Chapter 11 Mina
MINA
The reception is festive. Warm lights. Loud laughter.
Every table has its own orbit. Glasses clink and people expect me to remember ten names a minute and a story for each one.
I keep my smile steady and try to keep up, but the walls are closing in.
The band plays a song I know and then something I don’t. Cameras hover and retreat.
Roman’s compound is built to impress. Tonight it does more.
It contains us. I feel the perimeter in the way the room breathes.
His security is everywhere, both men and women in dark suits with bulges beneath the jacket.
They drift, all eyes, no smiles. Some guests brought their own men.
The air has a hum under the music. It says behave.
I do my part. I shake hands. I accept blessings from grandmothers. I nod through a story about a fishing trip that ended in a storm. My cheeks ache by the time we reach the third cluster of laughing drunk people. The ringing in my ears won’t die down.
Then Fyodor arrives at my shoulder, takes one small step forward and the knot of people in front of us loosens without knowing why. “This is Mrs. Malinova,” he says, low enough that only I hear it. “She remembers faces. Say her name twice.”
I do, and her eyes brighten. We move two steps.
“Mr. Korsakov,” he murmurs next. “He invests in harbors and grudges. Smile. Promise nothing.”
I give a polite smile and promise nothing. He beams.
We slide to a pair near the lilies. “Judge Becker,” Fyodor says. “First name today. He prefers it when there are no robes. Robin.”
I thank the judge for coming. The judge takes my hand like I rescued him from paperwork.
A server appears with water. Fyodor intercepts and presses a glass into my palm. “Drink.”
The water cuts through a layer of nerves I could not swallow. “Thanks for that.”
He stays at my side as a guide and a shield. He jokes once, gently, about the way I say a certain surname. He is kind about it. I am grateful for how easy he makes this look.
Roman moves through the crowd like a steady current. People bow toward him without bowing. He says very little and means all of it. When our eyes meet across the room, my shoulders settle without me telling them to. It is less stressful knowing I have him in my corner now.
The twins are upstairs in the nursery with a house nurse from Roman’s staff, but I feel the tug of them in my ribs. I lean toward Roman. “I need to feed the babies.”
He nods at once. “Use the sitting room by the winter garden. Marcus will clear the path.”
Marcus is already moving. The band swells to cover the shift. Tanner signals two more of Roman’s team to watch the corridor. Guests’ bodyguards glance up when we pass. They note my face, note Marcus, and return to their corners.
The sitting room is two turns off the main hall. It’s quiet when the door shuts. A low lamp. A couch and a chair. A table with water and a neat stack of cloths. Roman must have known I’d need this space. It is odd. I’m not used to someone anticipating my needs.
It makes me suspicious of him. But he’s already gotten everything from me. What more could he want?
A minute later the house nurse wheels in the double stroller. “They’re hungry. I’ll be right outside.” She leaves me alone and pulls the door shut.
Peace lands like a blanket. I unclip the top of my dress and settle in the chair.
Yuri first. He burrows and latches, loud with relief.
I breathe through the first ache and touch his hair.
His body goes heavy. Xander fusses in the stroller, then accepts the bottle I tuck into the crook of my elbow.
I hold them both for a moment because I can.
The noise of the reception turns to a soft vibration through the wall.
Mom was right. Combining breastfeeding and bottle feeding was the right way to go for twins. I close my eyes and count breaths. Everything is ordinary in a way I crave. My shoulders drop in the quiet of the sitting room. I can finally breathe deep in here. No more eyes on me, other than my boys.
It hasn’t been a minute when I hear voices through the wall. Not loud. Carried by the old vent near the ceiling. Russian. Two men.
I do not move. I haven’t told anyone here that I understand Russian. I learned it for a different life, when I thought Vitaly’s future would need me to bridge rooms for him. The language stayed after everything else went bad.
“Is it ready?” one man asks.
“The happy couple won’t make it through the night,” the other answers.
What did he just say?
“The poison works that fast?”
“It works that slow,” the other says. “It’ll take hours with the dose on their wedding goblet. But if I put more on it, they’ll notice the taste is off.”
The room tilts. My mouth dries. I press my tongue to the back of my teeth to keep them from clicking.
“No antidote?”
“Not in this country,” the other answers.
I know that voice. The exact tone. The measured way he shapes consonants. It is Fyodor. The man who has been a constant at Roman’s side. The man who guided me through this chaos for the last hour. What the hell is going on?
The other voice is familiar. The room fuzzes around the edges while my brain turns the sound until it clicks into place.
“Good work,” the first man says.
“When you’re pakhan, Vitaly, you owe me,” Fyodor replies.
My stomach drops. The man who wants to kill me is on the other side of the wall.
“You’ll get what’s coming to you,” Vitaly says.
