Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Vittoria
The incense burns my throat.
I sit between Nico and Dmitri in the front pew of St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Cathedral, the weight of a thousand eyes pressing against my back. The church overflows with mourners dressed in black, their whispers creating a low hum that competes with the priest's chanting.
Karolina stands at the podium, her voice steady despite the tears tracking down her cheeks. She speaks in Russian first, then English, painting a picture of a father who taught her to ride horses and read Tolstoy before bed.
"He was not a gentle man," she says, her fingers gripping the wooden edges. "But he loved fiercely. Completely. Without reservation."
I keep my gaze forward, my hands folded in my lap.
We need to present a united front, he'd said this morning, his voice flat and hollow. My family. Your family. Together.
I'd wanted to tease him about making such a statement on his father's funeral day. The words had formed on my tongue, something light about him being dramatic, about the timing being morbid.
But then I'd looked at his face.
The shadows under his eyes. The rigid set of his jaw. The way his hands wouldn't stop moving, adjusting his cufflinks, smoothing his tie, reaching for something that wasn't there.
So I'd just nodded and come.
Nico shifts beside me, his shoulder brushing mine. He's been silent since we arrived, his dark eyes scanning the crowd with the precision of a surveillance camera. Lorenzo and Pietro sit on Nico's other side.
Ten of our men combined with Russian soldiers all over in and out of the church.
Karolina's voice cracks on a word I didn't hear. Something about mothers and children and the spaces between heartbeats.
Dmitri's hand finds mine.
His grip is too tight. I don't pull away. I thread my fingers through his and hold on.
I've faced this twice before.
This third time isn't about my blood family.
But somehow, sitting here with Dmitri's hand crushing mine, watching his sister struggle through words that will never be enough—it feels like it's about my future family.
Karolina finishes speaking and steps down from the podium. Natalia immediately rises to embrace her, both sisters clinging to each other in the aisle. Vladimir stands next, his movements stiff as he takes his place to speak.
I study the crowd while he talks.
The front rows hold Baganov family, mine and close associates.
Behind them, the church fills with faces I recognize from intelligence briefings and surveillance photos.
Heads of smaller organizations. Representatives from allied families.
Men and women who've come to pay respects and, more importantly, to assess.
They're watching Dmitri.
Every single one of them is measuring, wondering if the new pakhan will be as formidable as his father. Wondering if there's weakness to exploit. Opportunity to seize.
I recognize the look. I've seen it directed at Pietro a hundred times since he took over for Riccardo.
Dmitri's thumb traces circles on my knuckle. Small, repetitive. I don't think he realizes he's doing it.
Last night, Dmitri called me at two in the morning.
His voice had been rough, scraped raw from hours of silence. He'd told me about Karolina's plan—a charity foundation for cancer patients and their families. A building dedicated to research, support, community. Something permanent. Something that would outlast all of them.
In memory of Alexei Baganov, he'd said. She wants to announce it at the reception after the funeral.
I'd been half-asleep, curled in my bed with my laptop still open beside me. That's beautiful, I'd murmured.
We'll announce our engagement there too.
That had woken me up.
Dmitri it’s way too soon.
Things are moving fast now, solnyshko. I'm taking the title. People need to see stability. Strength. They need to see that the Baganov family isn't fractured by grief.
I'd sat up in bed, pushing my hair from my face. Your father just died.
Yes. A pause. And in one week, we're hosting a gala at Nexus.
That's the part that sits wrong in my chest, pressing against my ribs like a stone.
I know this because I've lived it.
Three weeks after my father's death, we hosted a charity gala.
Every member from his family was laughing and talking. And I stood by the window, watching snow fall on the garden, wondering why no one else seemed to notice that my father was dead.
This is how it works, Dmitri had said.
He's right.
You host galas. You make announcements. You smile until your face aches and shake hands until your fingers go numb.
Because the moment you stop moving, the vultures circle.
I've watched it happen. Families that took too long to recover from loss. Organizations that showed too much humanity. They got swallowed whole by rivals who smelled blood in the water.
So we become robots.
We program ourselves to function, to perform, to project strength even when we're hollow inside. We celebrate birthdays and holidays and milestones because the alternative is a death sentence in its own right.
I think about the people outside our world. The ones who lose someone and simply... stop. Who can't face Christmas without their mother or their birthday without their brother. Who give themselves permission to fall apart, to take time, to heal at whatever pace their hearts demand.
I don't judge them for it.
I envy them.
Dmitri
Vladimir finishes speaking.
My brother steps down from the podium, his face carved from the same stone as our father's headstone will be.
I release Vittoria's hand.
My legs carry me forward without conscious thought. Years of training. Years of preparation. Every step measured, every breath controlled. The priest nods as I pass him, his robes rustling like whispered prayers.
The podium feels smaller than it looked from the pew.
I place my hands on the worn wood, feeling the grooves left by generations of mourners before me. The speech sits folded in my breast pocket. Three pages of carefully crafted words that my lawyer Mikhail spent two days helping me write. Professional. Respectful. Strategic.
