5. Sofia
SOFIA
The invitation is gone. That should make me feel better.
It doesn’t.
For the next two days, I keep expecting someone to burst into my room holding the envelope between two fingers like evidence in a murder trial.
I keep expecting my uncle to call me into his study with that calm, terrifying voice he uses when he already knows the answer and is only giving me the courtesy of lying badly.
I keep expecting Dmitri to arrive with narrowed eyes and ask why one of my personal invitations has been sent to the single man he hates more than humility.
Nothing happens. The house continues as if I have not just mailed a cream-and-gold declaration of treason to Damir Volodin.
Flowers arrive. Dresses are steamed.
My wedding planner develops a facial twitch.
My uncle disappears into meetings and returns with the same controlled expression, which tells me either he knows nothing or he knows everything and is waiting for the perfect moment to ruin my life. With Sergei Antonov, both options are equally believable.
By the third evening, I am exhausted from waiting to be caught.
Which is deeply unfair. If I’m going to do something dangerous, I would at least like the dramatic satisfaction of immediate consequences. Instead, I am being tortured by silence, seating charts, and a woman named Polina asking whether I prefer ivory napkins or champagne napkins.
“They’re both beige,” I tell her.
“They are very different tones,” she says.
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “They look like puke.”
She pretends not to hear me.
Everyone pretends not to hear me lately.
That is why, when Anya calls and announces that she has arranged a small bachelorette party at a private club, I don’t say no.
I should. Obviously, I should.
My uncle would hate it. Dmitri would hate it more. The Sokolovs would probably consider it inappropriate for their future wife to be seen drinking champagne in a club two nights before the wedding.
Unfortunately for them, their future wife is currently considering setting herself on fire, so champagne in a club feels like a compromise.
“It has to be discreet,” I tell Anya while sitting cross-legged on my bed, watching two stylists argue softly over which veil makes me look more pure.
Anya snorts. “You’re marrying Dmitri Sokolov in a political blood treaty disguised as a sacrament. Nothing about this is discreet.”
“I mean my uncle can’t know.”
“Please. Your uncle knows when a pigeon lands on the wrong side of the city. The trick is making sure he hears about it too late to stop it.”
“That sounds like something that will get us killed.” I glance at the stylists, who are pretending very hard not to listen. “Who’s coming?”
“Me, Katya, Mila, the twins, and two girls from your acceptable list so your uncle can’t say I kidnapped you into moral ruin.”
“You are kidnapping me into moral ruin.”
“Yes, but with witnesses from respected families.”
That makes me smile despite myself.
God, I need tonight.
Not because I want to drink until I forget my name, though that does hold some appeal.
Not because I want to dance on tables, though there is at least a thirty percent chance of that happening if someone plays the right song.
I need tonight because in two days, I will walk into a church as Sofia Antonova and come out as Sofia Sokolova.
A new name. A new house.
A new cage.
Everyone keeps calling it the beginning of my life, but it feels like the last open door closing.
So yes. I want a party.
I want music loud enough to drown out Dmitri’s voice. I want lipstick too red for bridal approval. I want to wear something that was not selected to make me look innocent, useful, or easy to display. I want one night where nobody discusses my future as if I’m not sitting there listening.
I want to do something wild.
Not stupid.
Well. Maybe a little stupid.
By nine, Anya has smuggled me out with the confidence of a woman who has spent half her life disappointing powerful men and surviving anyway.
She arrives in a black car, wearing a red dress that looks painted on and an expression that tells the guards she has absolutely no intention of explaining herself.
The guard at the front door looks at me, then at her. “Miss Antonova,” he says carefully, “your uncle didn’t mention—”
“My uncle does not mention many things,” I say, walking past him. “That is one of his charms.”
Anya hooks her arm through mine before anyone can stop us. “You look like trouble,” she says.
I look down at my dress. It’s black, short, sleeveless, and tight enough that my stylist would need medical attention if she saw it. My hair is down. My mouth is painted dark red. My heels are high enough to qualify as a personal risk.
“I look like a woman having a minor breakdown.”
“Same thing, better lighting.”
The club is tucked beneath a restaurant owned by someone connected to someone connected to someone my uncle has probably threatened over dinner.
It’s private, expensive, and full of women who know better than to post pictures without permission.
