2. I was not prepared for her. （Aleksander）
I WAS NOT PREPARED FOR HER. (ALEKSANDER)
“This is bullshit.”
Igor doesn’t bother acknowledging me right away. His eyes stay on the cathedral doors, on the last guests filtering into their seats, on the optics of this moment. Boss first. Brother second.
“You already agreed.”
“I agreed to an alliance,” I say quietly. “Not this.”
That earns me a glance. Sharp. Impatient.
“A church wedding to a woman I’ve never met?” I adjust my cuff, not because it needs it, but because my hands need something to do besides clench into fists. “You’re binding her to us permanently over a territorial dispute.”
“It stopped being territorial when the Colombians started buying federal inspectors.”
Igor steps closer, lowering his voice. “Kalinin controls the freight routes. Newark, Elizabeth. The warehouses and the unions. Federal movement—he hears about it before our own people do.” His expression hardens.
“If the Colombians get their hooks into his network before we do, they don’t just move product. They move power.”
“And this requires me specifically?”
“Yes.”
I let out a humorless laugh. “Convenient.”
“You’re steady. You don’t break under pressure. And unlike Mikhail, you know how to keep your head when things go sideways.”
Silence. I don’t give him the deflection he’s waiting for.
“You think I’d use one of the younger soldiers for this?” Igor asks. “Kalinin wanted permanence. Blood. Family. Not another business contract he can walk away from in six months.”
I stare toward the cathedral doors, jaw tight.
“And what does she want?”
Silence. That tells me enough.
I look back at him slowly. “You’re asking me to marry a woman who probably found out about this five minutes ago.”
“You think I’m thrilled about it?”
“No,” I say coldly. “I think you decided the timing was acceptable because it solved a problem.”
His eyes narrow. “Careful.”
I hold his gaze anyway.
A muscle jumps in his jaw, but when he speaks again, his voice is quieter. More controlled.
“You know why I chose you.”
I look away first. Because I do know.
Not because I’m the cruelest. Not because I’m the most ambitious. Not because I enjoy this life more than the others.
Because I don’t.
Because I know exactly what damage power can do to people who never asked to be near it.
“I already buried someone I loved once,” I say finally. “I’m not interested in building a family just to watch it die.”
The words settle heavily between us. For a moment, Igor looks less like a boss and more like my brother.
“Elena died because cancer is a vicious bitch,” he says quietly. “Not because you loved her.”
I don’t answer. Her name still lands like a fracture line under the ribs. Seven years later, I still remember hospital disinfectant, morphine, and the way her hand felt in mine at the end.
“You think I want this for you?” Igor asks. “You think I enjoy dragging you back into something personal after what it cost you last time?”
“I think you’d burn any of us if it kept the family standing.”
A beat. Then, without offense:
“Yes.”
At least he’s honest.
“But I also think,” he continues, “that you’re the only man in this family who won’t punish that woman because this marriage started badly.”
“That’s a low bar.”
“In our world?” Igor’s mouth curves without humor. “Not as low as it should be.”
I don’t answer. Because he’s not wrong, and I hate that I care about that. I exhale slowly through my nose. This still feels wrong.
Not the alliance itself. I understand strategy. I understand sacrifice. I understand the mathematics of survival better than most.
But marriage is different. Marriage makes things human.
“How old is she?” I ask.
“Twenty-eight. Interior designer. Kalinin’s only daughter.”
A life reduced to bullet points.
“And what does she know?”
“That it’s happening,” Igor says carefully. “And that her father expects cooperation.”
A polite word that can mean almost anything in our world. A woman doesn’t walk willingly into this unless she’s cornered. Unless the cost of refusing is worse.
The organ music swells again, signaling the ceremony’s about to begin. Incense and lilies drift through the cathedral. Candles throw gold across painted icons and stone-faced saints, centuries of history pressing in from every wall.
“I don’t even know what she looks like,” I mutter.
“You will in about thirty seconds.” Igor claps my shoulder, equal parts warning and reassurance. “And Aleks?”
I glance at him.
“Keep your face under control.”
I almost laugh at that.
“When don’t I?”
His grip tightens briefly. “This isn’t a job. It’s a message.”
I already know.
Father Bogdan takes his place at the analogion, beard and vestments glowing in candlelight. The guests settle—rows of New York’s Russian underworld dressed in black wool and tailored silk, here to witness an alliance sealed in God’s house.
I turn toward the cathedral doors, forcing my expression into neutral calm.
This is duty.
This is strategy.
This is sacrifice.
I’ve survived worse.
The first notes of the processional roll through the church, vibrating through my chest. Any second now, I’ll see the woman I’m supposed to protect, provide for, and bind to our name—whether she wants it or not.
The cathedral doors swing open.
She’s walking down the aisle on her father’s arm, wrapped in white lace that was clearly fitted in a hurry. Beautiful, expensive, immaculate from a distance.
Wrong up close.
Not the tension locked through her spine, not the expression she’s fighting to keep neutral, and definitely not the black nail polish on the fingers gripping her bouquet hard enough to bruise the stems.
The detail hits me strangely hard.
A woman expecting to get married today doesn’t paint her nails black.
The realization lands, sharp and ugly.
She didn’t choose this.
I knew that, of course. Arranged marriages rarely happen cleanly. David Kalinin is forcing the alliance through before the Colombians escalate things further.
But theory is different from watching a woman walk toward you like she’s being marched to her own beheading.
She keeps her chin lifted anyway.
That’s the part that gets me. Control. Pure fucking discipline. Like she’s holding herself together through force of will alone.
Beside me, Igor says something under his breath. I don’t hear a word of it.
All I can see is the slight stiffness in her posture. The way Kalinin’s hand closes too tightly around her arm. The fact that she still hasn’t looked at me.
Not because she’s shy.
Because looking at me would make this real.
I understand that impulse better than she knows.
I was prepared for obligation. For politics. For a beautiful stranger I’d marry out of duty and keep at a careful distance.
I was not prepared for her.
She gets closer, and the details sharpen with painful clarity. Pale gray eyes, darker at the rim, shadowed with strain. A full mouth pressed tight against emotion. A faint tremor in the hand holding the bouquet.
Almost nobody in this cathedral would notice it.
I do.
The fact that I notice it at all is the first warning sign. And suddenly this stops feeling strategic.
This woman is about to become my responsibility in front of God and every violent man in this room. Mine to protect.
The thought arrives, involuntary and inconvenient. Not possession. Protection.
I don’t want this complication. Don’t want this responsibility. Don’t want to care what happens to someone again.
Then her eyes finally lift and collide with mine.
She looks terrified.
All I can think is that I’m the last door closing—the man waiting at the end of the aisle, the one she can’t turn back from.
I already know I’m going to spend the rest of this marriage making sure she never regrets it.