Every sentence designed to accomplish something.
I look out at the sea of faces.
If God himself watches from somewhere above this cathedral, he must be holding his breath. The angels painted on the ceiling stare down with golden eyes, their expressions frozen in eternal judgment.
"Alexei Baganov," I begin, my voice filling the vaulted space, "was not a man who inspired comfort. He did not offer gentle words or easy paths. He demanded excellence because he believed we were capable of it. He pushed us to our limits because he knew those limits were lies we told ourselves."
I find Karolina's face in the front row. Her eyes are red, but she nods once. Permission to continue.
"My father built an empire from nothing. He arrived in this country with empty pockets and a name no one could pronounce. Within twenty years, he had created something that will outlast all of us in this room."
The representatives from allied families lean forward slightly. This is what they came for. Not grief. Not sentiment.
Power.
"He taught his children that loyalty is not given. It is earned through sacrifice. He taught us that family comes before everything. Before comfort. Before safety. Before our own desires."
I pause, letting the words settle.
"The world remembers the hard edges of powerful men. The decisions that changed fates. These stories travel fast. They become legends before the bodies are cold."
Natalia's shoulders shake. Vladimir places a hand on her back.
"But I stand here today to speak of what travels slower. The things that get lost in the noise."
I reach into my memory, past the training and the violence and the endless tests of worthiness.
"My father read to us every night until we were old enough to read ourselves.
Tolstoy. Dostoevsky. Pushkin. He believed that understanding the Russian soul required understanding its literature.
He would sit in the chair by the fire, his voice rough from cigars, and bring words to life for children who didn't yet understand the weight they would carry. "
"He taught Karolina to ride before she could walk. He spent three months teaching Vladimir to tie a proper knot because my brother refused to accept help. He held Natalia the day she was born and wept. The only time I ever saw tears on his face."
I swallow against the tightness in my throat.
"He built a stable for Aleksander's horses when my brother was twelve, even though he hated the smell and the mess. He attended every one of Oleg's boxing matches, sitting in the front row with his arms crossed, never cheering but always present."
My gaze finds Vittoria.
She sits perfectly still, her dark eyes fixed on my face. Nico watches me with calculating interest. Pietro's expression remains unreadable.
"And me." I grip the podium harder. "He made me into what I am. Every lesson. Every test. Every moment of silence that taught me more than words ever could. He saw something in me that I didn't see in myself, and he refused to let me waste it."
The speech in my pocket remains untouched.
Mikhail's words were perfect. Professional. They would have accomplished everything I needed them to accomplish.
But they weren't true.
"People speak only of the good when someone dies. We stand at podiums and paint saints from sinners, angels from demons. Perhaps this is mercy. Perhaps it is cowardice."
I straighten my spine.
"I choose to believe it is wisdom. The bad travels fast enough on its own. It needs no help from eulogies. But the good—the quiet moments, the private kindnesses, the love that never learned how to speak its own name—these things die with us unless someone gives them voice."
The incense curls upward, carrying prayers to a God I'm not certain exists.
"My father was not a gentle man. But he loved us. Fiercely. Completely. Without reservation."
I echo Karolina's words deliberately. Let them see we are united.
"And we will honor that love by protecting everything he built. By standing together as he taught us. By proving that the Baganov name will endure long after this cathedral crumbles to dust."
I step down from the podium.
The walk back to my seat stretches longer than the walk up. Every eye in the cathedral tracks my movement.
I slide into the pew beside Vittoria. The wood creaks beneath my weight, the sound swallowed by the vastness of the cathedral.
Her hand finds mine before I've fully settled.
Her fingers thread through mine, warm and steady. She doesn't look at me. Doesn't make a show of the gesture. She simply holds on, her grip firm enough to anchor me to this moment.
I stare straight ahead at the priest who has resumed his position at the altar.
Then Vittoria leans her head against my shoulder.
The weight of her settles against me like something I didn't know I was missing. Her hair brushes my jaw, carrying the faint scent of a flower. She fits perfectly into the space beside me as if she was always meant to occupy it.
Whispers ripple through the rows behind us.
I hear them despite the priest's droning voice.
Vittoria doesn't move. Doesn't acknowledge the whispers or shift away from me. She keeps her head on my shoulder, her hand wrapped around mine, making a statement louder than any words could.
She knows exactly what she's doing.
She saw an opportunity to strengthen my position and took it without hesitation.
I want to thank her.
The words form in my throat, simple and inadequate. Thank you. Two syllables that couldn't possibly capture what this moment means. What she's given me without being asked.
But I don't trust my voice.
The eulogy stripped something raw inside me. Speaking about my father's private kindnesses, the moments no one else witnessed, cost more than I expected.
If I try to speak, I'm not certain what will come out.
So I remain silent.
The priest's voice washes over us, familiar prayers in Old Church Slavonic that I learned as a child. The words blur together, meaningless sounds that fill the space between heartbeats.
The priest raises his hands, blessing the congregation.
I bow my head with everyone else, but my eyes remain open. Fixed on our intertwined fingers resting on my thigh.