Page 39 of The Pakhan’s Bride (Mafia Bosses #3)

ZOYA

T he room is a cold box. Even with the heat on, even with the curtains pulled tight and the silk robe hugging my shoulders.

I sit cross-legged on the edge of the mattress, file folder on my knees, lamp turned so the light hits the pages just right.

The rest of the house is in low-power mode—no footsteps, no phones, just the hiss of forced air in the vents and the occasional pop of the baseboard as it expands.

The photograph is old-school surveillance, grainy and oversaturated.

A Prague sidewalk, ice rimmed along the curbs, winter light giving every face a skull's pallor.

Ekaterina is at the center, wearing a camel coat with a storm collar and black boots, lips painted the exact shade of blood you only see in movies.

She is laughing. Her hand is outstretched, fingers curled around the knuckles of a man twice her size, gray suit, no overcoat, a scar on his jaw that looks like it was stitched up with a fish hook.

Even blurred, I recognize the skull—one of the Albani syndicate's top troubleshooters.

The one who toasted me with grappa at the Monte Carlo gala almost nine years back and later tried to blackmail my father with a binder of pictures he shouldn't have had.

The sight of them together is an electrical short to the brain.

I lean in. The cheap paper creaks. My vision tightens at the edges.

Her smile in the photo is the same one she wore when we were kids and she'd drag me to the schoolyard to knife boys who teased her.

I always thought the cruelty was for show, a weapon she could sheathe when the job was done.

What is she doing with them? Why would she ever need the validation of this syndicate, knowing full well that their corruption has no gray areas?

My fingers won't hold still. The photo shakes, then I flatten it with my palm. The skin of my hand goes white, blood shunted elsewhere. I press harder, like I could squeeze the truth from the ink.

I read every millimeter. The background is a café, blue neon sign in Czech, date-stamped three months after the family collapse.

Ekaterina's hair is longer than I remember, blowing across her face in the wind.

She's holding something in her other hand, a slim folder, maybe a passport or cash.

The man's eyes are at her neckline, not her face.

I clock the angle, the tightness in his jaw, the micro-tilt of her head.

She is in complete control, and she's enjoying it.

My pulse starts to climb. Shallow, rhythmic. I breathe in and out, slow as a sniper in a tree line. Still, the tightness latches onto my chest, clamps down until my ribs ache. I realize I'm grinding my teeth.

I flip to the next page. More shots, different angles—they go into the café, come out half an hour later, walk the Charles Bridge side by side.

In the last photo, Ekaterina is alone, pulling on leather gloves, chin up, a slit of satisfaction in her lips.

No sign of the man. The report says he boarded a train to Bratislava that night and was dead by morning—body dumped in the Danube, throat opened stem to stern.

My knuckles are as white as the snow in the picture. I force myself to let go, but the image is stuck to my palm, sweat- welded. I peel it free, set it on the duvet, and curl my hands into fists. The heat in the room has evaporated. The only warmth left is a coil of anger at the base of my spine.

This is not business. This is family. Did Ekaterina take help from them to survive what happened to us? But if she did, why wouldn't she tell me?

I stare at the photo until the shapes blur and the lines run together.

Then I stand, shoving my feet into slippers, and start to pace.

One, two, three steps to the window. Back again.

Every lap I try to solve the equation—What was she doing in Prague?

Who did she betray—me, or the man, or herself?

Was this part of the larger game, or was it a move she made for herself and no one else?

The questions multiply, bacterial, until I lose track of which ones matter. Maybe none of them do.

My mouth tastes like tin. I walk to the sink, run water until it's glacier-cold, and let it fill a glass. The first sip freezes my teeth. I hope the shock will chase out the dull panic crowding my head. It doesn't.

I look at myself in the reflection above the sink—eyes ringed with exhaustion, lips pressed to a colorless line.

The same face I saw in the news reports after Papa died.

I flatten both hands on the counter and stare at the lines in my palm, the old scars from fencing and glass and mistakes I was supposed to have learned from.

My hands are too steady for what's happening inside me.

I wonder if this is what it feels like to be hollowed out.

