ANYA
CHAPTER SEVEN
“You look beautiful,” Amara gushed. “And thank you so much for agreeing to attend my family’s event.”
“Sure thing,” I retorted, offering my sister-in-law a feeble smile while Dozer pranced around the room like he owned it. “Everyone wants this tension between our families to end.”
Of course, I knew this day would come. A reunion between us, the Santoses, and the Volkov and DiLustro families was long overdue, considering Gabriel, my brother-slash-uncle, was married to a woman with ties to them.
Sometimes I wished Gabriel had fallen for someone else. Anyone but a woman with ties to my lying, conniving, and so fucking handsome husband. But as my friends would say… Wish in one hand and shit in another, see which hand fills up faster.
I flicked a glance in the mirror and decided that, if nothing else, I looked good. Great, in fact.
The sleeveless red gown clung in all the right places, the fabric skimming my curves before falling in a clean, fluid line to gather at my ankles.
It was more daring than anything I usually wore to family gatherings.
A plunging neckline exposed a deliberate stretch of skin, and for once I didn’t feel the urge to tug it higher or cover myself with my hair.
It was the kind of dress that made a statement, and I’d chosen it for that exact reason.
My blonde hair was swept into an elegant bun, every strand pinned carefully so my neck and shoulders were left bare. The simplicity of it made the whole look more glamorous. Red sandals matched the dress while the small diamond studs at my ears caught the light with every movement.
On the surface, I looked like someone who had moved on. Someone unbothered. It was a good disguise. Better than I probably deserved.
My brother appeared in the doorway, his cane tapping softly against the marble floor of the mansion as he navigated by memory. He could still perceive shapes—light and dark, movement and blur—but not enough to move through the world with certainty. Not anymore.
The sight of him was enough to drain whatever confidence I’d managed to stitch together in front of the mirror. I unraveled, thread by thread, until all that remained was a tight, suffocating guilt that settled in my chest.
Gabriel paused there, framed by the doorway.
“How is my favorite sister?” he greeted, flanked by his bodyguard-slash-friend Luis Orlando.
Their presence caused Dozer to bark, the little fellow arched his back like a cat and started hissing. Jesus Christ, I loved my puppy but he had some really weird habits.
“Hush, Dozer.”
“I see your annoying dog is refusing to leave your side,” Gabriel retorted wryly.
“Is that really a dog?” Luis deadpanned. “It’s more like a cat stuck in some weird body.”
“He acts like a cat. I assumed Dozer would be like our Bruno, but apparently I was incorrect.”
“Indeed you were,” Luis confirmed. “This creature looks like a carpet. What odd coloring for a French bulldog.”
“Ha. Ha. Ha.” I shot them both a glare. Luis wasn’t wrong about Dozer’s coloring.
It was very unique. He was gray with flecks of darker grays and light brown splattered all over him, and had two different-colored eyes.
In my opinion, it only made him extra special.
“By the way, that was a sarcastic laugh,” I added.
Amara was by Gabriel’s side in an instant.
“I got him from here, Luis,” she said calmly as she held his hand and lifted up to kiss her husband’s cheek.
“I’ll see you all at the party,” Luis announced. “Well, all but the weird-looking dog.”
Then he promptly left, leaving me staring at my brother and his wife who even after three years still looked as happy and in love as if they were newlyweds.
Gabriel and Amara’s love was the only good thing that came out of the whole fiasco with Jetmir, although Gabriel should have never been hurt.
He lost his vision because I played with fire.
Because I fell in love with a villain who built his world on schemes and half-truths, who treated people like pieces on a board and chaos like currency.
One disaster after another followed in his wake, and in the end, my brother paid the price for every choice I should have walked away from.
The guilt wasn’t new; it never really left. It just waited for moments like this to remind me it was still there.
“Anya?” he called, the sound of my name pulling me sharply from my swarming thoughts. I moved quickly to his side.
“I’m great,” I said lightly, forcing a brightness I didn’t quite feel. I leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. “But you’d better be careful. Isabella might not appreciate you calling me your favorite.”
Isabella Nikolaev was much older than Gabriel and the two shared a father, but she was too far removed from me. It was where the fact that Gabriel was technically my uncle came into play. Still, she’d always been part of our orbit, woven into the strange, complicated fabric of our lives.
Gabriel and I though… Our relationship was different.
We hadn’t simply grown up together. We had been shaped in the same home, under the same roof. He was there the day I was born, and I’d never known life without him in it. Our bond was solid, like something carved into bone, and we’d always have each other’s backs.
“You look handsome, brother,” I complimented. His tuxedo fit him perfectly and made his dark brown hair appear even darker. “Your wife better watch it. Women will be throwing themselves at you.”