The walls are dark blue velvet, the lighting low and golden, the music loud enough to vibrate beneath my skin.
For the first time in days, nobody is staring at me like a bride.
They stare like I am a woman.
I nearly cry from gratitude.
Anya has booked a private room upstairs with a curved sofa, a small bar, and a balcony overlooking the dance floor below.
Katya and Mila are already there, along with the twins, who are both named something elegant and behave like escaped fireworks.
There are balloons, obscene cupcakes, champagne on ice, and a sash draped over the sofa that reads brIDE TO BE in rhinestones.
I stare at it. “No.”
Anya picks it up. “Yes.”
“I will burn it.”
“You can burn it after photos.”
“No photos.”
“Fine. Memories.”
“Those are worse.”
She puts it over my head anyway.
For the first hour, I almost forget.
Almost.
Champagne helps. So does the music. So does Anya, who keeps pulling me into conversations that have nothing to do with seating charts or armed guards.
We talk about bad dates, worse dresses, Katya’s ex-husband’s hair transplant, and the time Mila accidentally sent a nude to her dentist because both men were named Anton in her phone.
It’s ridiculous. It’s normal.
It’s everything I am about to lose.
At some point, the twins drag me to the middle of the room and make me dance. I do, badly at first, then less badly after the second glass of champagne. The music is filthy and loud. My hair sticks to my neck. My cheeks hurt from laughing.
For a few minutes, I’m not a treaty. I’m not Dmitri’s future wife. I’m not Sergei Antonov’s obedient niece.
I am just Sofia, twenty-four years old, in a black dress, dancing with women who know the world is terrible and have chosen glitter anyway.
Then Anya claps her hands.
“Oh no,” I say immediately.
She smiles. It’s a wicked smile. The kind of smile that has ruined many evenings and improved several others.
“What did you do?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
“Anya.”
“Something small.”
“What kind of small?”
She doesn’t answer.
The music changes. The lights dim. The door opens, and a man walks in wearing a black mask, black trousers, and very little else.
The room explodes.
Katya screams. Mila drops her champagne. One of the twins actually climbs onto the sofa for a better view, which feels unnecessary because the man’s chest is approximately the size of a national monument and available for public study.
I stare at Anya.
She lifts both hands. “Before you judge me, remember that you said you wanted to do something wild.”
“I meant tequila.”
“You should have been more specific.”
The man moves into the center of the room like he has never once been embarrassed by his own body. Good for him, honestly. If I had that level of abdominal commitment, I too would enter rooms to applause.
He’s handsome in a polished, obvious way. Young. Broad. Smooth-skinned. Dark-eyed beneath the mask. His smile is practiced but not unpleasant, and when he begins to move with the music, every woman in the room loses her mind with admirable teamwork.
I laugh because I can’t help it.
Anya leans close to my ear. “You are welcome.”
“I hate you.”
“You’re smiling.”
“I contain multitudes.”
The stripper—because there’s no polite way to call him anything else after he has removed his vest with his teeth—moves toward me. The doomed woman. The ceremonial sacrifice in high heels.
The others chant my name like supportive demons.
“Sofia! Sofia! Sofia!”
I point at them. “I will remember this betrayal.”
The stripper offers me his hand.
For one second, I hesitate. Not because I’m shy. I’m not shy. I have been raised by criminals, educated by expensive tutors, and threatened by men who think volume equals authority. It takes more than a shirtless man in a mask to make me faint.
But because somewhere in the back of my mind, Dmitri’s voice says wife like a lock clicking shut.
“You’ll be my wife.”
My stomach twists, and something stubborn rises in me.
Not fear. Not shame.
Defiance.
I take the stripper’s hand.
The girls cheer so loudly I wonder whether the ceiling is properly insured.
He pulls me to my feet, then guides me into the chair placed at the center of the room. The chair is ridiculous. Black velvet. Gold legs. Clearly chosen by someone who believes sin requires furniture.
I sit. I cross one leg over the other. I lift my chin.
The stripper smiles down at me, clearly pleased with the drama of it all.
I smile back. If I’m about to be locked into a marriage I don’t want, then tonight I want to remember that I still have a body that belongs to me.
I want to remember that I can want things.
Choose things. Reach for something just because I feel like it and not because some man has stamped approval over it.