Chapter 5 Victoria
VICTORIA
Three weeks until I'm supposed to walk down an aisle toward a man who bought me.
The thought follows me down the narrow staircase behind Maison Lyra's kitchen, each step taking me deeper beneath the restaurant, away from the performance and into the truth.
The office smells like coffee grounds and machinery oil, sharp citrus cleaner cutting through both.
Muffled laughter bleeds through the ceiling vents.
Women sharing secrets over mimosas, oblivious to what happens in the space below their expensive shoes.
The distant whir of the espresso grinder.
The clink of crystal. The jazz playing just loud enough to mask conversation.
Down here, the world is cooler. Quieter. Real.
I close the door behind me and feel my spine unlock, shoulders dropping half an inch as the performance armor slides away. The careful composure I maintain above ground costs more than most people realize. Down here, I can afford to let it slip.
Just slightly.
"Jelena, I'm so sorry."
She looks up from the desk where she's been reviewing invoices, dark hair pulled back in a neat ponytail, the rose-gold apron discarded over the back of her chair.
At thirty, Jelena Kova? has the kind of face that makes people confess things.
Warm brown eyes, easy smile, the bearing of someone who's never learned to be anything but genuine.
It's a useful lie.
"Well." She sets down her pen, mouth curving with dark amusement. "That was memorable. You're lucky I was the one serving you and not Katarina. She'd have given you a black eye for that performance, understanding or not."
I suppress a shudder. Katarina's rage is a force of nature, and I've been on the receiving end of it exactly once. Once was enough.
"Thank you for adapting so quickly." I sink into the chair across from her, and tension drains from my muscles. The exhaustion I've been holding at bay all afternoon crashes over me in waves. "You were perfect. Convincing."
"Why the show?" She gives me her full attention.
"Maksim." His name tastes strange on my tongue. Too intimate, too real. "He told me I need to move in with him. After the wedding. To sell the marriage to the Albanians."
Jelena's expression shifts from curiosity to something harder. Concern edged with frustration. "Victoria. I told you from the start this was a bad idea. Bringing the Severyns this close to Eryan Nis? That's not strategy. That's playing with matches in a munitions factory."
"I don't have a choice." The words come out sharper than I intend, defensive. I force my voice to soften. "It's either this or I might as well sign my father's death warrant myself. And as much as I despise that man, I can't quite bring myself to do it."
"You don't owe him anything." Jelena's voice carries the weight of someone who knows exactly what my father is, what he did. Or rather, what he failed to do.
"I know." The acknowledgment sits in my throat like ground glass. I hate that I still care. Hate the weakness of it. "But if the Albanians kill him, there's no guarantee they won't come after me next to collect what he owes. At least this way, I control the variables. I'm protected."
"You have the protection of Eryan Nis," Jelena points out, leaning back in her chair. "You don't need the Severyns."
"Right now, the protection of the Severyn Bratva is more powerful." I meet her eyes. "And the money from this marriage will be substantial."
"You don't have to sacrifice yourself for funding." Her voice gentles, and I hear the concern beneath the pragmatism, the friendship beneath the professional relationship. "We can get the capital another way. Like we've been doing."
"We've been lucky so far." I hold her gaze. "No one's gotten seriously hurt. But luck runs out, Jelena. Eventually, our number comes up. And the operation needs to scale exponentially, or we're just applying bandages to bullet wounds."
Silence settles between us, heavy with implications neither of us wants to name.
Above, someone laughs, bright, carefree, the sound filtering through the vents like music from another world. A world where women don't have to choose between safety and survival, between protection and autonomy.
"How did it go last night?" I ask, shifting to safer ground. Business. Operations. Things I can control.
Jelena's mouth curves with satisfaction. "Flawless. In and out in seventeen minutes. Secured the merchandise without incident. As we speak, it's en route to the buyer for delivery. Payment already hit the account this morning."
"And the primary cargo?"
"Also successful. Already at the safe house."
Relief cuts through me, sharp and clean. "Good. That's very good."
I think about the couple who had lunch upstairs today, to the woman who kept glancing around with nervous energy barely concealed beneath designer clothes.
"Speaking of the safe house," I say, "the couple who were here today. Everything went according to plan?"
"In motion as we speak." Jelena makes a note on her paperwork.
"Good." The word feels inadequate for the magnitude of what we've just accomplished. Another woman safe. Another monster left empty-handed.
Jelena taps her pen against the desk in that particular rhythm that means she's thinking something she knows I won't like.
"If you're determined to spend the next year this close to the Severyns, maybe we should add them to the list. After all, with inside access, it would be easy to plan and execute. "
The suggestion cuts through me like ice water down my spine.
"You know why they're not on the list." My voice drops into something harder, colder. "That's not open for debate."
"They would have made the list in the past." Jelena doesn't back down, which is one of the reasons I value her.
She challenges me when no one else will, forces me to examine my own logic.
"The Valkov Bratva ran operations that put them squarely in our target profile.
Shouldn't the Severyns pay for those crimes too? "
"The Severyns ended those operations when they took control." The words come out forceful, final.
I lean forward, let certainty ring through my voice. "They're not saints, Jelena. They're violent criminals who run an empire built on blood and fear. But they drew a line. That matters."
Jelena raises both hands in surrender, but there's knowing in her expression. "You're the boss."
The title sits uncomfortably on my shoulders.
"I couldn't do this without you," I say, and I mean it more than she probably realizes. "Any of this. You keep the operations running. I'm grateful."
"I'm the one who's grateful." Her accent thickens slightly with emotion, the careful English slipping just enough to reveal the girl from Zagreb who came to me five years ago with nothing but trauma and determination. "Forever in your debt, Victoria. You know that."
I rise from my chair, smoothing imaginary wrinkles from my cream silk blouse. The diamond engagement ring catches the fluorescent light, throwing cold fire across the desk between us. I haven't been able to stop touching it, twisting it, feeling its weight, reminding myself it's real.
Three weeks until I marry a man I barely know.
"I need to go," I say. "After all, I have a wedding to organize. Three weeks isn't much time."
Jelena stands too, and her expression shifts into something more serious. Warning. "Victoria. Be careful. Don't get too close to them. The Severyns. They're lethal in ways that have nothing to do with violence."
The words land with more weight than she probably intends.
I think about Maksim's ice-blue eyes across the lunch table, the way his presence made the air feel heavier. The intelligence behind that cold mask. The control that mirrors my own in ways I don't want to examine too closely.
I think about the ring on my finger that I can't stop touching, even though I know it means nothing. Just a prop. Just performance.
I think about Zakhar outside the restaurant, the way tension coiled through his body when I spoke to him. The heat in his gaze that he tried so hard to hide.
"I know," I say finally, and the words feel like confession.
But even as I speak, a traitorous thought whispers through my mind.
I'm already too close.
And the most terrifying part is that I'm not sure I want to pull away.