. There’s nothing she wouldn’t do for me. And the same goes the other way around.

I was going to marry Danillo because I feared Papa would punish me by hurting Mama. But that was just a fear I had. Papa never threatened it. Now my nightmare has come true.

So, I straighten and walk over to the devil and take his pen.

He places the contract on the desk and taps the space under my father’s signature for me to sign. I do.