2. Ana
ANA
Six years ago
Markov’s funeral
The church is packed because grief in public is a performance, and no one in the Bratva shies away from performance, even when it means paying respects to a man they despised.
That part is understandable. Vadim Markov, my husband and the Pakhan of the Markov household, rose to power early in life and held it through fear, loyalty, and careful displays of control.
He understood power and money only as things to be taken, and he bent every rule available to build them.
When his own bodyguards shot him while he was walking through his rose garden in full bloom, they did it at close range and didn’t hesitate, leaving twenty-eight entry wounds, nine of them lodged inside him.
He died there on the stones, surrounded by flowers he had ordered planted for appearances alone. His followers, the Bratva, and what passed for family chose to keep his death quiet while they argued over the finer points of his legacy and how to divide what he left behind.
I am part of that legacy. I learned that much at my husband’s funeral. In death, his body looks real enough. The consequences look worse.
Black coats line the pews, polished shoes scrape marble, and the muted murmur of voices never fully settles, because such men don’t do silence well unless they see reason for it.
I sit in the front row, spine straight, hands folded in my lap, dressed the way a widow is supposed to be dressed, modest and restrained and unremarkable enough to pass inspection.
The dress was chosen for me, tailored by someone who didn’t ask what I wanted, and the veil is thin enough that I can see every face without being fully seen in return.
My husband’s funeral smells exactly like what his realm exuded, money, gun oil, and old resentment.
Every man in attendance believes one of those things gives him the reason to size me up longer than necessary.
I know most of them because Vadim paraded me in front of them while he was carving out his deals.
I know what they took from my husband when he was alive, and I know what they think they can take from me now that he’s dead.
One of the older councilmen, Viktor Andreyevich, approaches.
His suit fits like it was sewn twenty years ago, and his fingers twitch before they touch my elbow.
He’s testing the water, trying to see if I flinch.
I give him no reaction. He smiles anyway as though my lack of reaction invited him forward.
Before he can speak, a younger voice cuts in. It’s Sergei Orlov. Young, polished, and aware of it. He carries his money easily and speaks as if he expects to be heard. “Mrs. Markova, the council extends its—”
“Save it,” I say.
The words come out colder than I expect, and sharper. I let it be so.
Sergei straightens, his face faltering. “Tradition dictates that you be accounted for.”
Viktor nods once, his hawklike eyes watching, waiting for the slightest crack in my expression.
Irina saves me from further trouble. She steps in like a woman who’s shut down men before. “If the gentlemen would follow me, Mrs. Markova isn’t in a state to speak.” She doesn’t raise her voice. She may be my attendant, but her word always lands like steel.
She steers them out with a small nod, murmuring something about protocol and mourning. Before she disappears, she casts a brief glance over her shoulder, checking on me, like always. I give her a look that says thank you.
Markov’s body is barely cold. The power he held is still bleeding heat. And already, men are sniffing around the empty seat. They don’t like a throne without a hand on it.
The service begins. The priest speaks in careful phrases about loss, legacy, and strength, about order maintained through sacrifice, and I listen without reacting because if I react, I’ll say terrible things and because reacting is a weakness here.
Inside the chapel, it’s still now. Guards stand motionless, eyes forward. The council wears respectful faces, but I feel glances flick over me like knives. News crews wait outside with their cameras capped, held back for the moment by ritual and protocol.
Someone whimpers, an old crone three seats down, sniffling into a crocheted handkerchief. A voice behind me murmurs, “That’s the aunt,” then, more careful, “Gospozhá Markova.” She means me. She’s introducing the Markov family to her own.
Gospozhá. Wife. The word cuts. Markov married me because my father had a debt to settle. I was fifteen, naive enough to believe in princes and honor. That illusion shattered the day my father found me on the terrace watching the city sky turn gold against blue.
“Daughter,” he said, voice heavy with something he wanted me to believe was sorrow. “I’m asking this of you. I tried. I worked hard, but this house, the mortgage, your mother’s medical bills…” His words trailed off.
