Page 20 of The Pakhan’s Bride (Mafia Bosses #3)

ZOYA

I t's my wedding day.

I stand at the threshold, bouquet in hand.

Ivory roses, the color of surrender. Papa's last project, genetically modified to withstand a Siberian winter, bred in a greenhouse with more security than the Kremlin.

My belief was that it had been destroyed along with the rest of the Baranov estate, so when Konstantin presented this bouquet to me with that smug "some things are worth preserving" look in his eyes, I accepted it in the way daughters cling to any memories of their parents when memories are all that remain.

I dig my thumbnail into a thorn and feel the faintest satisfaction when it draws blood.

The pain is real, which is more than I can say for anything else about today.

The first row is a diorama of old wounds.

Galina sits stiff and upright, a fox-fur collar strangling her neck.

Next to her, Lev swings his feet in time with the fugue that echoes through the stone.

He is the only one here who doesn't wear black.

His suit is a shade of blue I once told him made him look like a baby shark.

His smile looks pretty genuine, too. The aisle is lined with faces I know and faces I don't, but all of them are dangerous.

A who's who of ex-KGB, politicians, Mafia accountants, oligarch daughters with blowout hair and pointed stares.

I feel their eyes on my bones, probably calculating the odds of whether I'll run, faint, or detonate in place.

At the altar stands Konstantin. Charcoal suit, white shirt, no tie.

His hands are folded behind his back, but his stance telegraphs kill radius.

The lighting gives him a halo of low-grade menace, but I am not here for romance.

I am here to make the right people believe in the fiction of us for just long enough to buy Lev and me a future.

He looks devastatingly handsome, but I keep telling myself that doesn't matter.

Nothing matters except getting through the next few hours without losing my head or my heart.

I pace myself, heel-strikes echoing. My old ballet teacher would say I walk too heavily, but she never had to cross a room full of apex predators and smile at the end of it.

The priest is a functionary, likely a cousin of a cousin, never once looking me in the eye as he murmurs the opening lines. I tune him out.

Instead, I watch Konstantin. He doesn't glance at me until I'm four paces away. When he does, the force of it is an electric current. He's asking questions in his mind, figuring things out, doing the math. If she bolts, how far will she get? If she resists, how fast can I subdue her ?

I kneel on the rug in front of the altar. The priest drones on, but this is not about God. This is about alliances, about making the right men feel safe, about turning two ghosts into one unkillable monster. I keep my chin up and my eyes forward. The script is quick and predictable.

Do you, Zoya, take this man ? —

Yes.

Do you, Konstantin, take this woman ? —

Da.

They ask for objections. No one makes a sound.

The ring is a family heirloom, white-gold with a marquise-cut diamond.

Konstantin slips it on my finger. His thumb grazes my knuckle, and for a half-second, his mask cracks.

I see the real thing behind it—hunger, anger, the flicker of regret.

My turn. The ring for him is matte black, custom-milled.

I slide it onto his finger, and his hand closes over mine, hard enough to bruise, and my traitorous heart lurches, sending shivers skittering all over my skin.

Loathing fills me for how much I still want this man, how this, in a different scenario, would have been the dream for me. Had he not slaughtered my family.

The priest says something in Latin. I glance at Galina. Her face is stone, but her eyes are liquid. Lev looks bored, but I know him. He's measuring everything, storing it for the day he needs to understand.

"You may kiss the bride," the priest says, but Konstantin only inclines his head and pecks my cheek. "Later," he whispers into my ear, too low for anyone but me.

I stand, bouquet trembling. The atmosphere of the room shifts, everyone watching to see if I'll smile, cry, or collapse. I do none of those. I turn to face the congregation and nod once, the bare minimum acknowledgment.

It's done.

The crowd erupts into polite applause. Galina dabs at her eyes. Lev grins and gives me a thumbs-up, which breaks the tension enough that I almost laugh for real. Konstantin offers his arm, and I take it. I lean in and whisper, "You have ten seconds to get me out of here before I make a scene."

He grins, surprised at my supposed nonchalance about all of this. He doesn't know the war that's going on inside me, but even if he did, it wouldn't change much. "You wouldn't dare," he says.

"Try me."

