The rain tapped a frantic, irregular rhythm against the panoramic window of the sitting room, a stark contrast to the stifling silence within. Elena Volkov sat perfectly still on the edge of a silk divan, her posture a lesson in poise she’d long since internalized. The book open on her lap—a thick volume of 19th-century poetry—hadn’t had a page turned in over an hour.

Her gaze was fixed not on the words, but on the ghost of her own reflection superimposed over the darkening, rain-soaked city below. Twenty-one, she thought. The age she was when her father, his eyes hollow with shame and fear, had told her of the arrangement. The Volkov debt, wiped clean. The Petrova family, saved from ruin. His daughter, their offering.