Chapter 12 Roman
ROMAN
I don’t let the room see it. I smile for a man who wants to tell me an old story about my father. I lift a glass of water. I let a captain’s wife kiss my cheek. Inside, my hands want to choke the life out of Vitaly.
Right now, I think I could actually do it.
Mina stands close. Her face is perfect for this moment. Calm. Bright. She looks like the bride everyone wants to see. Sunshine and happiness personified.
Even though she just told me the goblet is poisoned.
And that Fyodor met with my son to murder my wife.
I don’t know how long he has been betraying me to Vitaly, but there’s no way my son entered our grounds without the old man’s help.
Which means Fyodor has likely been working in secret with Vitaly ever since I disinherited him.
Fyodor was my closest, most trusted advisor. A second father to me. The pain of this betrayal is searing, and I must force it down to continue the charade of this wedding day, or the guests will know something is wrong.
Something is wrong. Fyodor is dead. Mina, my new bride who has already been through too much for one lifetime, found him after overhearing his plans to murder her.
She should have never had to know about any of that, let alone hear it firsthand while she was alone and vulnerable with our infant sons.
And Vitaly is here somewhere.
Fuck.
I do the one thing I can do without breaking the illusion I built. I raise my glass again. “To absent friends.” The crowd salutes to that and drinks. The band starts another song, and the crowd moves to follow it.
I lean to Mina’s ear. “Walk with me.”
My hand covers hers on the stroller handle for one beat.
I do not take my eyes off the room. I turn us like any couple who wants air.
Marcus steps into the current and opens a path.
Tanner closes the space behind us so no one drifts the wrong way.
Two more of my men split off and cover the far corners. Sergei attends invitees.
Guests’ guards watch and pretend they are not watching. They keep their distance. They also count my steps. Let them count.
We reach the corridor, and the noise falls away. That is when I allow the first breath that feels like breathing. I take us past the service door. We stop at the room Mina mentioned. A man I trust stands by the stroller now. He gives me a nod and keeps his eyes on my sons.
“Marcus, Vitaly is here. Get eyes—”
“On it,” he says before texting the eyes I have on our cameras.
Inside the room is a light. A couch. A lamp still on. A hat on a chair. A body on the rug.
Fyodor is on his back with his head turned a little to the left, like he started to listen to something and then forgot to finish.
There is a small hole next to his sternum.
The blood is not everywhere. It has soaked into the wool rug and darkened a circle under him.
Close range. Suppressed. Clean. He did not have time to stand.
He did not expect the shot from the man he thought he could trust.
The old man never listened to a damn word I said about Vitaly, and it got him killed, just as I feared it would.
No one should experience their worst fears coming true, particularly on their wedding day. If we make it to our first anniversary, I hope to forget the next few minutes and focus on how beautiful my bride is, how nice it is that everyone came out to see us on our special day.
I hope I do not recall Fyodor’s bullet hole.
I cross the room and kneel. I touch his wrist out of habit even though I know. No pulse. I take his hat from the chair and set it by his head. He liked his hat.
For one long second my vision narrows. It is not grief alone. It is the sensation of a foundation you trusted turning out to be made of spiderwebs.
He was with me since I was tall enough to sit in a meeting and not be told to go to bed.
He taught me how to read a room. He stepped between me and my father when that was the only way to keep us from tearing each other apart.
He kept my secrets when I was nineteen and too sure of myself.
He told me when I was wrong and he was right about half of those times.
He was also a believer in the old order.
Our family’s traditions. Firstborn son. Title by blood.
He wanted a world where I die and Vitaly takes the chair because it is his birthright.
He could not imagine that tradition can be a weapon in the wrong hands.
He could not stand the thought that I would name anyone but my eldest son as heir even after everything.
Clinging to the old ways got him killed. Betting on the wrong man got him killed. Both can be true at the same time.
My gut twists at the sight of his body. At the thought of all the years between us. Fyodor always did what he thought was right, and that’s the worst insult of all in this. It is betrayal, in its purest form. Fyodor betrayed me. My son betrayed him.
It is also an answer to a test I have been running for a long time.
Ever since Vitaly went rogue when he found out I was not planning for him to succeed me.
I didn’t have someone else in mind at the time, but I knew he was not the man for the job.
He overheard an argument with Fyodor on the matter, and ever since then, he has been a madman.
No. That’s not true. He was a madman long before that night.
Mina is steady. Her hands are small fists at her sides. I do not want this to be the first lesson she learns about my work. But I do not get to choose the order of her lessons.
