1. Sofia #2
My uncle mutters something in Russian under his breath. I choose to believe it’s a prayer for patience and not a request for my immediate removal from the bloodline.
Dmitri pushes his chair back slightly, his mood repairing itself as he returns to a subject he enjoys. Himself. “After the wedding, we’ll move into the Sokolov estate. You’ll have staff, of course. Drivers. Security. A stylist, if necessary.”
“If necessary?”
His gaze skims over my pale blue dress, my loose hair, and the little pearl earrings I chose because they belonged to my mother. Not because they match whatever version of me he wants to display.
“You have a tendency toward softness,” he says.
I look down at myself. “How humiliating.”
“It isn’t an insult.”
“It sounded like one, but please continue. I love being reviewed like furniture.”
“You’ll be my wife,” he says. As if that explains everything.
The conversation moves on without me, which is exactly how most conversations about my life seem to go.
Dmitri talks about security for the wedding with the seriousness of a man planning a military coup.
My uncle answers in short, controlled sentences, occasionally correcting him when his arrogance starts outrunning common sense.
They discuss the church entrance, the reception hall, the placement of armed men, and which families should not be seated anywhere near each other unless we want bloodshed before dessert.
I sit between them, spooning chocolate mousse into my mouth and trying to decide whether I can fake an illness dramatic enough to postpone the wedding but not so dramatic that someone calls a doctor loyal to my uncle.
Food poisoning seems possible. Madness feels imminent.
“The Volkonskys should be kept near the back,” Dmitri says, tapping one finger against the wedding folder. “They’re useful, but they drink too much.”
My uncle gives a dry look. “Half the men attending this wedding drink too much.”
“Yes, but the Volkonskys shoot when they drink.”
“That narrows nothing down.”
I nearly smile into my spoon.
Dmitri misses it. He’s too busy turning the pages of the folder, reviewing names as if he’s inspecting troops. Guest lists. Seating charts. Security notes. My entire wedding has been reduced to paper, ink, and quiet threats.
No one has asked me whether I want roses or peonies, but three separate men have apparently debated whether the Petrov cousins can be trusted near the open bar.
Romance is alive and well.
The waiter returns with coffee. He places the cups down carefully, his eyes fixed on the tablecloth rather than any of our faces, which tells me he has either excellent instincts or previous experience serving criminals in tailored suits.
I thank him softly. He looks startled by the kindness, then relieved, then terrified that relief itself might offend someone.
Poor man.
I’m about to ask for more sugar, mostly because sugar is the only thing in this room that has never disappointed me, when the sound of the restaurant outside our private room begins to thin.
It’s subtle at first. The kind of shift a person might miss if she is not raised around dangerous men and trained, by accident and survival, to notice something has shifted.
The piano continues, but the notes lose confidence. A woman’s laugh cuts off too abruptly. Cutlery stills against plates. Even Dmitri pauses, his finger resting on a name in the folder.
My uncle’s attention moves past my shoulder. I follow his gaze.
A man has entered the restaurant. He stands near the host podium, removing one black leather glove with unhurried precision while the ma?tre d’ looks as though he has just been handed a death sentence written in cursive.
Four men wait behind him, all dressed in black suits, all expressionless in the way only truly dangerous men can afford to be.
They are large, silent, and armed without needing to show a single weapon.
But I barely notice them.
I notice him.
He’s older than Dmitri by at least fifteen years, maybe more, though age doesn’t soften him.
If anything, it makes him more imposing.
There’s silver threaded through the dark hair at his temples, and the lines of his face are severe enough to make beauty feel like the wrong word, though he’s beautiful in the same way winter is beautiful from behind glass.
Cold. Merciless. Impossible not to look at.
His suit is black and perfectly cut. Not flashy, not loud, not begging for attention the way Dmitri’s expensive clothes do. This man wears power as though it bores him.
He doesn’t scan the restaurant like someone checking for threats. He simply looks across it, and every person in the room seems to understand they have been assessed.
My body reacts before my brain has the decency to stop it.
Heat gathers low in my stomach, sudden and completely inappropriate.
My spine straightens. My thighs press together beneath the table before I can think better of it, and the realization that I’m sitting between my uncle and my fiancé while becoming physically aware of a stranger makes me want to stab myself with the dessert spoon.
Absolutely not, Sofia. Not him. Not now.
Not while Dmitri is sitting three feet away explaining seating arrangements like a tyrant with a Pinterest board.
The stranger’s gaze reaches our private room, and for the briefest moment, his eyes meet mine.
They are pale gray. Not soft gray, not romantic gray, but the flat, wintry color of a frozen river that would kill you without raising its voice.
He looks at me with faint interest, no more than that, but it’s enough to make the air feel warmer against my skin.
I should look away, but I can’t. It’s as if I’m completely hypnotized. And that’s not even the worst part. That would be the fact that I’m completely soaking wet between my thighs. And it’s all because of this damn man.