We walk down the aisle together, two sharks in a river of minnows. Every head turns, every eye tracks us. I count the seconds in my head—one, two, three. At six, we reach the vestibule. At nine, the doors close behind us and the music cuts off, leaving only the echo of my heartbeat.

We don't speak. He leads me down a corridor lined with dead relatives.

At the end, there's a side room set with vodka, caviar, and a single chair.

He gestures for me to sit. I don't. He pours two glasses and hands me one.

His hand shakes, just once. He notices me noticing, and the smile returns.

"Congratulations," he says, and clinks my glass.

"To what?" I ask.

He shrugs. "Survival."

I drain the vodka in one go. He watches, impressed.

The silence between us is vast, but not empty. I set my glass on the tray and stare him down. "You got what you wanted. Now what?"

He leans in. "Now we wait. The city is watching. They'll want to see if you can play the part."

"And if I don't?"

He considers this. "Then I suppose we improvise."

I nod, once. The rules are clear. Outside, the music starts again.

Somewhere, Galina is comforting Lev, telling him this is a fairy tale with a happy ending.

I'm not so sure. I finger the ring on my hand.

The edge is so sharp it draws another drop of blood.

Eventually, he goes to speak with his guests, and I go to fetch my son and head upstairs to my room.

Ten days after the wedding, I am summoned to the lion's den.

The study is not a masterpiece in subtle dominance.

Bookcases along three walls are filled with titles no one ever reads—law, history, tactics, the collected memoirs of men who died thinking they were the exception.

The center is a table, long and gleaming, surrounded by eight chairs in black leather. All are occupied.

I'm escorted in by a man with shoulders like a refrigerator and the personality of a bullet.

He closes the door behind me without a word.

The meeting halts. Seven heads turn, some with open curiosity, more with the mild surprise of seeing an extinct animal shuffle into a zoo enclosure.

Konstantin is at the head of the table, laptop open, eyes already on me before I make it three paces.

"Good," he says. "She's here. Sit, please. "

I do, pulling the chair out with the dignity of a chess queen being forced to play checkers.

My place is between Sokolov and Orlov. In the time that I've spent here, I've familiarized myself with Konstantin's best men.

Both are built like tanks, but only one is smart enough to keep his mouth shut.

I nod to them. Orlov nods back politely.

Konstantin flicks a glance to Sokolov, who clears his throat. "There's chatter about the Black Sea shipment. Turks are squeezing us for another fifteen percent, and they're using the Americans as muscle." His voice is gravelly. "I've got six men in place, but if customs hits the crates?—"

"They won't," Konstantin says.

Sokolov shrugs, unconvinced. Orlov jumps in, fingers fluttering over the edge of a spreadsheet. "Payments are on track, but we're running hot in Batumi. The port master wants a side deal or he walks it to Interpol."

Konstantin's gaze sharpens. "Handle it."

I wait, invisible. This is not for me. But then Konstantin closes his laptop and looks at me. The room follows, eight pairs of eyes triangulating. "Your thoughts, Zoya?"

I'm so startled I almost laugh. I don't. Instead, I take three seconds to consider the setup.

It's a test, but not just for me. I look at Sokolov, then Orlov, then back to Konstantin.

"If the Turks are using the Americans as leverage, they want deniability more than money.

Hit the port master with kompromat. Show him you can ruin him without ever firing a shot.

If that doesn't work, pay him, but not until the day before the shipment lands. Make him sweat."

Orlov smiles a little. Sokolov glances at Konstantin, then at me, clearly astounded. Konstantin looks proud. "You sound like your father."

The compliment tastes like rust, but I accept it, nonetheless. "He taught me to see pressure points."

Konstantin's lip curves. "Anything else?"

I tap the table once, a habit I picked up from Papa. "If you're worried about Interpol, use the Batumi leg to slip a ghost container onto the manifest. Something noisy enough to catch the inspectors' eyes but harmless. Let them get a win. They'll miss what's really important in the confusion."

There's a moment of silence. Then Orlov laughs. "Fuck. I like her."

Konstantin closes the file on his laptop and fixes Orlov with a look that wipes the smile off his face. For some reason, a flush climbs up my neck and settles on my cheeks.