A muffled sound follows. Not a shout. Not a struggle. A soft pop and then a heavy slide. A body meets carpet. The silence after is the wrong kind. Fyodor is dead. Has to be.
Yuri startles at a tremor only babies feel. He unlatches to protest and then latches again when I murmur his name. Xander kicks and grumbles. I cue the bottle back into his mouth and pat his leg with my knuckles.
I do not cry. I cannot. And I cannot let them cry either.
Vitaly will hear.
The door next door opens. Footsteps cross carpet. The door closes.
I wait three more slow breaths because fear begs me to freeze. Then I tuck myself away, fix my dress, and ease Yuri into the stroller. I settle Xander next to him. I check the straps with hands that want to shake. The buckles click. I open my door and step into the hall.
The corridor is empty. The air has that hollow feel a hallway gets after something heavy leaves it. I press my palm to the door of the room next door. It gives.
The room is a twin of mine. Same couch. Same lamp.
Different air. Fyodor lies on the rug by the chair.
One hand is close to his throat. His eyes are open.
A red hole near his heart has ruined his suit.
Keeping one hand on the stroller, I take one step in and one step back.
I do not touch him. I do not call for help.
I look once more to make sure my brain is telling the truth. It is.
Two words flash in my mind.
The goblet.
I move. Not a run. If I run, I could trigger a panic.
A quick, controlled walk that looks like a happy bride rejoining her guests with her children.
Marcus steps into my path two corners later.
His eyes go to my face. He does not ask out loud.
He turns and matches my pace. Tanner leaves his post by the window and falls in behind us.
Two more from Roman’s team drift to cover the far end of the hall.
A rival’s bodyguard watches us pass and lifts his chin at Marcus. Marcus does not return it.
Roman stands with a man whose laugh is too loud. A server approaches the dais with the wedding goblet on a small tray because someone insisted on tradition. It catches the light. The room anticipates a toast. My lungs seize.
I keep my face arranged for photographs. I smile prettily at anyone who looks my way, and at anyone who coos toward my sleeping sons. I touch a woman’s elbow in passing and thank her for coming. I nod at a man who wants to be seen near me. I never take my eyes off Roman.
I reach him as the server dips the tray. I place my hand on Roman’s wrist like a wife asking for a word. He looks down at my fingers, and then at our sons, and then at my face. His brows relax by a fraction that only I would see.
“Everything all right?” he asks for the benefit of the men near us.
“Yes, of course,” I say in the same tone. I lean in so my lips are near his ear. I keep my smile in place. I whisper only what he needs. “Do not drink. The goblet is poisoned. The dose is already on the cup.”
His pulse jumps once under my fingers. He does not look at the tray. He does not look at the doors. He keeps his face smooth and his posture easy.
“One more photograph before we toast.” He turns to the server with a pleasant nod. “Set the cup aside. My wife and I will use water.”
The server stutters. He recovers. He slides the tray back. Marcus has already stepped up to intercept. Tanner is a shadow in motion, peeling away to handle the piece I cannot watch. The band plays on. Guests keep talking. No one notices that the center of the room just shifted.
Roman lifts a plain glass and raises it to the room. “To our guests,” he says. “To quiet nights and long, happy marriages.” We toast, and so does everyone else, none the wiser.
We pose for one shot and then I use my hand on Roman’s sleeve to steer us three steps away from the table. It looks like affection. It is strategy.
He keeps his voice low under the hum. “How did you know?”
I don’t want to say it, but I must. “When I was in the sitting room, I overheard a conversation between Fyodor and Vitaly, discussing poisoning us with the goblet.”
He arches a brow at that.
“They were next door. Fyodor…served his purpose to Vitaly by getting the poison into the cup, and Vitaly shot him. His body is still in the room. I got here as fast as I could.”
“You did well,” he says. He does not change expression. He looks past me at nothing in particular. He nods toward a man as if he agrees with a story he did not hear. His hand covers mine for one second, then lifts. “Stay with me.”
“I will.” I tip my chin like I am agreeing to try another canapé. I keep my smile steady for the guests who are watching my mouth. I know how to act normal when the world tips. I learned that a long time ago.
We move together along the line of tables, pushing the stroller along with us as if it was the plan all along.
We accept congratulations. We thank people for their gifts.
We speak about the courtyard and the band and a dessert that has not come yet.
I do not look back at the tray. I do not look at the door to the corridor.
I do not look at the wall behind which the room sits with a body on a rug.
Roman squeezes my fingers once more as we pass the arch. It could be for show. I know it’s for me. I breathe in. I breathe out. I stay pretty. I whisper nothing more until he asks. I keep us upright while the evening rewrites itself around a cup no one will touch.
I have pretended to be normal more times than I can count. Today is just another time, I tell myself. Ignore the shaking hands. The heart palpitations. The sweat trickling down my spine. None of that matters.
The show must go on.