I had Kiril call him after I found Zoella at the club.
I didn’t step out immediately. Instead, I glanced at her.
“You can keep running,” I said to her. “But remember this, Zoella: I can always find you.”
She stared back at me, chin trembling with unshed tears, but she said nothing as she pushed the car door open and stepped out of the car. Turning around to glance at me one more time, she made her way to the entrance of her father’s mansion.
I stayed in the driver’s seat, watching her go into the house where I’d be pulling her away from soon enough.
I got out of the car, the gravel crunching beneath the soles of my shoes like dry bones, and walked toward Blake.
His lips were already opening to apologize. “I didn’t know she was—”
“Don’t,” I told him.
He stood there, still as a frozen fish with tension probably rolling down his spine at what to expect.
I moved in closer, so my voice wouldn’t have to go up to be audible.
“Let this be the last time.”
His throat bobbed with each swallow, and he nodded.
I didn’t wait to hear whatever he had to say in response before I turned around and started for the car.
Blake Carter knew better than to stir me the wrong way. He knew what I was capable of and how far I’d go to punish him if he didn’t keep to his own side of the deal.
I knew he wouldn’t risk it; he had too much to lose.
And Zoella?
She thought she was battling me. That she could disobey, outwit, and escape me. She was just about to learn how wrong she was if she thought she could.
The war had just begun.
Chapter 7 – Zoella
It was the day I stopped being Zoella Carter. The day I died, along with my name and identity.
Not with bullets and blood, not in a tragic explosion like the ones many people in the Bratva had died in.
No.
I was being laid to rest in white silk and champagne pearls. Dressed for slaughter in a room full of roses and fear.
I sat facing the mirror, stiff, as I gazed at the face looking back that didn’t look anything like mine.
The dress was too weighty. The veil choking. The imported lace bodice wrapped around my ribs like a vise, holding me rigid. They’d cinched the necklace—a heavy choker of diamonds and gold—so tight I could hardly breathe.
And perhaps that was the idea.
Zoella Carter had been stubborn. Defiant. Untrainable. She was free to live life as she wanted and explore the world at her own will.
But Zoella Yezhov?
She would be compliant. Quiet. Molded into whatever Matvey and the entire Yezhov family needed or wanted her to be.
The door creaked open behind me and then shut as quickly.
