Chapter 1 Anya

"Faster, little mouse!" Sergei Petrov sneered from above me as I scrubbed the marble floors. He was the youngest son of the family, drunk again, his breath reeked of vodka. "My family paid good money for you. You should work harder!" He spat on my hands as he walked away.

I didn't move from where I was. I kept my head down. I had learned this lesson four years ago, when his family bought my father’s debt. Keep quiet. Stay small and you will survive. The words were a chant in my head, a shield against the fear that lived in my throat.

I scrubbed the marble floors of the Petrov estate on my hands and knees. My fingers were red and raw from the scalding water. I am twenty-two years old, but when I caught my reflection in the polished stone, I saw a ghost. A child with hollow eyes and bruised knuckles. That girl from before, the one who laughed and lived in a sunlit apartment was gone. This ghost was all that remained.

My father, Detective Marco Koslov, was a good man in a city that devours good men. He had tried to fight corruption, tried to keep his hands clean in a world built on blood money. It had gotten him killed. One month ago, he died in prison, shanked in the showers by an inmate who worked for the very families he had tried to bring down. Sometimes, in the silence of this house, I can still hear his laugh. It was a big sound, a warm sound. Now it is just an echo that hurts.

The Petrov family came to me after his arrest with a simple offer. “Work off your family's debt, or watch your little brother Dmitri disappear into the system.” Dmitri is fourteen now, somewhere in this city, taken by another family as insurance. I haven't seen his face in four years. I hold onto the memory of him as a boy of ten with our father’s stubborn chin and our mother’s wide, and hopeful eyes. He is the reason my knees stay pressed to this cold stone. He is the reason my hands never stop moving.

I work eighteen-hour days. I cook, I clean, I serve at parties where powerful men discuss territory and murder over expensive wine. I have made myself invisible. It is the only way to stay alive. I am a shadow in the corner, like a piece of furniture. I hold my breath when certain men pass. I make my footsteps as light as dust.

At night, alone in the tiny room they gave me in the basement, I hum the lullabies my mother used to sing. Russian folk songs about winter and wolves and girls who survived impossible things. My mother died when I was eight, leaving me with only these songs and a warning. "In this world, Anyushka, women like us must be clever. We cannot be strong, so we must be smart."

And I have been smart for four years. I have endured every humiliation, every blow, every night when Sergei got too drunk and his hands wandered too close to my body. I have survived because I had to. Because somewhere in Moscow, Dmitri is waiting for me.

And this afternoon, I was cleaning the grand office, the heart of their power. Viktor Petrov, leader of the Petrov clan, sat behind his massive desk as smoke from his Cuban cigar curled towards the ceiling.

Important men were coming tonight. I had heard the servants whispering about it. Some meetings about territories and shipments and human trafficking.

My knees ached from hours of kneeling. My back screamed with every motion. But I kept scrubbing because the alternative was worse. The alternative was Viktor Petrov breaking one of my ribs, and blaming me for relaxing.

The afternoon light slanted through the tall windows, painting golden squares on the marble I had just cleaned. It was beautiful. I used to love light like this. I used to stand in it and feel its warmth. Now I just calculated how many more hours of daylight I had left to finish my work.

The room smelled of old leather and Cuban cigars. I gathered my supplies and moved quietly towards the next section.

I was polishing the vast, dark wood of Viktor Petrov’s shelf when the door opened and his eldest son, Ivan, walked in. I froze, quickly becoming a part of the furniture, hoping the shadows would swallow me.

"We have a problem with this Koslov girl," Ivan said, his voice a low rumble as his gaze flickered to me.

My hands froze for just a second before I forced them to keep moving. They were talking about me like I was some item. My heart wouldn't stop racing as they discussed my fate.

Viktor Petrov sat in his high-backed chair, the cigar smoke curling around his head like a crown. "This detective's daughter?” He pointed at me. “What problem?"

"She's been here for four years, already, father. We've gotten our money's worth." Ivan paused, and the air in the room grew thick. "The Blood Tithe is in three weeks, and Nikolai Markov is requesting for the best offerings. Other families are preparing their best. We need something that will... impress him. Something that will stand out."

I didn't know what the Blood Tithe was, but the way Ivan said it made my stomach turn to ice. Offerings? Like animals? Like property?

I saw Viktor's hardened face break into a smile, slow, and cruel stretching on his lips. "The detective who killed Leonid Markov's men ten years ago. The man who almost brought down the whole system. Whose testimony could have destroyed us all."

That was my father. He was a very brave man who had faced the most dangerous family in Moscow. The Markov family. But he ended up in prison and eventually died.

"His daughter," Ivan finished, his voice cold and firm. I tried connecting the dots but it wasn't yet clear what they were discussing. "If we offer her to Nikolai, we're not just settling a debt. We're giving him revenge and that would make him indebted to us." Ivan concluded and my eyes widened.

What?!

I am the offering?!

I must have made a sound, a tiny gasp that betrayed my presence because two pairs of cold eyes immediately turned to me.

Viktor stubbed out his cigar. His voice was cold and authoritative. "Make the arrangements. Clean her up. On the equinox, Anya Koslov becomes the Blood Tithe."

The words were a death sentence. I did not even have time to scream before a pair of rough hands grabbed my arms.

I was dragged away immediately, my feet scrambling against the polished marble.