Amara laughed, unperturbed.
She wasn’t the jealous type. It was almost unsettling, how easily she let things slide off her. No territorial flair, no instinct to claim the man as hers. Although she always stood by him; I saw it firsthand.
It was somewhat jarring when you compared it to us Santoses.
We had tempers that flared fast and hot, and jealousy that ran deep and instinctive, like something inherited rather than learned.
“It’s a good thing I have my wife watching out for me, then,” Gabriel joked. “Come on, you two. The party is probably in full swing by now.”
“Let me kiss my baby good night,” I said as I kneeled down and ruffled Dozer’s fur and kissed his smooth round head. “Be good. I won’t be long.”
Thirty minutes later, we arrived at the grand ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria just outside Miami. The decision had been made that this party would take place on a neutral ground, somewhere neither family could claim or control.
So here we were.
My parents met us there, waiting at the doorway. The moment they spotted me, they rushed to greet us.
“Here’s my preciosa,” my papa murmured, kissing my cheek. “Are you sure you want to do this? We still have time to leave.”
I smiled forcefully. “Of course. It’s all in the past.”
He watched me, zeroing in on any sign of discomfort. But I’d become highly skilled at hiding my feelings over the past years, so I knew he wouldn’t find anything. He must have been satisfied, because he nodded and said, “Okay, then. Let’s join this circus.”
He greeted Amara and Gabriel while Mama pulled me in for a hug. She kissed my cheek without a word, but she knew. Mama always knew.
As we started walking, she whispered, “Just let me know if you need anything. Anything. Okay?”
I nodded, but I would never tell her what I needed. I couldn’t even admit it to myself, because if I did, I feared I’d do something stupid again. Last time, it cost Gabriel his sight. What would it cost my family this time?
No, I would never tell anyone what, or who, I needed.
We entered the ballroom. It stretched wide and luminous, all polished marble floors and chandeliers that scattered light like shards of glass.
The air carried a faint blend of expensive perfume, champagne, and the crisp bite of air-conditioning working too hard against the Florida heat.
Somewhere beneath it all was the soft hum of restrained laughter and the unmistakable friction of people subtly measuring themselves against one another.
Floral arrangements—white orchids and deep red roses—stood like carefully placed warnings along the perimeter of the room. Music drifted from somewhere unseen, a string quartet softened by distance, elegant enough to disguise the tension woven through the space.
My heels clicked against the floor as we moved deeper inside, the sound quickly swallowed by the sheer scale of the room.
Papa and Mama were soon swallowed into conversations, and so were Gabriel and Amara. Anyone who was anything was here. Papa’s old associates and friends. Amara’s entire family—all sides. Jetmir’s twin sister.
But one person was noticeably absent, and with each passing second, I began to relax.
Still, I steeled myself, holding my breath and praying that somehow, Jetmir and I wouldn’t run into each other. I sipped champagne, greeted old acquaintances, and smiled like my being here alone was the most natural thing in the world.
It wasn’t. In our world, marriage was for life. Yet another rule I seemingly broke.
Waiters glided between clusters of guests with trays of crystal flutes, their movements practiced, like they had learned long ago that interruptions amidst mobster families were dangerous.
Everything was beautiful but cold, calculated.
This wasn’t just a party. It was a tentative bridge-building exercise between Amara’s complicated family and the Santoses. After years of bad blood between our families—caused by Jetmir and me—we were finally at the point of a fragile truce now that Jetmir had agreed on the annulment.
I hadn’t seen him since I left him and ran back to my family after the havoc we caused, and a deep part of me was terrified to see him again. But considering Amara’s connections to Jetmir, I knew it would be inevitable to eventually see my husband.
Pardon… ex-husband.
Maybe one day I’d be ready to see him. My heart wouldn’t flutter and my body wouldn’t react. It just wouldn’t be today, so I was thankful he didn’t show.
Leaning against the wall, I watched the evening unfold around me.
Tight smiles. Whispered gossip. Laughter.
God knew that mobsters were the best actors, hiding their true feelings behind blank masks.
Like my father who was shaking hands with Liana Volkov, Jetmir’s mother, and pretending he was okay to be in her company when in fact he was tense as fuck.
He wanted to kill all the Volkovs, then bring them back to life, only to do it again.
My mom was softer though. She was cautiously happy, and as my papa moved on to talk to someone else, she stayed behind with Jetmir’s mother.
Liana Volkov was an enigma. The whispers in the criminal world said she’d been to hell and back. She was a dangerous woman who could hold her own, but she loved her children. She would kill everyone in this room without blinking an eye if it meant protecting them.