Page 49

I blink up at him. “What do you mean?”

“I have one idea, but I need to run it by Valery.”

A lightbulb goes off in my head. “Are you talking about Masha?” Whatever age his brother’s “asset” really is, she could easily pass for a teenager, so if we got her close to Bransford—

“Exactly.” Nikolai walks over to his desk and opens his laptop. I watch with bated breath as his long fingers dance over the keyboard, firing off some message.

Maybe I’m counting the chickens before they’ve hatched, but it seems like he’s on board. He thinks this idea has merit.

“All right,” he says after a minute, closing the laptop. “Let’s see what Valery thinks, and if Masha would be open to altering the current plan.”

“Which is what?”

The curve of his lips holds a hint of irony. “Let’s just say the first part of it isn’t too different.”

I blink. “She was going to seduce him?”

“Just enough to get him to have a meal with her.”

Where she’d give him whatever is supposed to result in that fatal “heart defect.”

I do my best to keep my tone even. “Okay, so then it should be easy, right? Maybe she could seduce him just a bit further and take some compromising pictures. Or—”

“Don’t worry about the specifics, zaychik.” He walks around his desk and stops in front of me, his eyes the darkest shade of amber as he tucks another strand of hair behind my ear. “Your only job today is to choose the dress.”

31

Chloe

Nikolai was wrong. It’s not just the dress. After lunch, a pack of fashionably dressed people invades the house, bringing with them everything from a department store’s worth of shoes to hair styling tools. Alina directs them all with brisk efficiency, and before I know it, I’m washed, waxed, plucked, perfumed, styled, and made up to the nth degree.

By the time we actually get to the dress selection, I feel like I’ve been through a mild form of torture, and everything takes on a surreal vibe. My wedding day—just those words are like something out of a book or movie, a fictional tale featuring a girl who can’t possibly be me.

Marriage was never my dream. Not the way it is for some women. It was just something I figured would happen in the future if I met the right person and all the stars aligned. Say, if we were both doing well in our careers, liked each other’s families and friends, and had tons of interests in common. Also, if we were of a proper age, which to me is late twenties at the earliest.

I never imagined myself getting married at twenty-three—and certainly not to a Russian mobster. Because that’s what Nikolai is, whether or not he accepts that label. The Molotovs cloak themselves in high-society trappings, but at the core, Nikolai and his brothers are savages, as violent and amoral as any cartel leaders.

The thought of joining my life to such a man should terrify me, but I feel numb instead, so overwhelmed that everything feels like white noise. Less than two months ago, my only worry was finding a job post-graduation, and then my life went so far off the rails that none of what’s happening today seems all that scary or strange.

Or maybe that’s a lie I’m telling myself to get through this day. Maybe the enormity of this will hit me later, when I’m better equipped to process it.

The dresses presented to me are stunning, each one a work of art. There are fourteen total, and Alina makes me try all of them on before declaring that number seven—an ivory mermaid-tail number with an off-the-shoulders neckline—is the one.

I don’t know if I agree with her—to me, all the dresses are straight out of a fairy tale—but I’m grateful to have her guidance. Whatever she may think of today’s proceedings, she’s taken charge, running interference with the invading pack on my behalf. Thanks to her, I don’t have to make any tricky decisions, such as what color eyeshadow to apply; she tells them what to do with me and how, and I just have to sit there like a zombie doll while they do all the things, including dabbing some concealer on my neck to hide the hickey and other marks of Nikolai’s lovemaking.

It’s almost five by the time I’m fully ready, and as the pack leaves, two new cars arrive. One contains two people with fancy-looking camera equipment, while the other belongs to a slim middle-aged man dressed in a black suit with a white collar.

“Nondenominational priest,” Alina explains, coming to stand next to me by the window. “He’ll conduct the ceremony.”

Ceremony, right. My heart gives a panicked thump, some of my numbness fading. This is real. It’s happening. An actual wedding, with a fancy dress, a priest, and a photographer/videographer team. I have no idea how Nikolai managed to pull this off on such short notice, but I guess when you have enough cash to throw around, you don’t need to worry about such plebeian concerns as booking highly sought-after professionals in advance.