Length8h 49m
About this audiobook
Twenty-three years old, unmarried, and worth exactly one port. That is the whole case for Nadya Ivanova's marriage, and it is argued in a room she is not standing in.
The silver lighter clicks open, then shut, then open again. Viktor Volkov sits behind his desk like a statue carved from granite and bad memories and lays the arithmetic out for his son. The Ivanov family has been bleeding status for fifteen years. Sergei needs a transfusion. The Volkovs need the access at Vyborg. Marry the girl, merge the families, everyone wins.
Everyone except the two people being merged.
Dmitri keeps his hands flat on his thighs while the old man talks, scarred knuckles showing, the jagged line along his jaw catching the lamplight. Let him look at the weapon he made and go on calling it a son.
Across the city, Nadya watches the water slide past under the bridges like black oil and checks a phone that has not buzzed. Somewhere behind her a cracked screen lies face-up on cobblestones with a call still connected, and the recording keeps running after the scream, after the low urgent voice, after the slam of a van door and the squeal of tires.
She will be told this has nothing to do with her.
What follows is a gilded cage, a wedding in white silk and steel, a map with something hidden inside it, a bride who turns out not to be the only bride, and a night at Dock 7 that rearranges who is protecting whom. Ice cracks. Ice always cracks. What matters is which side of it each of them is standing on when it goes.
The cold water confessions are not a metaphor. Neither is the needle.
An arranged-marriage bratva romance for readers who want the bargain struck in the first chapter and paid for in every chapter afterwards, with a hero who was raised as an instrument and a heroine who refuses to be an asset.
The price is not shared evenly. She loses the last illusion that her father's world can be survived by being polite in it. He loses the only thing left in him that his father never managed to get his hands on, and he hands it over willingly, which is the part that costs him most.
Audiobook details
GenreRomance, Mystery and Thriller
Length8 hrs 49 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateSep 15, 2026
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Dedication
2Prologue
3Chapter 1 - The Iron Bargain
4Chapter 2 - The Gilded Cage
5Chapter 3 - White Silk and Steel
Mostrar todos os capítulosVer menos
6Chapter 4 - The Map’s Secret
7Chapter 5 - Salt and Wounds
8Chapter 6 - The Looming Hook
9Chapter 7 - The Other Bride
10Chapter 8 - Cracks in the Ice
11Chapter 9 - A Brush with Death
12Chapter 10 - The Favor Returned
13Chapter 11 - Dock 7
14Chapter 12 - Cold Water Confessions
15Chapter 13 - The First Sacrifice
16Chapter 14 - The Enemy Inside
17Chapter 15 - The Midpoint Pact
18Chapter 16 - The Trap Springs
19Chapter 17 - The Weaving Liar
20Chapter 18 - Shattered Glass
21Chapter 19 - The Needle
22Chapter 20 - The Rescue
23Chapter 21 - The Safe House
24Chapter 22 - The Ledger’s Truth
25Chapter 23 - The Black Tide
26Chapter 24 - The Shipment at Dawn
27Chapter 25 - Aftermath Steps
28Chapter 26 - The Judas Moment
29Chapter 27 - The Pinned Blame
30Chapter 28 - The Grand Gesture Cast
31Chapter 29 - The Knife Point
32Chapter 30 - The Saltless Feast
33The End
34About the Author
35Also by Sabina Cross
36Acknowledgements
37A Note from the Author
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