Marrying My Ex’s Brother (Forbidden Kings #12)

1. Anya

ANYA

The sun sits high over the pier, turning the water into a sheet of broken glass.

I sit at a table outside Marea, one ankle crossed over the other, my white linen dress fluttering around my thighs every time the sea breeze rolls in.

The restaurant is crowded, but our table has the best view: blue water, white boats, polished railings, rich men pretending they came here for lunch and not to be seen.

I know that game well.

My whole life has been lived around people who pretend.

Across from me, Irina reaches for my hand for the third time in ten minutes. “Let me see it again,” she says.

I sigh like I’m bored, but I still lift my hand.

The diamond catches the sunlight immediately. A perfect oval stone, clean and bright, set on a thin platinum band. Elegant. Expensive. The kind of ring that says a man did not ask for your hand. He bought the right to it.

Irina gasps anyway. “Anya, it’s beautiful.”

“It should be,” Katya says, leaning closer. “Dmitri Volkov has enough money to buy the whole pier.”

I smile and tilt my hand slightly, watching the diamond throw light across the table.

“He has taste,” I say.

That makes them laugh.

I smile wider, because I know what they see when they look at me.

The pretty bride. The lucky girl.

The one who’s marrying into the Volkov family in two weeks.

I’ve always been pretty. Not sweet-pretty or soft-pretty. The kind of pretty people notice before I speak. Pale blonde hair, clear skin, wide blue eyes, a mouth men stare at a second too long before remembering themselves.

In our world, beauty is not everything, but it helps. It makes men kinder when they want something. It makes women crueler when they think you have too much. It makes doors open before anyone asks whether you deserve to walk through them.

And now, with Dmitri’s ring on my finger, every door is open.

Almost.

“Two weeks,” Lena says, lifting her champagne flute. “You must be nervous.”

I look at the water instead of answering right away.

Am I nervous?

I should be. Every bride is supposed to be nervous. That’s what women say, with shining eyes and hands pressed to their chests. But I’ve been preparing for this marriage for so long that it feels less like a beginning and more like a role I’ve finally been allowed to step into.

Dmitri and I grew up near each other. Not together, exactly. Not as equals.

The Volkovs lived behind gates, with guards at every entrance and cars that moved like black shadows through the city. My family lived close enough to be useful, but never close enough to belong.

My father, Sergei Sokolov, served under Dmitri’s father for most of his life. He was loyal, obedient, and careful. An underling. A man who carried orders from more powerful men and called it honor.

Because of him, I learned early where we stood.

The Volkovs ruled.

Men like my father survived by staying useful.

Girls like me survived by becoming wanted.

“I’m not nervous,” I say at last. “Dmitri and I have known each other forever.”

Katya smirks. “Knowing a man forever doesn’t mean you know what he’ll be like as a husband.”

“No one knows what any man will be like as a husband,” Irina says. “That’s why we drink.”

They laugh again. I smile because I’m supposed to. A waiter appears beside us in a black uniform. He refills our glasses without asking.

“Does he spoil you?” Lena asks.

“Of course,” I say.

It comes out easily. Too easily.

Dmitri does spoil me. Dresses, dinners, jewelry, weekends at hotels where the staff know not to ask questions. He likes me polished and quiet. He likes my hair done, my nails pale, my mouth soft, my opinions softer.

And I’ve never minded as much as I should. Being loved by Dmitri Volkov has always felt less like love and more like protection. Protection from whispers. From debt. From being my father’s daughter forever.

When he chose me, people stopped looking through me.

When he proposed, they started looking up.

That matters.

I wish it didn’t, but it does.

“Anya,” Irina says, dragging out my name. “You’re glowing.”

“That’s the facial,” I say.

“No,” Katya says. “That’s power.”

For a second, none of us laughs. Because that’s the truth, and truth is always a little dangerous at lunch.

I turn my hand again, admiring the diamond.

In two weeks, I will become Anya Volkova. The name sits in my mind like a crown.

My phone lights up on the table.

Dmitri.

My heart gives its usual small, foolish jump.

I hate that it still does that. Even after all these years. Even after every careless word, every late reply, every night he disappears and comes back smelling of smoke, expensive cologne, and something I never ask about.

I pick up the phone.

The message is short. Busy tonight. Don’t wait up.

I stare at it. Around me, the women keep talking.

I type back. Everything okay?

Three dots appear.

Disappear.

Appear again.

Then nothing.

I set the phone face down.

Irina notices. Of course she does.

“Dmitri?”

I lift my champagne and smile. “Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“That he misses me.”

The lie is smooth. Perfect. Exactly the kind of lie women like us are trained to tell before we even understand why we’re telling it.

Lena’s expression softens. “That’s sweet.”

“Yes,” I say, looking past them toward the glittering water. “He can be.”

One of the phones on the table buzzes. I check, but it’s not mine.

Katya glances down, quick and casual, the way people look when they’re trying very hard not to look too eager.

Her thumb slides across the screen, and for half a second, her face changes.

A small tightening at the corner of her mouth.

A flicker in her eyes. Then she turns the phone over and reaches for her champagne.

“Wedding nerves are normal,” Lena says, still watching me with that soft, sympathetic look I don’t like. “Even with Dmitri.”

“Especially with Dmitri,” Irina mutters.

Katya laughs a little too quickly. “Don’t scare her.”

“I’m not scared,” I say.

And I’m not. Not exactly.

