Michael

Mikhail Volkov stood by the window, watching the rain. Inside, everything was boiling with rage. Those old wolves from the clan decided they knew how I should live. "Alliance," "truce." Idiots. Do they really think a marriage to this... creature from the den will stop the war? No. It's just a delay before the explosion.

"You saw her yourself," I tossed to Marat, without turning around.
"A spoiled brat in sables worth several millions. She stands on those Louboutins of hers like a heron on a sick leg. Why do I need a doll in my house who'll be dreaming of slitting my throat in my sleep?"

Marat chuckled somewhere behind me, adjusting his cufflinks.

"You were a bit hasty about the 'barely standing' part. I heard she punctured a government official's carotid artery with those same Louboutins last year. Bloody, stylish—our signature. And the hair... they say it goes all the way down to her..." he paused meaningfully.
"There'll be something to hold onto when she starts showing her temperament."

I turned slowly. That image was still burned into my mind: the icy blue steel of her gaze, the platinum of her hair. Flawless, lethal. A mixture of disgust and a strange attraction tightened my throat. Grandfather is right about one thing—ashes will fly. But he's wrong to think I'll turn the other cheek. Let her just try to enter my house. The sparks will be such that the castle will burn to the ground. And I'm not sure who will make it out of that fire alive.