16. Artem
Artem
The wedding will be Saturday.
I decide this on Wednesday morning over coffee, the same way I decide everything: efficiently, without sentiment, with full awareness of every variable.
Saturday gives the Russian Orthodox priest enough time to prepare the ceremony.
It gives Viktor enough time to make the necessary calls to the old guard, to frame this as a union rather than a transaction, and it gives Katya three days to accept things.
And she needs to accept them quickly. Already, she's run off to Luc Nero, and as much as I am trying to employ patience, I will not tolerate another man with my fiancée.
She can be as angry as she wants. I can tolerate that. Hell, I understand it. What she will not do is disrespect me. She is mine, not Nero's.
I set down my coffee and pull out my phone.
"Pyotr."
He's immediately ready. As one of the only people I trust, he's somehow become part coordinator of the wedding. A role I know he doesn't care for but has taken on despite that. "How do you want to handle the announcement?"
"Quietly. Family and essential personnel only. I don't want this in the papers until after the ceremony."
"And the ceremony itself?"
I hold back a smile. "Are you truly my wedding planner now?"
I can practically hear him rolling his eyes. "As your head of security, I am everything, which I believe you've pointed out more than once. I need to know what to account for. Viktor isn't happy, and it would be a perfect time to get to you."
"He won't make a move." I'm sure of it. "If he was going to, he would have done it last night."
"And Nero?"
"Adrian Nero won't want to get involved.
Saint Marini would have been more inclined to help, since he wants me eliminated, but there's no real reason for him to stick his neck out for Katya or Luciano.
" That name leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
I wish I could eliminate that little shit, just for the satisfaction of it.
"You threatened his cousin."
"Viktor threatened him, and they barely know one another. Saint is hot-blooded, but his wife will keep him in check. She knows what's at stake if they come for me."
I can practically see Pyotr doing a risk assessment. Just as we were taught. Neither of us thought we'd be using our skills to serve ourselves instead of our government, but here we are.
"The wedding will be small. The church on Sixty-First. Father Dmitri owes me a favor.
" Most of the Russians in the city owe me a favor.
It's the most useful thing about power — it converts itself into currency automatically, without effort.
"No more than thirty guests. Mostly lieutenants and their wives. "
"Katya's friends?"
I consider this. Katya will behave better with familiar faces in the room.
She's less likely to make a scene, less likely to do something that would require me to respond in ways I'd prefer to avoid.
She doesn't give a fuck about the Bratva, but she cares deeply for her friends.
"Two. The dancers — boy and girl. Keep the Nero boy away from the church.
Adrian can attend, but his brother cannot. "
I can practically see Pyotr's brow raise.
"Her apartment? I assume you are not allowing her to keep it."
I snort. That place is a dump. "Send someone today. Pack what's personal and leave the rest. Have it brought here before she arrives Saturday night."
Another pause, slightly longer. "You want her things here before she is?"
"Yes."
Pyotr says nothing for a moment. I know what he's thinking. He's been thinking it since the restaurant, since Katya walked out on unsteady legs with Nico's arm around her.
"The rest of the plan," he says finally. "You're still?—"
"Yes."
"Even after?—"
"Pyotr." My voice is level. "Nothing has changed."
"She's going to be your wife now, Artem. Under the eyes of the church."
"I do not care about religion."
"Then consider what it will mean if you harm your own wife. Not just to the Bratva but?—"
I interrupt him. We've been over this from the beginning, and my thoughts have not changed.
"She is a means to an end. A ring doesn't change the objective.
" I move to the window, looking out at the city below.
Forty floors of distance between me and everything that happens at street level.
"Viktor gave my sister to Alexei Morozov because it was convenient.
She was useful currency. He knew what Alexei was, and he didn't care.
I watched her deteriorate for two years before she decided she'd had enough.
" I pause. "He will lose what he values most, and then he will lose everything else. That was always the plan."
"And the girl? Do you really believe her suffering is worth it?"
The girl. Katya, who looked at me in that restaurant with pure hatred and still had the presence of mind to demand guarantees for her friends despite her own fear.
