Alexsi was pretty quiet through the whole thing. As soon as he realized his minister father had set this up, that she was from the tribe his battalion had been keeping at bay on the boarder. And that the ministry and capital were serious. He did the math. She would surely be married to one of the other commanders if he refused. He made eye contact with his best friend and fellow commander Andrey. He’d been a government steroid experiment and was huge. They’d been in military training together. Short of choosing him - almost all the rest would hurt her badly. So he kept his Slavic Soviet stoic face and demeanour as always. Counting down to when he could get her somewhere calmer and safer. The vulture surrounding them made him ill. The way people were talking like she was a thing. At least he had resources and pretty comfortable fancy housing back at his battalion. And his men loved and respected him. He just needed to get them out of this god awful place. He realized pretty quickly too that she was drugged. And the closer he got the more bruising under makeup became clear. This was not her choice. He knew he and Andrey were big. And she seemed really scared. But brave. He would do what he could for her. At the least it looked like she needed medical help. At the least it looked like she needed medical help. He didn’t want to return her to the same uncle and family that had essentially sold her off like this. She saw it as trafficking herself. There is no sex. He’s only kind to her.

Chapter 3: The Chaika's Flight

The scent of blood and gunpowder was a perfume on his hands as Alexsi strode back through the ministry. The grand gallery was emptier now, the ice sculpture slowly weeping into its silver tray. His father stood near it, a crystal glass in hand, listening to some general with a chest full of meaningless medals. When he saw Alexsi approaching, his eyes narrowed at the state of him—the split knuckles, the spatter on his uniform tunic, the glacial certainty in his son’s gaze.

Minister Volkov excused himself with a smooth word and met Alexsi halfway. The pageantry was gone from his face, replaced by the sharp, pragmatic cruelty of a man who managed empires of misery. “You look like a butcher who lost a fight with the pig,” he said, his voice low. “This is unacceptable.”

Alexsi didn’t blink. “We need to talk. Now.”

He turned without waiting, knowing his father would follow to avoid a scene. He led them not to an alcove, but to his father’s own private study, a room lined with books never read and photographs of men long purged. He closed the door. The silence here was absolute, heavy with old terror.

His father remained standing behind the vast desk, a general behind his fortifications. “Well? Explain the commotion. Lermontov is screaming about a bullet. Sokolov is babbling through a broken face.”

“They were raping her,” Alexsi said. The words came out flat, clean, like stones dropped on glass.

“Who?”

“Mila. The woman you just had me marry. Sokolov, Zaitsev, Lermontov. In the green room. They had her on her knees. They’d torn her dress open. They were pouring vodka down her throat while Lermontov knelt between her legs.” He listed the facts, each one a hammer blow. “They were starting to gang rape the girl you just forced me to marry.”

There was no performative shock. Only a slow, calculating blink. “Lermontov is a weakling. He follows. Sokolov is a beast, but a useful one. This is… unfortunate disciplinary matter.”

“Disciplinary?” Alexsi felt something crack behind his breastbone, a dam of a lifetime of cold respect giving way. “Did you know?”

His father’s head tilted. “Know what?”

“Did you know they would do that? Did you set it up? A little treat for the loyal hounds? A way to break her in for me?” The disgust made his voice thick.

“Do not be absurd,” his father said, but the denial wasn’t one of moral outrage. It was one of irritation at the accusation of poor management. “They are animals. Sometimes they slip the leash. It is the cost of using animals.”

“The cost.” Alexsi leaned his bloodied hands on the desk. “She is a person. She was so terrified she couldn’t even speak. And you talk about cost.”

Minister Volkov sighed, a sound of profound inconvenience. He set his glass down. “If she is damaged, we can annul. It can be arranged. The Petrovna tribe has other daughters. Younger ones. I will get you a new girl. A clean one.”

For a moment, Alexsi couldn’t breathe. The sheer, transactional cruelty of it winded him more than any physical blow. He saw his father not as a cunning politician, but as a creature of pure, sterile evil. “How many princesses does that nation have, father? How many daughters do you get to trade before the well runs dry?”

“It is not your concern.”

“You wanted this union. You have it. She is my wife. Her name is in my file. You signed it.” Alexsi straightened, his height seeming to fill the room. “I am not sorry I shot Lermontov. I am sorry I didn’t shoot him in the face. I am not sorry I broke the others. I will do worse to the next man who looks at her.”

Something shifted in his father’s eyes. Not anger, but a genuine, bewildered surprise. He studied his son as if seeing a strange specimen. “You are… invested. I did not think you would care. She is a border rat. A political tool. Why would you put this effort in?”

The question hung in the air, naked and terrible. In that moment, Alexsi Volkov understood with perfect, aching clarity that his father did not know him at all. Had never known him. The stoic soldier, the obedient son—they were ideas his father had projected onto a blank slate. The man underneath, the one who felt rage at injustice and a desperate need to protect the helpless, was a complete stranger to him. The realization was a liberation, and a loneliness so profound it echoed in his bones. Thank God for Andrey, he thought, the words a prayer. Thank God one person in this cursed city loves me as family.

“Get your animals under control,” Alexsi said, his voice now empty of everything but finality. “Or I will put them down myself.”

He left his father standing in the study, surrounded by the ghosts of his own making, and walked back into the hall. He collected the water and blanket by rote, his mind already in the car, already with her. The spilled water on the marble looked like a dark, spreading hole.