THE NIGHT BEFORE
My father’s study always makes me feel like I’m ten years old again.
I smell the cologne soaked into leather, the stench of cigars that lingers no matter how hard the maids scrub or how much disinfectant they lather across the marble floors.
This room has seen pain. Blood. Tears.
Far too much of it was mine.
But through that suffering, through those trials, I learned what it cost to build what my father built. And, harder yet—what it costs to keep it.
Because it’s one thing to raise an empire from the dirt.
It’s another thing entirely to keep the grubby fingers of underworld parasites away from it.
That’s the task before me. Soon—very fucking soon—my father will step into a graceful retirement, and it’ll become my duty to fend off the wolves at the gate.
That thought calms me. Those wolves don’t know what’s coming for them.
They’ll all be skinned and made into throw rugs by the time I’m done.
With a grin, I straighten my tie, shoot my cuffs, then pound my fist against the heavy wooden doors.
“Enter,” comes the gruff command.
I pry open the door and step inside.
Andrei Akopov sits behind his sprawling desk, silver hair slicked back, eyes sharp as ever. At sixty-two, he still has the imposing presence of the man who stowed away from St. Petersburg with nothing but lint in his pocket and insatiable hunger in his belly.
I’ve seen the sepia-toned pictures—he was scrawny in those days, but even then, you could see how his frame would fill out once he sank his teeth into America.
And so it did. What began as a humble sewing factory became a textiles powerhouse. From there, he expanded into electronics, logistics, industrial supplies, this, that, the other…
Now, there is no limit to what Akopov Industries does. The sun does not set on our family’s empire.
“Vince,” he says, pointedly not standing. “You’re late.”
I check my watch. “By three minutes.”
“In our business, three minutes can cost millions.”
I resist rolling my eyes, but only barely. This lecture hasn’t changed in twenty years. “Noted, Father.”
“Sit,” he orders.
I take my time doing so. First, I pour myself a drink from his bar in the corner before sauntering over to the blood-red leather couch and sinking onto it. I cross one leg over the other, sip the vodka, and then finally turn my eyes on him.
“What was so important that it couldn’t wait until dinner?”
Father slides a folder across the desk. “I checked the quarterly reports myself. Impressive numbers.”
“I told you they would be.”
I don’t touch the folder. I already know what’s in it.
I also can’t stop thinking about the last person I saw carrying those papers. It’s been on an endless loop in my head.
Oh.
Oh.
Oh.
Like fucking clockwork. My dick’s been hard for two days straight. Vanessa would carve out a kidney if it meant giving me this kind of reaction.
But despite all her moans and mewls and expensive lingerie, all the hours she’s spent trying to please me, she lacks something that the briefest glimpse of Rowan St. Clair showed.
Fuck if I know how or why.
“Yes, yes. You’ve done well.” He waves his hand dismissively. “But business is not why I called you here.”
Here it comes. I steel myself.
“I am concerned.”
My eyebrow drifts upward involuntarily. “About…?”
“You know about what. The same thing we discuss every month.” He leans forward. “You’re thirty-one, Vince. When I was your age, I had you: a red-faced babe shitting your diapers.”
I keep my face neutral. It’s not personal, what my father says to me. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t piss me the fuck off, though.
“Times have changed,” I answer coolly.
“Some things never change.” He taps his fingers against the desk. “Family, legacy—this is still everything.”
Like the lecture about my punctuality—or lack thereof—this is not a new line of thought from Andrei.
“I’m well aware of the importance you place on those things, Father.”
What I think but don’t add is that I don’t follow in those footsteps.
I don’t need family. I don’t give a fuck about legacy. Those are the trappings of dinosaurs like my father.
All I need is the crown. I’ll make my own way after that. I don’t intend to rely on anyone but myself.
Father reaches for the crystal decanter on his desk, pouring himself a drink to match mine. He sips thoughtfully, then picks up an unlit cigar to roll between his fingers. He squints at it like there are some kinds of answers etched into the tobacco leaf.
“The board meeting is next month,” he remarks.
I take a sip. “I’m prepared.”
“Are you? Because Mikhail Volkov thinks his son should take over as CEO when I retire. What do you have to say to that?”
The vodka burns my throat as I cough on it. “That Volkov is an idiot.”
“Mikhail is my oldest friend and business partner.” Father’s eyes narrow. “And his son is married with two children already. Stability. Continuity. These things matter to the board.”
“The work should matter more. My work, to be specific.”
“It’s not enough.” He downs his drink in one swallow. “The inheritance terms are clear. To receive your full allotment of shares and the CEO position, you must be married by your thirty-second birthday.”