Katya, who is currently in her small apartment that smells like takeout and radiator heat, surrounded by the life she built for herself, probably not sleeping.
Katya, who has made me feel something for the first time in years.
Katya, who does not matter to me.
"Viktor once told me that from great suffering comes great strength," I say, thinking back to the time I went to him begging him to save my sister. "Perhaps Katya will become a diamond."
Pyotr exhales. Not agreement. Acceptance, which is different. "I'll send someone to the apartment today, while she is gone."
"Good."
Viktor requests a meeting, and I'm genuinely surprised by it.
He chooses the club instead of neutral ground. A man who has survived forty years at the top of the Bratva understands the psychology of location. He wants to talk, not to negotiate. He wants me to feel as though I have the advantage.
The choice fascinates me, and as he arrives, I can't help but wonder if he plans to grovel for Katya's freedom.
I almost hope he does.
I would enjoy telling him no.
"Artem." He walks in looking older than he did even the night before.
"Vodka?"
He nods, and one of my guards brings him a glass. He takes it, his hands sporting liver spots, and as he drinks, I can't help but think the years have not been kind to him. All his children are dead. His wife passed a few years ago, and now Katya hates him.
"You know why I asked to meet."
"I suspect you want to discuss my upcoming marriage."
"Then I'll be direct." He looks at me with those hazel eyes that Katya inherited.
"Katya doesn't know anything. About her father.
About the family. About any of it. She built a life specifically to stay away from all of this.
Her mother made sure of it, and when she passed, Katya made the same decision. "
"I'm aware."
"So if you think you will get information from her, you won't."
I chuckle, shaking my head. "It's interesting that you think I want or need information about your organization." I lean back in my chair. "I worked in intelligence for a decade, Viktor. I know more about your people than you do."
His eyes narrow, but he doesn't negate what I'm saying. I suspect this entire situation has taught him that he's been underestimating me. "Then why? Why go after Katya if not for power?"
"Of course I want power," I admit. "But you should know it's more than that."
"What more could there be?"
His words almost make me feel something for Katya. Her only living family member sees nothing beyond power, and despite having it for decades, he's not content.
"Irina."
Something moves across his face — not guilt exactly, but something adjacent to it. Something that looks uncomfortably like grief. "What happened to Irina was not what I intended."
I snort.
"Alexei was?—"
"Alexei was exactly what he was, and you knew it.
" My voice doesn't rise. It never rises.
"You knew what he was when you gave her to him.
You knew what her life would look like. You decided that your position was worth more than her wellbeing, and she paid for that decision for two years before she decided she was finished paying.
" I lean forward slightly. "Don't sit across from me and tell me what you intended. I'm not interested in your intentions."
Viktor is quiet for a long moment.
"I made a mistake," he says finally, and I know that it pains him to admit such a thing. "With Irina. I should have stepped in. Stopped Alexei."
"Yes." He should have stopped the whole thing. Instead, he pulled the strings because he wanted leverage over my father and Alexei. He didn't give a fuck if it hurt my sister.
"You want to make me pay through Katya."
I shrug. "Katya is how I take what should have been mine to begin with." I sit back. "Your position. Your territory. Your legacy. All of it built on the backs of people who deserved better, including my sister. I'm simply accelerating the redistribution through Katya."
He studies me. "You want to destroy me. I understand it." He leans forward. "We are Russians, after all. We thrive on revenge. But Katya is innocent. She does not need to be a part of this."
"That is where you are wrong. She's central to this. You made sure of that when you named her your heir and made sure her name was attached to everything that comes with it."
I watch him register what I've told him, that I've been planning this for years.
"She's all I have left," he says quietly.
I think about Irina's wedding photograph. Her terrified smile. My father's hand on her shoulder, steering her toward a man who would spend two years dismantling her.
"Then you understand," I say, "exactly how I felt."
The grief in his face is real. I've spent enough time reading men to know the difference between performed emotion and the genuine article. He loves her. In his way, in the limited and possessive way men like Viktor love things, he loves Katya Popova.
That's precisely why this works.