Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
Xeniya Morozova
Iswung open the glass door to the flower shop and turned to look back at Neeve, who shrugged.
“Weird entrance to a mafia-owned club,” she said, stepping up to meet me. “Even weirder place to have an engagement party.”
It was my official engagement party with the entire Bratva in attendance.
Although I had been around for a month, sifting through data at both Severin’s house and at my house on the cloned drive.
But now it was time to make everything official.
Normally, mafia marriages moved much faster than this, but neither Severin nor I felt the urge to rush.
We planned to get married in six months—an eternity for an arranged marriage.
“It’s speakeasy-themed,” Callum, Neeve’s older brother, said.
The store was bright with warm yellow lights.
Unsurprisingly, it dripped with flowers of all types.
But the ones that stood out and caused my eyebrows to form a deep crease were the dandelions.
They were everywhere: in large vases, under crystal glass, and the entire back wall behind the register was covered in large white puffs—the seed-only versions of dandelions.
The cashier flashed a bright smile as we entered. “Ah, you must be here for the engagement party.” She stepped out from behind the register. “Follow me. I’ll show you the way.”
She led us into another room full of flowers and bookshelves, and she walked over to a shelf and pulled out a book. A metal click sounded, and the shelf swung inward, opening to a foyer covered in Art Deco-inspired decor and wallpaper. The light was warm, and the walls were red and black.
“Welcome to the Gilded Dandelion,” the host said, standing at a podium. “The ballroom is this way.” She motioned for us to go farther through the double doors with intricate gilded crown molding.
The place was beyond opulent.
It was like money vomited on the club, but not in an uncouth way. It was tasteful but expensive.
The ballroom was… something else. It was like the place was dipped in crimson and gold. It kept the nineteen-twenties-inspired decor and vibe, but elevated it.
I stopped short when my eyes landed on the stage. At the sides, framing it like bookends, were two three-story, gilded dandelion sculptures built into the walls. The seeds even hung down and over part of the stage.
On the platform was perhaps one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. She looked like a redheaded version of Marilyn Monroe. She sang soft jazz in a sexy soprano.
She was striking, but it was the dandelion sculptures that caused me to pause.
When was this club built?
And who built it?
Confusion coiled through the rungs of my ribs like a snake. Because Dandelion was his nickname for me, but there was no way he could have made this club for me. Right?
Get rid of her.
The words ghosted across my skin, and my blood boiled. There was no way he had built this for me. But then why? Was my nickname even special at all? Had he called other girls his little dandelion, too? He was a whore.
It was very possible that nothing about our time together had been special.
I swallowed hard and glanced at Neeve, who stepped up to my side again and squeezed my hand. She knew everything about my past and Severin. She knew I was rattled without saying a word.
I’d known about Severin’s club. It was one of his businesses he ran long before he became Pakhan, but I never bothered to visit it or put a camera in it. So this was the first time I’d seen it. Severin wasn’t my target until recently.
I had so many other men to stalk and kill first.
And if I’m being honest, I was ignoring him and his name at the top of my black ledger. Yes, I did actually have a little black book with all the names of the men I was going to kill in it.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t ignore Severin anymore. Not after I kidnapped his father.
Without hesitation, I went up to the bar and ordered a top-shelf glass of whiskey. Severin had gotten me into whiskey, and now it was one of my main drinks.
I scanned the crowd for him, and when our eyes met, I shivered. The weight of his stare was heavy. However, I had intentionally worn a black dress that would make any man notice.
And he noticed.
But he didn’t make any moves to come over to me. No, he just stared at me with a playboy smirk on his lips, pretending to be immersed in whatever conversation he was having with the very beautiful blonde in front of him.
An emotion I couldn’t quite place stirred in my stomach.
Between us was a sea of Russians and some Irish. All of the major bosses and their wives and daughters were here, mixing and mingling, and it felt like every eye had latched onto me.
Gossip dripped from their painted lips and fake smiles.
A knot tightened in my chest because I hated being the center of attention. But Keira didn’t. Keira was vivacious and gregarious.
So, I plastered on a fake smile and whispered through my teeth to Neeve, “Please kill me.”
Neeve wiggled her nose in amusement. “You agreed to marry him.”