I can't make sense of it. Not tonight. Maybe not ever.

I go back to the bed and look at the photo again. Her smile. The line of her jaw, the shadow of a bruise under her eye I didn't notice the first time. I want to reach through the page and grab her by the collar, shake her until all the secrets come loose.

Instead, I place the photograph facedown, fold the file closed, and sit in the dark.

For an hour, I don't move. I let the questions pile up.

They are heavy, but not as heavy as what's coming.

Sleep eludes me until slivers of red pierce the dark blue of the night sky, and when it does come, it's light and full of dreams of my sister feeding me poison and telling me she did it out of love.

I wake up in tears.

Before the sun makes a full appearance, I visit the chapel, only to find Galina pressed against the far wall, head bowed, hands knotted in her lap.

She wears the same gray cardigan as yesterday, now pill-balled and dusted with flour.

She's always preferred the morning for her prayers, but today she's here in the blue hour, the candles stuttering against the dark.

I stand in the doorway and watch. She lights a match and touches it to the tip of the newest candle. It blooms, smokes, then settles into a steady flame. Her fingers shake, but she does not hurry.

With a sigh, I drop down and sit beside her, letting the silence be the language.

The chapel smells of old incense, melted wax, wet stone, and the bite of sulfur from the match.

I watch the flame gutter and recover. In the reflection on the glass, I see the two of us—me, rigid and angular, Galina, folded like an origami bird.

She does not turn. "Did you sleep?"

"Not much."

Her mouth bends in a way that isn't quite a smile. "It is a bad house for sleep."

I stare at the candle, at the way it eats itself. "You knew she was alive, didn't you?"

Galina shakes her head. "I believed she was not dead. Not the same thing."

The colored glass throws bruised light onto the floor. There's a patch of blue near Galina's feet, a violet wash up the sleeve of my shirt. It feels like a secret code I've never been given the key for.

"She's different now," I say. The words barely make it past my teeth.

"She always was." Galina glances at me, then back to the flame. "You loved her too much to see it."

I want to argue, but she's right. Every memory I have of Ekaterina is wrapped in layers of protection, excuses, jokes. Never the raw data.

Galina shifts, leans closer to the altar. "You saw the photograph?"

I nod, surprised that Konstantin showed it to her, but now that I think, I realize he trusts her judgment.

"She wore a ribbon," Galina says, voice gone soft and sharp at once. "In her hair. Did you notice?"

I blink, startled. The detail was there, but I filed it under nostalgia, not evidence. "Yes."

"It was your mother's," Galina says. "Kept in a box by your father."

I close my eyes, let the memory roll in.

Mama's hair was black, the ribbon beautifully bright against it.

Papa would tie it himself, fingers thick and awkward, but he never let anyone else touch it.

After she died, he locked it away. Ekaterina found it once, tried it on, and he slapped her so hard the print lasted an hour.

"The only time Ekaterina challenged the rules so directly," I say.

Galina hums. "Your father kept some things under lock and key, too precious to him to be touched by anyone else, even his daughters."

I press my palms together, feel the cold sweat between them. "So how did she get it?"

Galina looks at me. Her eyes are gray as the benches, rimmed with red. "You want to believe Ekaterina was always on your Papa's side, Zoya. Perhaps you should question that."

This confuses me because Ekaterina told me Papa had betrayed us.

I frown at Galina, but she seems blissfully unaware of my unease, and I know it's useless to push her when she won't talk.

We sit like that, watching the candle shrink, until the smell of wax turns sour and the window shifts from blue to gold.

I feel a new ache in my chest, but this time it is not fear. It is something closer to clarity.

I rise first. Galina stays kneeling, eyes on the flame, lips moving in a prayer I am not meant to hear. I walk the hall back to my room, every step a little heavier.

If Ekaterina wore the ribbon in the photo, Papa must have given it to her. Or she must have stolen it, which makes even lesser sense to me.

I return to my room and open the closet.

My dress from the dinner is still where I left it, zipped onto its hanger, the silk all smooth curves and shimmer.

I touch it, then open the closet wide. Something is off.

