Chapter 27 Sima
SIMA
When we pull up in front of the mansion, Kira is already halfway out the door.
She stops dead on the porch the moment she sees us, her eyes flicking from Petyr’s face to the shopping bags cutting into the crook of my arm.
Her gaze lingers there, taking a slow inventory, and her pretty lips flatten into a thin, bloodless line.
“Nice haul,” she remarks finally, with a sugary smile that doesn’t even try to reach her eyes. “Guess it pays to marry up.”
I blink once. Twice.
Did this bitch just call me a gold-digger to my face?
Before I can come up with a suitably cutting retort, Petyr steps forward. “Kira.” His voice is low, clipped. The warning is unmistakable. “Enough.”
Bitch on the Go at least has the decency to flinch.
“She is family now,” Petyr continues. “I expect you to treat her as such.”
Kira’s eyes widen a fraction—surprise, maybe, or the recognition that she’s pushed too far—before she ducks her head. “Of course. Sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
She breezes past me, but not before I catch the flicker of resentment in her expression. I resist the urge to roll my eyes, but barely. That was about as sincere as a fake apology can get.
Petyr doesn’t say anything else. Just presses a hand to the small of my back and guides me through the big oak doors.
I glance over my shoulder once, just in time to see Kira’s silhouette slip into her cherry-red Bentley, the engine purring as she disappears down the driveway.
“She really doesn’t like me,” I mutter as we cross the threshold.
“Don’t take it personally,” Petyr replies, though he doesn’t sound happy with her, either. “She doesn’t like anyone.”
I hum noncommittally, pretend to believe it.
But I know the look she gave me. I’ve seen it before: in prep schools, at children’s fundraisers, around dinner tables where my father’s mistresses smiled too wide and made their barbs sound like compliments.
She wasn’t firing at random—it was personal.
Kira might be family, but she still sees me as an outsider.
She’s not wrong, though. I clutch my purse, remind myself of all the lies I’m carrying with me everywhere I go. I’m not here to stay. Not as Petyr’s wife, not as Sammi Banks. Certainly not as Kira’s sister-in-law.
Is it really such a loss if she starts hating me now instead of later?
Still, I don’t like having to watch my back from one extra enemy. It might be as Petyr says: Kira’s snappy, but inoffensive.
But if it does turn out she’s got claws, she’ll be disappointed to see she’s not the only one.
I let Petyr take the bags upstairs and follow him without another word. If Kira wants to play games, she’ll find out pretty quickly I didn’t survive my family by being soft. Let her underestimate me.
Everyone else always has.
After I finish putting my new things away, I head back down and find Petyr in the kitchen. Anya has left dinner for us: roasted chicken, sautéed vegetables, and some kind of lemony orzo that smells so good it actually makes my stomach growl.
We settle into the informal nook off the kitchen, plates between us. Petyr grabs the remote—so they do have those here—and starts zapping until he finds something to land on. I’m expecting sportsball or the news, but oddly, it’s…
“Pompeii?” I ask as I chew on the most heavenly piece of asparagus I’ve ever had. Say what you will about Anya’s temper, but she knows her way around the stove. “That’s… cheery. I didn’t know you were into documentaries about dead people.”
“I’m not.” He keeps eating while glancing at the screen distractedly. “But history is fascinating. Much more clear-cut than the present.”
Despite my misgivings, I find myself drawn in. Granted, it’s a lot of wide shots on artificial reconstructions of ash clouds, molten rock, and a whole city turned to stone mid-scream. Real happy stuff.
But it’s strangely compelling, too. Something to do with the presenter’s lulling baritone and British accent, perhaps, or the way Petyr seems to relax minutely as the images flow by.
I find myself watching him as much as the screen.
“The graffiti is still there?” I ask, jaw half-open.
“Hm?” He throws another distracted look. “Oh, that. Yes.”
After five more minutes, I’m hooked. Petyr keeps eating, occasionally looking at the screen without much enthusiasm, but me? I’m fixated. Utterly taken in. Worse than the time I binged a whole season of Drag Race in twenty-four hours.
The subject changes from wide shots to specific relics of the city. They show a couple, locked together in a forever in an embrace. Ash clings to their forms, their outlines still visible two thousand years later.
“Can you imagine?” I say before I think better of it. “Dying in someone’s arms like that?”
Petyr glances over, brows raised. “That’s a morbid wish.”
“I’m just saying.” I shrug and pick at my food. “If the world’s going to end, maybe being with someone you love makes it less terrifying.”
He doesn’t respond right away. I can feel his gaze, heavy on the side of my face. But my own thoughts are too loud.
I don’t even believe in that kind of love. Not really. Not after the examples I’ve seen. My parents? Toxic. Lara’s husband? A controlling old man with cruelty in his veins. Anatoli and my sister-in-law? God help that poor, poor girl.
My whole family has always treated love like a transaction or a leash, something constricting rather than freeing.
So why does my chest ache like I want it anyway?
Like I want what these two people had, thousands of years ago?
I must be quiet for a beat too long, because Petyr’s voice cuts through my thoughts. “This is about your job.”
“Huh?” I blink.
“You miss it.” He fixes me with a gaze I can’t quite read. “I know giving it up wasn’t easy. But it was for your safety, and you did the right thing.”
Yep. Way to miss the point entirely. “Oh,” is all I manage to say.
“You still have your classes.”
I offer a tight smile. “Right. I know.”
But he’s dead wrong, on all counts. I’m not mourning my job. If anything, I’m mourning my life. My clean, simple life where I was a no-name wedding planner with no connection to the Danilo family.
Now, Anatoli is looking for me. He’s trying to track me down, and if he does, all hell will break loose.
Petyr will find out the truth about me. He’ll realize he married the enemy, and then what?
I doubt he’d be so concerned about my safety.
About whether or not I’m exposing myself by going to work or to class or—or anywhere.
And maybe I’m mourning that embrace I saw on screen, too. That honest, loving, all-consuming embrace I can never truly have.
Because love like that? It doesn’t exist. And if it did…
Petyr Gubarev certainly wouldn’t be the one to give it to me.
We eat in silence for the rest of the documentary. When the credits start to roll, Petyr turns towards me. “Come upstairs.”
Despite everything, my heart still stutters. There’s a heat in his eyes, but there’s something gentler under it, too. Something unexpectedly kind.
Maybe I should take it while I can. His kindness, his warmth.
God knows it won’t last forever.
So I stand, breathless, and follow him upstairs.