3. Chapter 3
3
Bella
T here are exactly seventeen rhinestones missing from my wedding dress.
I know because I’ve been counting them obsessively for the past ten minutes while Natasha’s team swarms around me like panicked bees, desperately trying to transform me from “taco-stand runaway” back into “acceptable mob boss bride.”
No one will look me in the eye.
I don’t blame them. Not after watching Konstantin deliver the kind of threat that doesn’t need to be shouted to be terrifying. The kind that makes grown men pale and competent women tremble. The kind that made my stomach drop even though it wasn’t directed at me.
Yet.
“Hold still,” someone hisses, yanking at my hair hard enough to bring tears to my eyes. I don’t complain. The rough treatment feels almost deserved after what I’ve put them through.
Natasha moves like a general surveying war damage, circling me with a tight-lipped expression and eyes that calculate every flaw.
“Thirty-eight minutes,” she announces, voice taut with barely controlled terror. “We need to fix her hair, redo her makeup, and get her into the new shoes.”
New shoes. Because the first pair?
Currently floating in a toilet bowl.
Not my brightest moment.
In my defense, when you’re climbing out of a bathroom window mid-escape, the last thing you think about is securing your heels. One bad angle, one unfortunate slip, and those Louboutins did an Olympic-level dive straight into the bowl.
There was a tragic little splash.
A brief moment of silence.
Then me, staring down at the crime scene, realizing I couldn’t just leave a pair of five-thousand-dollar shoes in a public toilet.
I had to make a choice: dignity or retrieval.
Dignity won. Barely.
Now, someone shoves my foot into the replacement pair like I’m Cinderella’s bitter, uncooperative stepsister. “Ow.”
“Stop wiggling,” Natasha barks.
“Then stop trying to break my toes off,” I snap back.
“Twenty minutes,” she says, ignoring me entirely. “We need to move—now.”
Move? That’s rich. I’m already being dragged in three different directions—someone yanking my arm, another tightening the corset of this other expensive, lacy monstrosity. A third person is aggressively dabbing foundation onto my cheek like they’re scrubbing out a crime scene.
At some point in the chaos, I was stripped down, my ruined dress discarded, and this new one—another expensive, lacy monstrosity—was shoved onto me. I barely remember it happening, but the memory of Natasha barking orders, hands yanking at zippers and straps, flashes through my mind. They worked fast. Brutally efficient. Like a pit crew for a doomed bride.
A murmur from outside the room—more voices now, the sound of guests arriving. I can hear the distant hum of a string quartet, the kind that makes everything feel formal and permanent.
The chaos inside, though? A full-blown circus.
And then, a child’s voice breaks through the noise.
“Are you going to cry?”
The room freezes. Even the woman currently wrestling my left eyelid into submission pauses mid-stroke. I blink, mascara wand dangerously close to my cornea, and turn toward the voice.
She studies me with a smoky sapphire stare that’s sharp and assessing, unnervingly familiar.
She can’t be older than 8, but her posture screams: “I’ve fired adults twice my size.” I don’t know her name, but I don’t need to.
She looks just like him.
“I’m Alya,” she says, confirming what I already guessed. Each step she takes is precise and deliberate in her tiny kitten heels. “You ran away. That was stupid.”
“Alya,” Natasha warns, but there’s a tremor in her voice. Even the makeup artist has backed up a step.
“It’s fine,” I say automatically, though nothing about this is fine. “She’s right. It was stupid.”
Alya tilts her head, studying me like I’m a particularly interesting science experiment. “Not just stupid. Dangerous .”
The way she says “dangerous” sends a chill down my spine. No child should understand that word the way she clearly does.
“I know,” I whisper.
She nods, seemingly satisfied with my acknowledgment of my own mortality. Then, without warning, she reaches up and straightens the necklace that’s been half-choking me for the past twenty minutes.
“You need to center this. It looks crooked.” Her tiny fingers are surprisingly gentle. “Papa picked it out himself. He said it matches your eyes.”
Something warm and confusing flutters in my chest. I ruthlessly squash it.