And therein lies the rub.
The thing I’ve been avoiding, shoving out of sight, out of mind.
Because it’s fucking archaic. Because it’s fucking pointless. Because it shouldn’t fucking matter…
And yet it does.
I couldn’t believe my eyes the first time he called me in here, almost a year ago. It smelled just like this, looked just like this. My father pushed a folder across his desk, and in it were the words I’d been waiting almost a decade to see.
AKOPOV INDUSTRIES SUCCESSION PLAN
But as I read the fine print, my grin soured. Buried in the details were catches that had no place in my world.
Must be married by thirty-two…
Father wouldn’t hear a single word of my arguments. I drew in a breath to tell him exactly what I thought of his terms, but he simply raised one of his grizzled hands and said, Don’t bother. They will not change.
In the present, my jaw tightens the exact same way as it did a year ago. “That’s still seven months away.”
“And in all the time you’ve had to come up with a solution, you’ve found no one worthy? Not one?” He scoffs, his bearded lip wrinkling. “You’ve always been too picky.”
“I’m selective,” I correct. “As you taught me to be.”
Father’s expression softens, if only slightly. “Son, you still think I am doing this to punish you. You’re wrong. I’m doing this to help you.”
I say nothing.
Andrei leans back, lights his cigar, and takes a contemplative puff. “I spoke with Samuil Litvinov last week. His daughter just finished law school.”
I fight to keep my voice even, though all I want to do is roar in his face about how antiquated all this bullshit is. “You’re suggesting I marry into the Litvinov family?”
Father shrugs. “Samuil helped me when we first came to America. Without him, there would be no Akopov Industries.”
“I’m aware of our history.”
“Then you should be aware of your duty, too.” His voice hardens as he leans forward, that familiar ice crackling in his eyes. “The Litvinovs aren’t the only option. The Grozas have a lovely daughter, too. Harvard-educated. Or the Kuznetsov girl—”
“What part of ‘I don’t need you to arrange my life’ is hard to understand, Father?” I interrupt.
He slams his hand on the desk and lurches upright. Even at sixty-two, he’s still a bear of a man. “Then arrange it yourself!” Jabbing the lit end of the cigar at me with two fingers, he warns, “But understand this: Without a wife, you get nothing. Not CEO, not pakhan, not the controlling shares, nothing. Not so much as a bullet casing from my gun or the ashed end of my fucking cigar.”
The room falls silent.
Grimly, violently silent.
We stare at each other across the desk.
If he wonders why I’m so stubborn, he needs only to look in the mirror. I am what he made me.
But I will become only what I choose for myself.
He doesn’t get to choose anymore.
And yet… and yet… That calm voice of reason in the back of my head is crooning that there are alternative solutions.
Why batter down a castle wall when I could simply sneak in the back?
Why fight when I could simply win instead?
What if I give him what he wants? Let him pull the wool over his own eyes. He’s headed for the pasture anyway—what difference does it make how he gets there?
Consider it a retirement gift. And if the idea I have in mind pans out… Well, it’d be a gift of sorts to myself as well.
“What if I already have something in the works?” I say carefully.
Father’s eyebrows rise. “You’ve waited this long to tell me?”
“It’s… early days.”
I down another sip of vodka as the plan takes shape. An hourglass shape, to be specific. A curvy, innocent, blushing, pencil-skirted shape that said Oh when I caught her standing in my doorway.
Father is still hesitant. “Is she Russian?”
“No.”
“Wealthy?”
“No.”
His lips purse with disapproval. “From a good family, at least?”
I think of Rowan’s file. Her mother’s illness.
“She’s strong,” I say instead. “Resilient.”
Father strokes his beard, eyes narrowing in calculation. In the end, he simply sighs. “You have seven months, Vince. I suggest you don’t waste them. The terms won’t change.”
I nod and leave.
But as I emerge into the hall, I feel lighter than I did when I entered. What started as a game—a passing interest in a wide-eyed lamb who wandered into the wrong room at the wrong time—has transformed into something entirely more strategic.
Rowan St. Clair, with her stack of medical bills and quiet desperation, might be exactly what I need.
I picture her entering my office again, this time with the proper invitation. Those doe eyes gazing up at me. Her soft mouth forming another Oh when I explain my proposition.
What would she say if I offered to clear her mother’s medical debt? To give her a life beyond this corporate purgatory?
What would she do for that kind of freedom?
For the first time in months, I find myself actually looking forward to tomorrow. To seeing the shock on her face when she hears what I have to say.
Because Rowan St. Clair isn’t just next in line for a quick fuck on my desk.
She’s next in line to become my wife.
