Connor
The meeting with Diomid went about as well as a conversation can go when a man is handing his sister to a stranger with a ruined face.
He arrived the morning after Liam's call.
Walked into the estate like he owned it, which I respect, because the alternative is walking in like you're afraid of it, and that's worse.
He's younger than I expected, late-twenties but carrying himself like a man twice his age, with the kind of quiet intensity that tells me he's been running his family's operation since he was barely old enough to drive.
He looked at me the way I knew he would. Took in the scar, the dead eye, the size of me. Didn't flinch, which tells me the Agapovs are made of the same steel across the bloodline. Then he sat across from me in Liam's office and asked me one question.
Why my sister?
I told him the truth. That she walked into this house and asked for help and I was the one who answered.
That I don't know her yet, but I know what I saw when she looked at me, and it wasn't pity.
That I can't promise I'll be a perfect husband because I don't know what that looks like, but I can promise that no one will touch her while I'm breathing.
He watched me through all of it without interruption
Then he said, If you break her, I'll find a way to break you, Orlov or not.
I told him I'd expect nothing less.
He and Liam spent the rest of the day hammering out the details of the alliance.
I left them to it. That's Liam's world, the politics, the negotiations, the careful chess of keeping the Council satisfied while expanding our reach.
I'm better with my hands than I am with strategy, and Liam knows it, which is why he handles the boardroom and I handle the problems that can't be solved with a handshake.
That was yesterday. Now it's Friday, a day before the wedding, and the house has been taken over.
The women have turned the estate into a command center.
Every time I walk through the main floor, there's a new crisis happening.
Flowers. Seating. Music. Katya is somehow project-managing the entire thing from the kitchen table while eating her way through a second batch of Ma's cinnamon waffles.
Grace has Lorcan on one hip and a phone pressed to her ear, calling in favors from florists who apparently owe her.
Tanya is handling the logistics with the quiet, terrifying efficiency of someone who used to coordinate Aidan's business operations.
Iris is doing whatever Iris does, which seems to involve strong opinions about everything and a refusal to be assigned a task she didn't choose herself.
Anya is in the middle of it. Smiling. Laughing about something Lorcan did.
Leaning into Katya's shoulder to look at photos on a phone screen.
She fits. That's the thing that keeps catching me off guard.
She walked into this house two days ago as a stranger, and she's already woven herself into the fabric of it like she's been here all along.
I watch it from the edges, the way I watch most things, and I let myself have the small, stupid hope that maybe this is going to work.
But work doesn't stop for weddings. Not in this family.
I'm in the study Liam gave me as a temporary office, going through accounts from the Dublin operation I left behind, when my phone buzzes. It's Declan, my second in Dublin, and the message is short enough that I know it's bad before I read it.
Baron's people hit the pub on Grafton Street. Smashed the place up. Left a message. "The Orlovs take what isn't theirs. So will we."
I stare at the screen.
The pub on Grafton Street is one of ours.
A front, mostly, running clean money through the taps to wash what comes in from other channels.
It's small. It's not important in the grand scheme of things.
And that's exactly why the Baron chose it.
He's not trying to hurt us. He's trying to send a message.
He's poking, prodding, testing how far he can push before we push back.
I call Declan.
"How bad?"
"Windows, furniture, the back office. They tossed the place but didn't take anything. Made sure the staff saw their faces." Declan's voice is tight. "This is a statement, Connor. He wants us to know he can reach us."
"He can reach a pub. He can't reach us."
"Maybe not. But if he starts hitting more of our businesses here, the lads are going to want to respond, and I can't hold them off forever."
"Hold them off for now. I'll talk to Liam."
I hang up and sit there for a minute, turning the phone over in my hand.
The Baron is doing exactly what Liam predicted.
He can't challenge the marriage directly, not with the Council already processing the Agapov alliance, so he's going to chip away at the edges.
Hit our businesses. Cause enough noise that the Council starts asking questions.
Make it expensive to be the family that took his prize.
And it's only going to get worse after Saturday.
I look at the phone one more time, then put it down and head for the kitchen. Liam needs to know about Grafton Street, but it can wait until after lunch. Right now, I want to walk through the chaos of the main floor and find Anya in the middle of it and see if she smiles when she sees me coming.
She's been doing that. Smiling when I walk into a room. Small and quick, like she's trying not to let me see it, but I see it every time, and every time it lands somewhere in my chest that I didn't know was still soft.
Tomorrow she will be my wife.