“Yeah, and I also plan on killing him before that happens.”
Luckily, we were far enough away that no one would hear us.
“But they don’t know that.” She drew the words out playfully. “They’re raging balls of jealousy and fury because you landed the hottest, richest Russian in the room. Oh, and he happens to be Pakhan now.”
I glowered at her. “Only because I am slowly killing his father.”
“With my help.”
I nodded. She and Gemma helped me keep my victims alive for as long as possible. Although some I killed quickly. I tended to kill them quicker if they only rented me once or just aided the Order.
I took a big sip of my drink and looked back out at the vultures just as Nika and Ilya walked up to us. “Good to see you again, Keira,” Nika said, far too chipper, and it was very apparent that she did not find talking to me a joy at all.
“Good to see you too,” I said with an equally fake demeanor. I never said I wasn’t petty.
“We thought it would be a great idea to introduce you to all the major players on our side.”
“Wonderful.”
Nika escorted us around the room like she was our puppeteer, first introducing us to the lower-level bosses and then to the higher ones.
Kazimir was the first brigadier she introduced us to, and he took the opportunity to kiss the back of my hand and glare at Severin from across the room.
Severin, in turn, glared back but still refused to come over.
The whole night, he hadn’t moved an inch closer to me, but I felt his gaze on me like the burning sun. If I weren’t careful, I’d turn bright red from it.
Kaz excused himself quickly after that interaction. I had no idea why, but he and Nika had shared a rather unpleasant moment, so I was fairly certain they still had a complicated relationship.
Complicated enough that he had literally run away from her.
Next was Grigori Larin, whom I generally enjoyed. He was a pleasant man in his mid-fifties.
After him came Leon Orlov, who was fine enough, albeit ornery. But his daughter was insufferable. Gossip was her profession, and oh, did she love her job. She was one year older than me, had always been a massive pain in my ass, and always wanted to marry Severin.
I was pretty sure they fucked once.
Forgettable, I guessed, because Severin loved to be a repeat offender if he enjoyed the lay.
Alina was also the reason Aleksandr had found out about Severin and me, probably because of her petty jealousy.
I almost put her on my kill list for it.
But, of course, I didn’t. I wasn’t a monster… or at least that much of a monster.
“You must find all of this terribly overwhelming, don’t you?” Alina Orlova said, her voice a high, bright soprano that was slightly off-key.
She was the type of person who would sing and think she had perfect pitch, tone, and ability… Meanwhile, she sang a little off-key, almost every note.
“I think I’ll be all right,” I said, my British accent thick as I tapped a fingernail against my glass.
“And where are you from?” Alina asked, her lips in a tight line.
“London.”
“How lovely,” she said back, equally as blunt as I had just been. She looked me up and down for a long moment before lacing venom into her words. “Severin has always had such interesting tastes.”
I was pretty sure Alina was now insulting both the current version of me and the previous one. And I found that too amusing. I snorted and tried to cover it up.
Neeve choked on her drink and turned away to pull herself together. She’d been quite useless so far through all these interactions.
“His tastes haven’t changed much,” Neeve whispered to me, and I wanted to hit her.
“Some men just know quality,” I said, scrunching my nose.
My eyes scanned through the crowd again, looking for any respite from this parade of displeasures.
Severin had completely disappeared, leaving me to fend for myself. Was it a test? To see if I could handle being the Pakhan’s wife, where I would be constantly left alone at parties to entertain guests while the men worked?
Well, I would absolutely hate that. Any version of myself would bristle at being left to the “feminine” jobs.
I was a hacker and brilliant. I was at the very least an advisor, and nowadays, I was the boss. I ran an organization, albeit a small one, that hunted down and destroyed evil men.
I wasn’t going to be a wife whose only job was to smile at misogynistic men.
“Ladies, would you mind if I cut in?” Mikhail Volkov stepped up beside us. “I’d love to get to know my future sister-in-law a little better.”
“Oh, of course,” Alina said, linking her arm around Neeve’s and pulling her away from Mikhail and me.
Neeve’s eyebrows shot up as she was pulled away. I shrugged back at her before turning my attention to probably the second-most handsome man in the room.
His half-brother was the first. Unfortunately, I would always think Severin was the most attractive man in any room.