The camera shutter clicked just as a shadow fell across the dressing room floor.
"Are you keeping that to protect yourself, or to hide evidence for your sister?" Nikolai asked.
He leaned against the doorframe, his suit jacket unbuttoned.
I spun around, keeping a tight grip on Sienna's second phone. I turned the screen toward him so he could read Damian Rusk's name glowing in the dim light.
"I heard you and Mikhail in the hallway," I said. "Do not pretend this is a protective marriage. I know I am just bait to draw her out."
Nikolai walked into the room and stopped two feet away.
"I need Sienna to surface," he said. "But I will not let anyone hurt you to make that happen. You can keep the phone."
I narrowed my eyes. "Why would you let me keep it?"
"Because Mikhail will only mirror the data," he replied. "And any arrangement involving you, I will tell you first. You can refuse."
He offered a choice instead of an order. A rare thing for a mafia heir.
"Fine," I said. "I will go to your estate. But we sleep in separate beds. The Volkov family does not touch my flower shop accounts. And I will not sign a single debt paper for my parents."
"Agreed," Nikolai said.
An hour later, I stood in the center of the Volkov estate master suite.
A massive king bed dominated the room, covered in white rose petals. The wedding team had left champagne on ice.
I turned toward the hallway. "I will find a guest room."
"No, you will not," Nikolai said, closing the heavy oak door behind us. "Reporters and Rusk men are parked at the end of the driveway. They are watching the windows. If we sleep in different wings tonight, the illusion breaks."
I crossed my arms. "Is this another threat?"
He walked past me and opened the door to an adjoining inner bedroom. "You take this room. I will sleep in the study."
He paused, his dark eyes locking onto mine.
"I will not touch a woman who has not actively chosen me," he added.
I reached behind my back, struggling with the twisted lace. Celeste had forced the buttons into the wrong loops during her panic. The stiff fabric dug into my spine.
Nikolai stepped closer. He brushed my hands away. His cool fingers grazed my skin as he undid the top three buttons, freeing my ribs.
Then he stopped. He grabbed a silk robe from the armchair, tossed it onto the mattress, and walked out without another word.
I stared at the closed door. His restraint clashed violently with the ruthless man at the altar. I pulled the temporary keycard from my clutch and set it on the nightstand. An unlocked door did not mean I was free.
My cell phone rang twenty minutes later.
"Aria, Enzo is here," Tessa, my shop manager, whispered through the speaker. "He brought two men. They are trying to open the safe and take the supplier contracts. He says the wedding saved the family, so the shop belongs to him now."
"Do not let him touch the safe. I am fixing it right now," I said, ending the call.
I grabbed my laptop, threw on the silk robe, and rushed downstairs to the study.
Nikolai sat behind a mahogany desk, reviewing documents. He looked up as I barged in and slammed my laptop onto the glass coffee table.
"My father is raiding my shop," I said, typing furiously to freeze the Bellini Blooms bank accounts.
Nikolai stood up and walked over. He glanced at my screen just as my banking dashboard loaded. A red flag icon sat next to an old, massive transfer.
"Three months ago," Nikolai read aloud. "You transferred thirty thousand dollars from a wedding deposit to a private club in the city."
I hit the freeze button and slammed the laptop shut.
"Sienna vanished for two days," I said, glaring at the dark screen. "She racked up a massive bill. The club owner threatened to leak a video of her if it was not paid. My parents told me to fix it before it ruined your engagement."
Nikolai studied my face. "So you paid her debt."
"I paid the money and I drove there to get the memory card myself," I said. "She makes the mess, I clean the floor. That is the Bellini division of labor."
"Are you going to keep cleaning up for her?" he asked.
"No."
The study door swung open. Mikhail stepped inside, holding a tablet.
"I mirrored the phone," Mikhail said, glancing at me before looking at his boss. "She wiped the gallery, but I pulled the deleted thumbnails from the cache."
He handed the tablet to Nikolai.
Nikolai stared at the screen for a long moment. Then he placed the device on the coffee table, right in front of me.
The grainy photo showed Sienna in a dimly lit hallway. She was kissing a man in a dark suit. A bright green exit sign above them read Eastside Casino.
My gaze dropped to the man's lapel. He wore a black orchid boutonniere tied with silver wire.
My stomach dropped. That flower was not on the Volkov wedding list.
"She ordered that from me a week ago," I said, my voice dropping. "She said she needed a custom piece for a friend."
I opened my laptop, pulling up my archived emails. I found the delivery receipt and turned the screen toward Nikolai.
The signature line read: D. Rusk.
Nikolai did not ask if I had known. He did not accuse me of helping her. He simply looked at the receipt, his jaw tightening.
"Find Damian Rusk," Nikolai said to Mikhail.
Mikhail nodded and left the room.
I stared at the black orchid on the screen, trying to understand how my sister had orchestrated this. She had not panicked. She had planned this down to the flowers.
Nikolai reached across the table and pushed the tablet closer to my hands.
"Your sister did not run away from me, Aria," he said, his voice stripped of warmth. "She ran to the enemy with my casino plans."
