Chapter 25 - Nadya
I was never the kind of little girl who sat around planning my dream wedding. That’s always been more my sister’s style.
So, I let Darya plan mine for me, too.
A stellar choice on my part, since it’s gone a long way in mending the brief rupture in our relationship.
Plus, it’s given her a chance to get to know and appreciate Viktor.
I knew it was important to me for my family to love the man I’m in love with—but I didn’t realize just how badly until Darya commended Viktor on the enormous fucking ring he’s put on my finger.
“You have lovely taste,” is about the nicest thing my aesthete sister can say to another person.
Mostly because hers tends to remain the most immaculate.
I guess nothing makes that clearer than this wedding.
New York City in January is devastating. And it’s Darya’s little helpers who’ve done the work to use the winter wonderland and fashion it into a display I know none of us will ever forget.
Luscious, blood-red roses climb every surface. (“Thorns and all,” Darya had disclosed. “Like your love.”) Candles propped on burnished-gold candelabras lend a gothic touch to the finery. The snow itself presses against the tall, stained-glass windows, desperate to get a look inside.
It’s all glorious.
Though nothing can beat the look on Viktor’s face when he sees me in this dress for the first time. The second I’m at my end of aisle, my eyes lock with Viktor’s on the other end—and his eyes gloss over, burning the same as mine—everything else fades away to nothing.
It means the world to me that Trifon walks me down the aisle, placing my hand into Viktor’s in an archaic tradition I only allowed because of its significance to our messy situation.
I appreciate endlessly that my family has come together to make this wedding happen.
I’ve even learned, over the last few months of endless tension, to pitch it as a political union if that’s what it takes for Viktor’s fucking family to show up for him.
But, when it boils down to it, none of it matters. All of it pales in comparison, held up to what all this troubles been for.
Him.
My feral, dangerous wolf.
Who sees me entirely, and loves every difficult, erratic, complicated piece. Who’d lay his life and his pride on the line, just to have me.
Who’s only ever wanted to keep me.
Since the first moment our eyes met.
“I’m so in fucking love with you,” he mouths to me.
I laugh all the way through the kiss he steals before the ceremony can even begin, flipping off the minister when he tries to stop us.
***
The reception is, in a word, an event.
Both of our families, and their respective associates, fill the open space with all the effusive hostility of people who have agreed, provisionally and with some personal cost, to be in the same place for the same reasons. It’s fucking tense. Every interaction I spy appears to be loaded.
Getting out of this whole night without anyone getting shot is probably going to be a victory.
But there’s a chance they’ll behave. I cling to that.
Thanks to my husband.
He’s the one who’s made it possible by taking a shot and pitching our brothers a business proposition. I’m honestly shocked I didn’t think of it first, because it’s a great fucking idea. Sure, Viktor’s antics and all the subsequent fall-out has put both families’ reputations in some hot water.
In the face of that, why wouldn’t they maximize their joint foothold in Boston?
If they had any doubts, Viktor abated them with the profitable numbers he’s been producing in his operation here in the city.
He could sweeten the deal with the Solntsevskaya cooperation he’s secured, if only they’d try.
Not even all their pride could argue with the obvious sense it made.
And now that our families have gotten into bed together, that pride can’t get in the way. There’s too much to lose if it does, with Viktor having secured his own interest as a third branch in the deal.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean there’s no friction.
We’ve only just taken a break from dancing when Viktor’s brother approaches us. With the smile on his face, one would think he’s coming up to congratulate us.
But that person would be a fucking idiot.
He may have been the one to give me Viktor’s address and let me go to him once he heard me out, but I’ve since gleaned that the man’s about as fond of me as he is his brother. It may or may not have something to do with my telling him to take the stick out of his ass and sit the fuck down.
Oops?
Predictably, “Tell me you didn’t,” Anton Zakharov grits out between clenched teeth.
Outwardly, he’s smiling. But his eyes flash furiously at us. We follow his heated gaze to the middle of the room, where Milena Belova stands, being twirled around the dance floor by Iosif.
It was one of Anton’s non-negotiables that she not be invited to the wedding.
After all, Anton’s own mother—who the world presumes to be Viktor’s, too—is here.
Anton had insisted we not disrespect Galina Zakharov.
He’d had no trouble throwing in Viktor’s face not to push him, given the disrespect he’d already crossed the line with.
So, naturally, I’d decided to ignore him and invite her.
Hell would have to freeze over before the love of my life had to ban his own mother from the happiest day of his life.
Fuck that. Anton’s lucky I didn’t seat her next to him and his mommy during the fucking ceremony.
Viktor shakes his head. “Hey, that was all her,” he blames, doing an awful job at hiding his amusement. “I did nothing. Blame my wife.”
Wife. I light up inside every time he says it.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I simper, batting my lashes innocently. “That’s just my close personal friend, Milena. Dancing with my close personal brother.”
Anton stares, unimpressed. “You two really are a matched set.”
It doesn’t sound like a compliment, but I guess we’ll take it.
“Yes. We are,” I agree. “Made for each other.
*****
THE END