“That’s… thoughtful of him,” I manage as Natasha takes advantage of my momentary stillness to attack my hair with renewed vigor.
Alya shrugs. “He’s thoughtful about things that matter.” Her eyes meet mine, suddenly serious. “Do you matter?”
The question feels like a trap.
“I—”
“Fifteen minutes!” someone yelps, and the frenzy intensifies. Blue Nails returns to assault my face with powder while someone else is literally sewing me into the back of this dress.
“Hold out your hand,” Natasha commands, pulling something from her pocket.
A ring box snaps open to reveal a diamond so massive it could probably be seen from space. My first time seeing it, and I’m already intimidated.
“It won’t fit,” I mutter, but Natasha’s already grabbing my finger, sliding on the diamond that could double as a paperweight in a hurricane. It slides on perfectly, catching the light in a way that makes my stomach flip.
“It fits,” I say stupidly.
“Papa made sure,” Alya says, watching the diamond with calculating eyes.
I blink. “That’s—”
“Romantic?” she suggests.
“Creepy,” I correct.
To my surprise, she grins—a flash of something impish and almost normal.
“That’s what I said. But Nikolai thinks it’s romantic.”
“Nikolai?”
“My brother. I have two. They’re twins. Nikolai’s the boring one.” She says this with the casual cruelty only children can manage. “Lev’s more fun, but he punches people too much.”
Great. More mini-Konstantins to look forward to.
“You’re pretty,” Alya announces suddenly, watching as someone dusts my collarbones with something shimmery. “But Papa says he won’t spend more time with you than me.”
“That’s…” I search for an appropriate response. “Fair?”
“It is fair,” she agrees solemnly. “Because I was here first, and Papa says loyalty matters more than anything. Even pretty faces.”
The hairdresser behind me fumbles with a pin, cursing softly.
“You can call me Bella,” I offer, not knowing what else to say to this tiny harbinger of my new reality.
Alya considers this, tapping her finger against her chin.
“Isabella is prettier. More elegant.” She pronounces “elegant” like she’s tested the word extensively. “But Bella is easier. I’ll decide later which one I’ll use.”
“Ten minutes!” Natasha cries, her voice rising an octave.
The veil appears—a gossamer cloud that costs more than my college education. Two women carefully arrange it over my newly constructed updo, pinning it with what feels like industrial-strength staples.
A shift in the air—more than just the perfume of hairspray and fresh roses—announces the arrival of someone new. The door opens with the smooth glide of wealth and control, and the energy in the room changes. Even Natasha, who has spent the last half hour barking orders like a drill sergeant, stills.
The woman steps in with the grace of a queen entering court. Tall, elegant, and poised at 5’8”, she moves with an effortless confidence that somehow makes my perfectly fitted dress feel suddenly constricting. Platinum blonde hair is swept into an immaculate chignon, not a strand out of place, like she was sculpted rather than born. Her light blue eyes—striking yet burdened with a quiet sadness—assess me without a flicker of emotion.
The scent of something expensive and understated drifts toward me—white florals, hints of vanilla, and something crisp and clean beneath it. It’s the kind of scent that lingers in luxury cars and on silk scarves wrapped just once around a graceful neck.
She doesn’t speak immediately. Instead, she crosses the room, the soft rustle of her gown—something conservative, classic, the color of moonlight—barely breaking the tense silence. She stops beside Alya, who straightens just a fraction, the way a soldier instinctively falls into line.
Our eyes meet.
Something sharp and knowing flickers in hers. She tilts her chin up, studying me like she’s measuring more than just the fabric and rhinestones. There’s no hostility, no overt warmth either—just an unreadable assessment that makes my stomach tighten.
Then, just as deliberately, she reaches up and adjusts the diamond pendant at her throat, fingertips lingering over the necklace as if weighing something unspoken.
“It’s time.”
Natasha moves fast, like she’s been snapped back into motion. She rushes toward the woman, dipping her head in deference.
“Yes, Mrs. Belov. The bride is ready.”