I know Dmitri. I know his moods, his vanity, his charm. I know how he walks into a room and expects the air to move around him. I know how he kisses me when other men are watching. I know how he forgets promises and makes up for them with bracelets.

I know enough.

At least, I think I do.

Katya’s phone buzzes again. This time she doesn’t look at it. She simply places her hand over it, palm flat, as if she can silence the whole world by pressing down hard enough.

Irina is too busy flagging the waiter for another bottle to notice.

Lena is asking me about the flowers.

I answer automatically. White roses. Pale orchids. No lilies. Dmitri hates lilies. He says they smell like funerals.

My attention drifts to the pier beyond the restaurant terrace. A black car has stopped near the entrance.

Not unusual. Men in dark cars come and go here all the time. But this one makes the waiters straighten. It makes the hostess pause with her hand on a stack of menus. It makes two men near the bar lower their voices.

A driver steps out first.

Then another man.

Tall. That’s the first thing I notice.

Tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in black despite the heat, his coat moving around him like a shadow. His hair is dark, touched with silver at the temples, and his face?—

I forget whatever Lena is saying.

A scar runs down one side of it. Long, pale, brutal. It cuts from near his temple, over his cheek, and disappears somewhere near his jaw. It should make him ugly, but it doesn’t. It makes him look unfinished in the way old castles look unfinished. Damaged, yes, but still standing. Still dangerous.

He reminds me, absurdly, of the Beast from the story my mother used to read to me.

Not the softened version at the end. The one in the castle. The one with claws and silence and too many locked rooms.

“Who is that?” I ask before I can stop myself.

The table goes quiet. That’s how I know I have asked the wrong question.

Irina’s eyes flick toward him, then quickly away. “You don’t know?”

“No.”

Katya doesn’t look up from her glass.

Lena lowers her voice. “Yaromir Volkov.”

I’ve heard of him. Everyone has heard of him, in pieces, in warnings, in unfinished sentences. Dmitri’s older half brother. The one people mention less often. The one who doesn’t attend family dinners or birthday parties or public events unless his presence is a message.

I’ve never seen him this close. I don’t know why that surprises me. Men like Yaromir do not wander into a place by accident.

He speaks briefly to the manager near the entrance. The manager nods too many times. Then Yaromir turns his head, slowly scanning the terrace.

His gaze passes over our table, and for one terrible second, it catches on me.

I stop breathing.

There’s no warmth in his eyes. No curiosity. No open appreciation, the kind I’m used to from men. He looks at me as if I’m a detail in a room he’s already decided he doesn’t care for.

Then his gaze drops to my hand, to Dmitri’s ring, and something shifts in his expression.

Not surprise. Not anger. Something colder.

Recognition, maybe.

Then he looks away. Just like that, as if I’m nothing.

My face burns. I hate it. And still, my pulse is suddenly too loud in my throat.

“Well,” Irina says, exhaling. “That was cheerful.”

I pick up my champagne and drink too quickly. “He’s Dmitri’s brother?” I ask.

Katya is quick to answer. “You don’t know?” Her brows lift. “Hasn’t your family worked under his for ages?”

I look at her. There’s something in her tone I don’t like. Something quick and amused, as if she has caught me being stupid. As if she knows the Volkovs better than I do. The thought irritates me before I can explain why.

“Of course I know,” I say, lifting my glass. “I meant I didn’t realize he came here.” The lie slips out easily.

Katya watches me for a second too long, then smiles. “Right.”

I hate her smile. I hate how calm it is.

The truth is, I know almost nothing about Yaromir Volkov.

My father has worked beneath the Volkov name since before I was born, but he has never brought their business home. Not properly. Not the names, not the details, not the bodies buried under all that loyalty.

Whenever I asked questions as a girl, Sergei would shut them down.

Not your concern, Anya. Not your world.

Except it is my world.

It has always been my world.

I grew up around locked doors, men with guns, women who spoke in careful voices, and dinner conversations that stopped when I entered the room. I knew when my father came home angry not to ask why. I knew when he came home with blood on his cuff not to look at it twice.

But I was never told enough to understand. Only enough to obey.

And Dmitri is worse. Dmitri talks about parties, cars, watches, clubs, yachts, women he claims are boring, men he claims are jealous. He talks endlessly about himself.

But his brother? Never.

Not once in any way that mattered.

Yaromir is a shadow at the edge of the Volkov name. A man everyone seems to know and no one seems willing to explain.

Katya’s phone lights up again beside her plate. She turns it over before I can see the screen.

“Anyway,” Lena says, cutting through the strange pause, “Yaromir doesn’t really do family things.”

“No,” Irina says carefully. “He does other things.”

“What things?” I ask.

Again, silence.

Then Katya laughs softly. “Anya, you’re marrying Dmitri. You don’t need to worry about Yaromir.”

The way she says Dmitri’s name makes my fingers tighten around the stem of my glass.

Soft. Too familiar.

Or maybe I’m imagining it.

Maybe I’m annoyed because she embarrassed me. Maybe I’m looking for a reason to dislike her because she looked at me like I was still Sergei Sokolov’s daughter, not the woman who will soon carry the Volkov name.

I smile anyway. “That’s true,” I say. “I have enough Volkov to handle already.”

Irina laughs.

Lena smiles.

Katya’s phone buzzes again. This time, she picks it up and reads the message with her face turned slightly away from us.

The sun catches my ring, and for the first time all afternoon, the diamond feels heavy.