‘You want the company? It’s all yours. After all, you’ve achieved what I could never have done. You have proved the lengths you will go to, the very depths, and that is what makes you worthy. Finally, I see myself in you. That is why you deserve it.’
The rattling cackle that left the old man’s lips nearly destroyed him. Everything he’d ever wanted disappeared in a heartbeat—vengeance turned to ash on his tongue as Roman realised that all this time, all these years he’d thought himself better, quicker, smarter, and he’d done everything Vladimir had expected of him and more.
Roman felt a helpless fury ricochet through his body, every nerve, every cell vibrating with the power of it. Refusing to give the bastard the satisfaction of seeing it, Roman stalked from the room, the sound of laughter chasing at his heels.
He slammed the door behind him and turned, coming face to face with his bride. A bride who had clearly overheard every word.
* * *
Ella had stayed for one reason and one reason only. The vain hope that when she looked into her husband’s eyes she would see some kind of explanation. Some kind of reason or justification for taking the threads of her life and pulling them apart. Over the course of the conversation she had put together enough meaning, enough understanding of the need for vengeance, and the horrifying game the two men had played over the years. But still—beating deep within her—was the hope that in spite of it all there was some trace of the man she had married. Yet in his eyes she saw nothing but anger and hatred, resentment and fury. Those emotions suddenly detonated within her, forging her own rage in a flame burst that threatened to consume her.
She slapped him. Hard and fast across his cheek, before stumbling half-blindly past Dorcas, who seemed torn between her master and her new mistress, past Konstantin, whose longstanding self-containment seemed sorely tested, and into the back of the limousine.
When the driver asked her where to, all she could reply was Paris. After a beat, the man put the car into gear and whisked her away, saying nothing to the command to cross several countries in the middle of the night.
As the estate grew small in the distance Ella vowed that she would never let herself be so cruelly used by these two men ever again. She would not let this destroy her. She would find a way. A way to cut them from her life, a way to secure her own freedom. And she would never, ever believe in fairy tales ever again.
CHAPTER FOUR
It was wrong of the wolf to have underestimated Little Red Riding Hood. An oversight on his part and one that would change everything he thought he knew.
The Truth About Little Red Riding Hood
—Roz Fayrer
IT HAD BEEN eight months since Ella had set foot in Russia and though it felt as if everything in her life had changed, the landscape around her hadn’t. She stood in the gardens of Vladimir’s estate in Rublevka on the outskirts of Moscow, nestled amongst the houses of various celebrities and the Russian elite. Snow lay thickly on the ground even this far into March, covering the sprawling garden in a strange white blanket, but her waterproof knee-high boots prevented the frigid dampness from reaching her. All the lights were on in the grand neoclassical building behind her, casting a false warmth on the bleak horizon. But only she and one other remained. Konstantin would stay on for another month, closing down Vladimir’s vast and deeply secretive estate, his pension well accounted for in the terms of Kolikov’s will.
Her guardian’s life goal of uniting the two families locked within his once vast empire complete, Vladimir had finally succumbed to pneumonia and passed away seven days before. And she didn’t know how to feel. How to feel about a man who had used her as bait, but had also protected and nurtured her, allowed her certain freedoms and withheld others. While there had been legal conversations conveyed through her and Vladimir’s lawyers the moment she’d realised that her marriage had triggered her trust fund, only one phone call had actually passed between them.
She had expected explanations or apologies, but she’d been mistaken. Again. She had felt so horribly mistaken about everything. As if every single aspect of her life had been a lie. But Vladimir’s assurance during that last conversation that he had protected her interests, her trust fund and her future with Kolikov Holdings hadn’t been a lie. Because while he had made good on his word to hand over control and ownership of the company he and her father had set up more than thirty years ago to Roman, Vladimir had had one last card to play. He had given her ten per cent of his shares—bringing the total, inclusive of the ones she had gained upon access to her trust fund, to twenty-five, automatically making her a shareholder on the board. Automatically handing her a voice, a bargaining chip, against the man she’d once thought of as her husband.
A man who hadn’t even bothered turning up to Vladimir’s funeral. Throughout the entire service her body had been on fire with nervous energy, drenched in ice-cold sweat one second and ferocious heat the next, hatred and disgust turning nauseous sweeps in her stomach. For every single minute of it, her concentration had been fractured with