The fabric is cool and dry, but when I pull the hanger free, the weight feels wrong.

The clutch I left clipped to the neckline is missing, and with it, the little place card.

I check the closet floor. Nothing. I check the pockets of every coat, every dress, every goddamn pair of pants. Still nothing.

In a fit of panic, I yank the whole dress down, let it puddle at my feet.

The hanger dangles, empty. My hands go cold.

I rip the closet apart, then the drawers.

Then the bathroom, under the sink, even the goddamn light fixture.

It takes less than three minutes to destroy what a team of decorators spent two days arranging.

The only thing I find is a comb with three teeth snapped off and a half-used lipstick.

I stand in the ruins of my wardrobe, heart beating so hard I taste salt in my mouth.

After admitting defeat, I sit on the bed, half out of breath, then immediately stand again.

I don't want to be still, don't want the thoughts to catch up.

But there's nowhere left to look, so I sit.

The comforter is smooth, crisp, but when I put my weight on it something gives, a crunch, paper-thin, just under the pillow.

I reach. My fingers find a card, different stock, heavier. I pull it free. It reads,

Vetrov, until you remember who you are .

My lungs squeeze to a hard, small point. The card bends, threatens to snap in my hands. I want to tear it in half, but instead I slide it into the waistband of my skirt and go.

The halls are empty. Every door I pass is closed, but I know the guards behind them are not asleep.

I move fast, bare feet slapping marble, not caring how loud I am.

I hit the stairs and take them two at a time, then veer down the west corridor.

The library is ahead, open, and I can see my sister sitting inside in the window seat, knees drawn up, wearing one of Papa's old shirts and a pair of leggings I thought I'd thrown out years ago.

She has a book open, but she's not reading it.

She's staring at the snow beyond the window, eyes glassy.

I don't bother with hello.

I throw the card onto the open book. "Are you playing games with me?"

She looks up, stunned. "What?" Then she scans the message and frowns. "What does this even mean?"

My brows go up. "I don't know, Katenka. Why don't you tell me?"

Ekaterina shakes her head and turns the card, then meets the hardness in my eyes. "This isn't me, Zoya. You have to believe me because if you don't… then…" Her lower lip trembles. This is the closest she's come to crying in front of me in years.

I keep my expression flat, but my pulse is climbing. My heart aches to believe her, but my brain tells me she's talking around me. "What do you want from me?" I ask.

She sighs and smiles sadly, her eyes crinkling as she reaches for my hand. I take a step back, and the mere movement makes her expression change, as if I've physically struck her. She doesn't reply for a moment, but then, "Same thing as always. Safety. For both of us."

"Is that what Prague was about?" I ask carefully. I don't show the photos. I don't give her the satisfaction of knowing what I know.

She stiffens slightly, just enough. "Prague?"

I cross my arms in front of my chest. "Don't play stupid."

She sighs once again. "You think you're the only one trying to trace back what happened to us? I've been following leads too. Some took me to Prague. Some to worse places."

"With the Albani?" I ask incredulously. "You know what they were and how Papa hated them once upon a time. Why would you ever trust them?"

She blinks, then laughs. "You think I'd trust them ? Sweet dove, that was Papa. He was working on something, building an alliance with them under the umbrella protection of the Riccis. I don't?—"

It's all too much. I shake my head furiously. "You've trusted worse, Katya. I don't know what to believe anymore. I?—"

Her mouth hardens. "I'm not your enemy, Zoya."

"No?" I take another step back and rub my eyes with the back of my hand, cursing myself even as the tears begin to fall. "Then stop acting like one."

She holds my gaze, unreadable. "There are people in this house who want you looking the wrong way. That's how they survive. By keeping us at odds."

"So set me straight," I snap. "If you're so loyal, tell me who put that card in my room."

She shrugs. "If I knew, they wouldn't still be breathing."

That's all I can take. She offers no further clarification, so I turn and walk away, never stopping until I'm out of her reach, in the garden outside the estate. When I check the library hours later, after Lev is at school, Ekaterina isn't around.

A while later, Sokolov brings information on the head server from that night. The man is dead, bullet-wound to the chest.