Chapter 2: The General's Toast, the Captain's Gambit
The summons arrived not as an order, but as a curiosity: report to the Ministry in Moscow, immediately, with Captain Petrov. No context. Alexsi Volkov had been knee-deep in the granular logistics of winter supply lines for his battalion on the Finnish front when the encrypted wire came. He’d looked across the planning table at Andrey, who’d simply shrugged, his massive shoulders straining the seams of his field jacket. “Probably a medal. Or a court-martial. Flip a coin.”
The journey was a blur of rattling trains and the peculiar silence of the rear. The war felt distant here, replaced by a different kind of tension, thin and bureaucratic. Moscow was a grim monument under leaden skies, the State Building a fortress of grey granite. They were ushered not into a military office, but into a cavernous ceremonial hall that smelled of floor polish and damp wool.
It was the flowers that tipped him off. Wilted, white lilies in cracked vases. A tired-looking commissar stood near a small table draped in red velvet. And there, flanked by two stone-faced men in suits, was a girl.
Alexsi’s breath caught. This was not a briefing.
She was young, her face pale as paper against the severe chestnut braid wound tightly around her head. She wore a dress of faded antique lace, several sizes too large, the sleeves swallowing her hands. But it was her eyes that held him—large, hazel, and utterly vacant. She stared at a point on the far wall as if she’d left her body behind.
“Captain Volkov.” A familiar, unctuous voice. His father’s assistant, Mikhail, materialized at his elbow. “Your father sends his congratulations. The paperwork is a formality. A strengthening of ties with our allied kingdom. A joyful day.”
Alexsi felt the floor tilt. He looked from the girl to the man he assumed was her uncle—a minor king with a nervous tic in his cheek, who wouldn’t meet his eye—and then to Andrey. Andrey’s face had gone carefully, dangerously blank, his jaw a hard line.
This is not consensual.
The realization was a cold stone in his gut. The girl wasn’t ill. She was sedated. Drugged into compliance. A transaction. Her uncle had sold her, and his own father had brokered the deal.
“Alexsi,” Andrey murmured, the word barely audible.
He had a choice, in theory. Cause a scene. Denounce this farce. And what then? The girl would vanish into a worse fate, he’d be on the next train to a penal battalion, and his father’s political machine would grind on, unscathed. He saw the calculation with brutal clarity. There was only one move that offered any shred of protection.
He remained stoic. Correct. He nodded to the commissar. “Proceed.”
The ceremony was a nightmare of clipped, soulless phrases. Alexsi repeated his lines, his voice flat and steady. When it was her turn, the girl, Anya, was prompted by a sharp nudge from one of the suits. She whispered something that might have been a ‘yes.’ Her breath smelled of chemical sleep.
The commissar pronounced them united. No one smiled.
Her uncle scuttled forward, pressed a dry kiss to Anya’s unresponsive cheek, and left without a backward glance. The suits melted away. She was left standing alone on the polished marble, adrift in her borrowed lace.
Alexsi approached her slowly, as he would a startled animal. “Anya Vasilievna,” he said. Her gaze flickered toward him, wide with a terror so deep it had passed into mute shock. She was terrified of him. The man in the uniform. The new owner. “We’re leaving now.”
He didn’t touch her. He simply turned and walked toward the great doors, Andrey falling in behind. After a moment of paralyzed silence, he heard the faint shuffle of her too-large shoes following. The instinct to survive, to follow the only command that offered exit, was still alive in her.
Outside, a ministry car waited. Alexsi handed her into the back, then got in beside her, leaving Andrey to take the front passenger seat. She pressed herself against the far door, as far from him as the space allowed, her whole body rigid. The drive to the hotel—one of the opulent, old-world relics reserved for party elites—was silent. Rain streaked the windows.
His quarters were a suite of faded grandeur: high ceilings, brocaded furniture, a fireplace where coals glowed. The moment the door closed, she stumbled, the sedation and exhaustion finally overcoming her. Alexsi caught her before she hit the floor, his hands gentle on her arms. She flinched violently at his touch, a choked sound escaping her.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, the words feeling utterly inadequate. “Andrey.”
Andrey was already there, his size suddenly a comfort, not a threat. Together they guided her to a deep armchair by the fire. Alexsi knelt, his movements deliberate and slow. “Your feet. Why are you limping?”
He reached for the hem of the ill-fitting dress. She jerked her legs back, a flash of pure panic in her eyes.
“Easy,” Andrey said, his voice surprisingly soft. “He just wants to see. We’ve seen a lot of bad feet. It’s a specialty.”
Alexsi looked up at her, holding her gaze. “Please.”
After a long moment, she allowed it. He carefully lifted the lace. Her ankles were wrapped in filthy bandages. He untangled them, his fingers careful. Beneath, her feet were a mess of dark bruising, swollen, with several broken blisters that had become raw, angry sores. They were the feet of someone who had been forced to walk, or stand, for a very long time in terrible shoes. Or no shoes at all.
He was horrified. This wasn’t just sedation. They had injured her. A bad couple of weeks, indeed.
“Christ,” Andrey breathed, turning away to rifle through his kit bag. He produced a clean cloth and a canteen of water.
Alexsi took them. “This will sting.” He dabbed at the worst of the sores. She winced but didn’t pull away, just watched him with those huge, hollow eyes. As he worked, he saw other things. A fading yellow bruise on her shin. Raw skin on her wrists, hidden by the sleeves. A story of rough handling, of being cargo.
He hated this situation. He hated his father for putting him in the center of it. But looking at these injuries, at the fragile, broken dignity of the woman in the chair, a single, solid resolve hardened inside him. He was going to take good care of this girl. No matter what.
He had resources. This suite. His name. Access to things she had been denied.
“Andrey, I need a proper doctor. A discreet one. And food. Something simple, like broth.”
“On it.” Andrey moved to the phone, his bulk dwarfing the delicate side table.
Alexsi finished cleaning her feet as best he could with the canteen water. He found a tin of basic field salve in his own kit and applied it gently. “Better?”
She didn’t answer. She was staring into the fire, the flames reflecting in her glassy eyes. But some of the sheer panic had receded, replaced by a depth of exhaustion that seemed bottomless.
“You are safe here,” he said again, knowing she likely didn’t believe it. “This room is yours. I’ll be next door. Andrey is across the hall. No one will come in unless you permit it.”
A single tear escaped, tracing a clean path through the dust on her cheek. She didn’t wipe it away.
Andrey hung up the phone. “Doctor’s coming. Food in twenty. Also,” he added, his tone shifting to something lighter, a forced normalcy, “they’ve got a bathtub in there the size of a small tank. If you wanted to lose the museum costume.”
Alexsi saw her fingers clutch at the ugly lace. He understood. It was the uniform they had put her in. “We’ll find you something else,” he said.
He rose, his knees cracking, and went to his own luggage. He pulled out a soft, grey woolen sweater, one of his own, worn and comfortable. He held it out to her. “For now. It’s clean.”
She looked at the sweater, then at him, suspicion and a faint, desperate hope warring in her expression. Slowly, she reached out and took it, her fingers brushing his. The touch was cold.