I thought he meant school fees. A trip abroad. Something ordinary.
Then he said it plainly. Markov wants to marry you. Apparently, he had seen me on my way to school and decided I would be his bride.
Everything went dull and distant. I stopped hearing him. I ran inside and found my mother by the samovar, her face still and emptied of choice. It told me everything before she spoke.
Sold. I didn’t understand it then. I knew Vadim was a powerful man and that my father couldn’t make him walk away.
What I didn’t know was that my father had been paid well for his compliance.
The money cleared his debts in full. More than that, it bought him leverage, favors he could call in later. Because I was useful, profitable.
Vadim explained it to me himself the first time I refused to entertain an infrastructure contractor working on state projects. He told me what I had cost, then proved it by throwing the numbers at me like a receipt, something purchased and already accounted for.
I learned early that reaction is weakness, long before Markov perfected the ways he hurt me that never showed on skin or bone. In life, he used me as proof that he could control something beautiful and compliant. In death, his choice has turned me into a loose end no one is sure what to do with.
A woman rises from two pews down and approaches. “Mrs. Markova, I’m so sorry,” Natalya Voronina says as she steps in, all pearls and politics. She reaches for my hand, hesitates, then rests her manicured fingers lightly on my shoulder instead.
“I appreciate it,” I murmur, keeping my eyes down.
She nods, already shifting away. Her condolences last three seconds, long enough to be seen, short enough to move on. She’s beckoned by someone in the next pew, a deputy’s wife who sits beside a minister’s mistress.
Good. Because that’s what’s expected, and because anything more would invite questions I don’t intend to answer.
I keep my gaze on the casket, on the polished wood and the finality it represents, and I remind myself that I survived Markov. Maybe I can survive whatever comes next, even if I don’t yet know the shape it will take.
From where I sit, I can almost smell Dominik Volkov. He’s standing near the aisle, close enough that I can see the line of his shoulder without turning my head, far enough that no one would think anything of it unless they knew what they were looking at.
He’s dressed like the rest of them. Black suit, clean, controlled. But he doesn’t fake grief the way the others do. No bowed head, no performance.
I know the shape of him under that jacket. The way he goes still when he’s holding himself back. The clean-shaven jaw when he locks it in place. There’s heat in him. It hums under his skin. My body reacts before I can tell it not to.
My palms get damp, and I shift in my seat, unsettled by my own body.
Part of me wants to laugh at the wrongness of it.
My husband lies in his coffin a few feet away, and grief doesn’t steady me at all.
It just leaves room for my body to answer to his man in a way I didn’t invite and can’t shut down.
Frankly, I’ve had enough. Markov was a fool, drunk on power, blind to consequence.
He made enemies like promises, gambled on drugs, women, and land with no sense of cost. Danger wasn’t a warning to him.
It was a thrill. The fact that he lasted this long is the real miracle.
As for me, he did nothing worth mourning.
Not one act of kindness I owe grief for.
My thoughts shift to Dominik. He hasn’t said a word to me since we arrived, and I prefer it that way. Markov trusted Dominik to clean up his messes, and Dominik did it without complaint, without flair, and without mercy when it was required. And in Markov’s books, that mattered more than kindness.
After Markov’s death, he’s assigned to protect me, but he never treats me like property.
Not once. He’s the only one who looks me in the eyes with kindness.
There’s danger in him, sealed tightly beneath a surface that rarely gives anything away, but it never turns toward me.
I don’t know if that’s what draws me to him, or if it’s how the room feels when he’s there… less lonely.
The service ends. The men stand first, and the movement ripples forward, coats brushing, boots shifting, a coordinated impatience from people unused to waiting. I rise when I’m meant to and move when the woman beside me nudges my arm, steering me toward the aisle like I might forget my place.
Hands reach for me as I pass, some light, some lingering, and each time, Dominik moves just enough to break the contact without making a scene.
He steps into space before it closes, redirects a wrist with a murmured word, blocks a path with his shoulder.
He does it all with the kind of calm authority that doesn’t invite argument.