2. Sofia
SOFIA
My uncle rises beside me, and the scrape of his chair against the floor snaps the moment in half. “Volodin.”
The name cuts through the room. I know it, of course. Everyone in our world knows it, even if they only say it quietly.
Damir Volodin.
Pakhan of the Volodin Bratva.
My uncle doesn’t talk about him often. When he does, he says his name the way other people might mention a disease that once nearly killed them. Dmitri has mentioned him too, usually with the careless contempt of a younger man protected by locked doors, armed guards, and other people’s blood.
Damir Volodin finishes removing his glove before he answers. That alone tells me something about him. Most men react to my uncle immediately, either with respect, caution, or some stupid attempt at dominance. Damir gives him nothing quickly.
Only when the glove is fully removed does he look at my uncle. “Sergei.”
Dmitri stands as well, his smile arriving a second too late to be convincing. “Volodin. I didn’t know they let ghosts dine here.”
My uncle’s eyes flick toward him in warning.
Damir’s gaze shifts to my fiancé with the mild inconvenience of a man noticing mud on his shoe. “Sokolov,” he says. “Still confusing noise with courage.”
A laugh threatens the back of my throat so suddenly that I have to lower my eyes to my dessert plate.
That is unfortunate.
I don’t want to like anything about this man. I know nothing about him except that he is dangerous, older, feared, and apparently capable of making Dmitri look like a child wearing his father’s suit.
Unfortunately, that last part is very enjoyable.
Dmitri’s jaw tightens. “You’re far from your territory.”
“Am I?” Volodin asks, a challenge in his voice.
My uncle steps slightly in front of the table, blocking more of me from Damir’s view than necessary. “This is a private lunch.”
“I can see that.”
“Then you can leave.”
Damir glances toward the table, toward the wine, the folder, the three of us arranged like the world’s least joyful family portrait. “I am meeting someone. He appears to be late.”
“Wait elsewhere.”
Dmitri gives a short laugh. “Careful, Sergei. He might think you’re afraid of him.”
My uncle doesn’t look at him. “Be quiet.”
That gets my attention.
So does the fact that Dmitri obeys, though not happily.
I look at my uncle more carefully. His face is composed, but there is a rigidity to him I rarely see.
Sergei Antonov is not easily unsettled. He has eaten dinner beside men who tried to kill him the following week.
He has smiled through betrayals, funerals, negotiations, and threats disguised as toasts.
But Damir Volodin standing twenty feet away makes him look as if an old wound has started bleeding beneath his suit.
Hatred, I realize. The kind that has history behind it.
Damir’s gaze moves past him again and returns to me. It lasts only a second, maybe two, but my skin seems to register it before my mind does. I feel it at my throat, my wrists, the curve of my knees beneath the table. My body, apparently, has no loyalty whatsoever.
Dmitri notices. His expression hardens. “This is my fiancée.”
Damir doesn’t look away from me immediately. When he finally does, it’s with the same insulting calm he gives everything else.
“I didn’t ask.”
The words are quiet enough to be polite and rude enough to be unforgivable.
Dmitri steps forward, but my uncle’s hand shifts slightly, stopping him without touching him. That tiny movement tells me more than any explanation could.
My uncle does not want Dmitri provoking Damir.
Not here. Maybe not anywhere.
Dmitri sees the warning too, and because he is Dmitri, it only makes him more determined to prove he doesn’t need it. His gaze drops to the wedding folder still open on the table, and I can almost see the petty little thought forming behind his eyes.
“You haven’t heard, then?” he says.
Damir’s expression doesn’t change.
Dmitri picks up one of the sample invitations tucked into the folder, a heavy cream card with gold lettering and the kind of elegant calligraphy that makes captivity look expensive.
“Sofia and I are getting married,” he says. “Two weeks from today.”
My uncle remains still.
Damir looks at the invitation, then at Dmitri, and finally at me. “Congratulations,” he says.
It’s the coldest blessing I have ever heard.
Dmitri smiles. “Your sincerity is touching.”
“I doubt you would recognize sincerity without someone explaining it to you first.”
This time, I make the mistake of breathing at the wrong moment. A small sound escapes me, not quite a laugh but close enough that all three men look at me.
I reach for my water and take a sip, arranging my face into innocence. “Sorry,” I say. “Wrong pipe.”
Dmitri’s eyes promise a later argument. My uncle’s promise a lecture. Damir’s reveal nothing at all, which is somehow worse.
