8. Sofia
SOFIA
For a moment, everything inside me goes still.
I look over my shoulder. Damir stands near the aisle with his men around him, black suit sharp against crushed white flowers, one cuff marked faintly with blood.
His eyes are on us. On me. He looks like a man who knows exactly what my uncle is telling me and has already decided it will not change anything.
Maybe it should.
Maybe I should be terrified.
Maybe I am.
But then I look back at my uncle and think of Dmitri’s hand around mine. Dmitri’s voice saying I will adjust. Dmitri calling me filthy in front of an entire church while my uncle stood silent because defending me was less convenient than calculating damage.
I don’t say what comes into my head.
I’ll take my chances with him.
Instead, I say, “There is no other way to get out of this in one piece.”
His eyes harden. “You marry him and you are dead to this family.”
A tired laugh slips out of me. “Uncle, I was already dead to this family. You just bought me a dress for the funeral.”
For a second, his expression breaks. Not much. Just enough.
Then Damir steps into the space between us and the rest of the church. “That is enough.”
My uncle’s eyes cut to him. “This is between me and my niece.”
“No,” Damir says. “It stopped being between you when you sold her.”
My uncle’s jaw clenches.
Damir holds out his hand to me. I stare at it. His palm is large and bare, slightly calloused. Of course, my traitorous body chooses this moment to remember his hand in my hair, his fingers at my chin, his mouth at my throat.
I place my hand in his, and his fingers close around mine.
He leads me back toward the altar.
No one stops us. Not my uncle. Not Dmitri. Not the Sokolovs.
Damir’s men have the room locked down now.
Sergei’s men are still standing, but their guns are lowered or angled away.
Dmitri’s guards look torn between rage and self-preservation, which is apparently what happens when the man paying you is bleeding and the man threatening you looks completely comfortable in a church full of guns.
My dress drags over crushed flowers. I step over a smear of blood on the stone.
This is not how I imagined my wedding.
Actually, that’s not true. I never imagined my wedding. That was the problem.
Damir stops in front of the minister, who looks as if he has aged ten years since I last saw him.
“Continue,” Damir says.
The minister stares at him. “With the ceremony?”
“Yes.”
His eyes dart to me, to Dmitri, to my uncle, and then to the armed men lining the aisle. “I’m not sure I can—”
Damir’s voice stays calm. “You were prepared to marry her to one criminal today. Don’t develop morality now.”
A strangled sound comes from Anya’s direction. I don’t dare look at her.
Dmitri steps forward, blood still marking his mouth. “Are you seriously going to allow this?” he demands, looking at my uncle. “After he humiliates us? After he touches her in front of everyone? She is your blood, Sergei.”
My uncle says nothing. The silence is terrible.
Dmitri stares at him, disbelief twisting into something uglier. Then he looks at me. “You stupid little bitch,” he says. “You think he wants you? He wants to ruin us. That is all you are good for now.”
The words have barely left his mouth when Damir draws his gun and shoots him in the leg.
The sound splits the church open. Dmitri screams and drops hard to one knee, clutching his thigh as blood spreads dark through his trousers. Women scream again. Someone sobs. The minister drops his book.
I freeze.
Damir doesn’t even look disturbed. He lowers the gun slightly, face cold and composed, as if he has simply corrected a rude interruption. “Speak to my bride like that again,” he says, “and the next one goes through your mouth.”
My heart is pounding so hard I feel it in my throat.
My bride.
I should hate the sound of it. I should hate him.
Maybe I do.
But when Damir stands between me and Dmitri, when he makes the whole church understand that insulting me now has consequences, something inside me goes quiet for the first time all day.
Not safe. I’m not stupid enough to call this safe.
But less alone.
Damir turns back to the minister. “Pick up the book.”
The minister bends with shaking hands.
I stare at Dmitri on the floor. Then at my uncle, who remains silent, face carved from stone. Then at Damir.
He’s already watching me. Winter-gray eyes. Merciless. Patient.
Waiting to see whether I will run again.
I lift my chin. My voice comes out steadier than I feel. “Let’s get this over with.”
Damir’s mouth curves faintly.
Not a smile. Something worse. Something that says he knows exactly what I’m doing and intends to let me pretend otherwise for now.
He takes my hand again.
The minister opens the book with trembling fingers.
The church smells of roses, smoke, blood, and fear.
And I stand beside Damir Volodin at the altar, wearing a wedding dress meant for another man, with that man bleeding on the floor, while the priest prepares to marry me to the enemy I invited.