The grand hall was a vision of wealth and power, the air heavy with the hum of Russian conversations. She stood near the edge, her emerald gown flowing gracefully as she watched him—Nikolai Volkov.

He was everything people feared. Towering and broad, with cold ocean-blue eyes and a body marked by scars and tattoos, Nikolai ruled the Bratva with an iron fist. She hadn’t chosen this marriage, but in fleeting moments, she had seen a side of him that made her hope—hope that there was something more beneath the ruthless exterior. Against her better judgment, she had fallen for him.

As she moved through the crowd, voices from the grand staircase stopped her.

“She actually thinks Nikolai cares for her,” a woman said with a mocking laugh.

“Pathetic,” another voice sneered. “She’s just a pawn. A weak, desperate little thing.”

Her heart clenched, but then Nikolai’s deep, familiar voice joined in, freezing her in place.

“Care for her?” he said, his tone dripping with disdain. “She’s nothing but an obligation. It is a foolish, fragile girl I use when it suits me. She doesn’t matter.”

The laughter that followed felt deafening, even as her world fell silent.

Her chest tightened, her vision blurred, and every fragile hope she had built shattered in an instant. Nikolai Volkov, the man she thought she loved, had never seen her as anything more than a tool.

The woman clinging to him said, " Nikolai just married her because her father begged him he knew she was a useless no one.... she is such a pick me, "