Dmitri turns back to him, clearly desperate to recover the upper hand. “You should come.”
My uncle’s head snaps toward him. “No.”
A flicker of satisfaction crosses Dmitri’s face, because wounded pride is a stupid animal and his has just found a stick to chase. “Why not?” he asks, looking at Damir now. “Perhaps he should see what real power looks like when the Antonovs and Sokolovs stand together.”
My uncle’s voice lowers. “Dmitri.”
But Dmitri is already too deep in his own performance to stop. “What do you say, Volodin? Shall we send you an invitation? You can sit at the back of the church and witness the alliance that ends you.”
The room seems to tighten around the words.
Damir looks at him for a long moment. Then he smiles. Barely. It’s not amusement. It’s not warmth. It’s the kind of expression a man gives a fool right before allowing him to finish ruining himself.
“Send one,” he says.
For once, Dmitri seems caught off guard. “What?”
“An invitation.”
My uncle steps in immediately. “No.”
Damir looks at him. “I was not asking you.”
The temperature at the table drops.
Dmitri laughs, but it comes out forced. “You want an invitation to my wedding?”
“No,” Damir says. “I want proof that you are stupid enough to invite me.”
I press my lips together so hard they almost hurt. My uncle’s gaze cuts toward me, which is deeply unfair because I have not said anything. Yet.
Dmitri’s face darkens. “You think this is funny?”
“Not yet.”
Damir puts his glove back on with the same unhurried care, each finger sliding into place. I hate that I notice it. I hate even more that my body notices it too, because the movement is controlled, almost intimate, and my imagination is apparently eager to become a traitor.
Dmitri squares his shoulders. “Perhaps we will send one.”
“You will do no such thing,” my uncle says. There’s no room for discussion in his tone, which immediately makes the idea more interesting.
I look at him, then at Dmitri, then at the invitation still in Dmitri’s hand.
Until that moment, inviting Damir Volodin to my wedding was not even a thought. It’s absurd. Dangerous. The kind of thing a person might joke about seconds before being removed from a family will.
But the way my uncle reacts changes everything.
He does not simply dislike the idea. He fears it. Or perhaps he fears what Damir’s presence would mean: humiliation for Dmitri, a public crack in their precious alliance, proof that the Antonovs and Sokolovs can’t control every room they enter.
I glance at Damir again. He’s already turning away, his men falling into step behind him. The restaurant seems to remember how to breathe only after he disappears through the entrance, leaving behind silence, tension, and the faint trace of expensive cologne I have no business noticing.
Dmitri sits first, his anger poorly hidden behind a sip of wine. “Arrogant fossil.”
My uncle remains standing for another moment, watching the doorway. “Don’t provoke him again.”
Dmitri scoffs. “You think I’m afraid of Volodin?”
“I think men who are not afraid don’t need to ask that question.”
I look down at my plate quickly, but not quickly enough to hide my smile.
Dmitri notices. Of course he does. His eyes narrow. “Something amusing?”
“No,” I say, picking up my spoon. “I’m grieving the mousse. It was very young.”
My uncle sits down slowly, and the look he gives me could wilt flowers.
Dmitri closes the wedding folder with unnecessary force. “He won’t come near the church.”
“Good,” my uncle says.
That single word stays with me.
Good.
Not because Damir is unimportant, but because Damir matters too much.
The conversation eventually resumes, but it no longer has the same rhythm. Dmitri is still angry. My uncle is still tense. The wedding folder sits near my elbow now, its gold initials catching the light whenever someone moves.
D & S.
Dmitri and Sofia.
Dmitri and Sofia Sokolov.
The sight makes my stomach twist. In fourteen days, they expect me to walk down an aisle and become a symbol of peace between men who have never cared whether I wanted peace, marriage, or any of the life they are arranging around me.
They want me obedient. They want me beautiful.
They want me useful.
My gaze drifts to the sample invitation peeking from the folder, and slowly, carefully, a thought begins to form.
It’s not a noble thought. It’s not even a smart one. It’s petty, childish, reckless, and probably dangerous enough to get me locked in my room until the wedding.
But it makes me feel awake.
I take the last bite of my dessert, letting the chocolate melt on my tongue while I stare at the invitation card.
Damir Volodin. At my wedding.
Dmitri would lose his mind.
My uncle might lose whatever remains of his patience.
And for the first time all afternoon, the wedding doesn’t feel like a funeral.
It feels like an opportunity.