“We will continue,” I say, quiet and even. “You and I will go back to the room and finish what we started. The guests will finish their plates. The band will play. You will not leave my side unless I ask you to. We will dance if we must.”
She looks from me to Fyodor and back. “Even though we know Vitaly is here somewhere?”
“If we do not, he knows we know he’s here. He will know his plan has gone sideways, and he will act irrationally. He must think we will fall into his trap eventually.”
“And when we don’t?”
I nod once. “We will go on our honeymoon. With him out there, knowing he missed his shot at us.”
She lowers her voice. “But he will try again.”
“He will.” I do not soften it. “I cannot kill a shadow, Mina. But I can kill a man. Tonight he tried a cup. Next he will try a roof or something else he thinks is clever. I will meet him there.”
Her mouth opens and closes. “Your calmness is for show, isn’t it?”
“It is for protection. If I break in front of them, I pay for it. We all do. Authority and power are stories we tell each other, and little more than that. So, I will not break, and neither will you.”
She steps closer. She is not afraid of me or the body on the floor. “I won’t. You don’t need to worry about that. What about your men?”
“I need to see who locks down and who runs his mouth. If we see any of the families leaving early or acting oddly, we need to know who spoke up.” I glare at Fyodor one last time.
I taste bile. “Fyodor chose my father’s tradition over my judgment.
He thought Vitaly was owed my title upon my death.
He brought my son into my house and helped him set a trap for my wife on our wedding day.
There is only one end for that. Fyodor got what was coming to him. ”
She shudders. “That is exactly what your son said. I heard him say it. ‘You’ll get what’s coming to you.’ Then the sound. Then the fall.”
I do not want her to see me the same way she sees Vitaly.
Not even for a breath. But on this point, the truth is the truth.
I meet her eyes and do not look away. “I never want to have anything in common with my son, but on this score, he is not wrong. He saved me a bullet, because I would have done the same thing once I found out.”
Killing Fyodor myself would have hurt worse than finding his body here now. In that respect, Vitaly did me a favor.
A wretched favor.
Footsteps approach. Two of my men step in without glancing at the body. They carry the folded shroud from the estate kit and a black bag. They do not talk. It’s not the first time they’ve processed a dead body in this house. It won’t be the last.
I turn back to Mina. “We have five minutes before someone important decides to be offended that we aren’t there to entertain him.
” I keep my voice soft. “Here is what we do. We walk back. You keep your hand on my arm. You smile and nod and look like a woman who is happy to be admired. If I stop, you stop. If I go left, you go left. You get me?”
“Yes,” she says. Her chin is high. She is holding it together remarkably well for a woman in her position. “What about the boys?”
“They return to the nursery. Two men are at that door. One woman who works for me is with them who knows how to hold a gun and a baby.”
She breathes once. Twice. She nods. “Alright.”
We step into the hall. Marcus takes the stroller and pushes it to the nursery with one of the men. Tanner holds the line at the far end. Traveling the halls of my home, knowing Vitaly could be here, is unsettling. I have the best security, and he managed to get past all of them.
Fyodor must have helped him get in somehow. That hole in security will be filled one way or another.
“I am scared,” Mina mutters. “I’m also relieved you’re not pretending this didn’t happen or trying to keep me from the truth. Thank you for that.”
“I will always tell you the truth, Mina. And fear keeps you alive. Listen to that instinct.”
“How do we know he isn’t just going to burst into the garden and mow everyone down with a machine gun?”
I huff a laugh at that. “First of all, he wouldn’t get far. Most of the people in there are armed. Secondly, he wants to be pakhan, and the people inside are the ones he wants to impress, not murder. Trying to kill us all would only end his chances faster.”
She takes half a breath. “So, he could wait until the party is over and then come at us?”
“He won’t get the chance. Do you trust me?”
She stops walking, so I do as well. Her sparkling blue eyes meet mine, and for a moment, I’m that nervous kid again. Her soft face is serious now. “I trust you with my life, Roman.”
It feels like the highest honor until she adds, “I trust you with our sons’ lives too.”
That is the highest honor. Something in my chest goes tight, and I stop breathing. I rasp, “Thank you.”
She starts to walk, so I keep up. We step back into the edge of the reception. The lights are warmer now. The music is a familiar song. Men turn their heads because men like to clock the moments when something might happen. Nothing does.
I take her hand and guide her back toward the head table. We pass three faces I will speak to later. They all get a nod. None of them gets more. My wife has all my attention.
She stands with her hand on my arm. She smiles for a woman who wants a picture. She looks like nothing is wrong. She is the reason I will set everything right.