KATERINA
By the time Roman leaves, I’m still shaking.
Not visibly, I hope. I have years of practice at making my face behave while the rest of me falls apart. But inside, everything is a mess. My pulse is still too fast. My mouth still remembers his. My thoughts keep circling the same impossible facts and refusing to settle anywhere useful.
I’ve seen this man in my dreams, in every possible scenario, but even my stupid mind couldn’t conjure this scene.
So naturally, this is the exact moment my father decides to parade me toward a man who looks like he moisturizes with debt.
“Katya,” Papa says, appearing at my elbow as if summoned by my worst instincts. “Come. There is someone you should meet.”
There is no good version of that sentence in my family.
I glance toward Mama, but she’s trapped with Sofia, who is explaining some grave injustice involving cake, while Nikolai stands beside them looking tired and over-dressed and already too aware of the room.
Vika is nowhere in sight, which means she’s either preening in a mirror or spreading poison in small, elegant doses.
“I was just going to sit down,” I say.
Papa does not even look at me. “You can sit later.”
Wonderful.
He leads me across the ballroom to a man standing near one of the columns with a drink in one hand and the expression of someone who has been waiting too long to be flattered properly.
He’s older than Papa by a few years, though less disciplined about it.
His face has the damp, expensive look of a man who believes facials can beat time if he throws enough money at the problem.
His suit is glossy. His hair is too dark to be honest. His smile arrives before we do and dies the moment he realizes Roman is not coming back.
Ah. This is not a social moment.
This is a livestock inspection.
“Katerina,” Papa says, “this is Arkady Belov.”
Arkady takes my hand before I offer it.
“Beautiful,” he says, smiling at my father rather than me, “and more striking in person.”
“Lucky me,” I say.
Papa’s fingers press briefly into my elbow.
A warning.
I smile anyway.
Arkady does not seem to notice the tone. Or worse, he notices and thinks it’s flirtation. “Sergei has told me so much about you.”
I look at my father. “That seems unlike him. He usually prefers mystery and emotional repression.”
Papa ignores me.
Arkady chuckles as if I have said something charming and feminine instead of true. “Your daughter has spirit.”
“Yes,” Papa says dryly. “We’re all trying to survive it.”
I fold my hands in front of me before I do something regrettable with the champagne glass.
The room is still moving around us. Music, laughter, the low hum of careful conversations.
Somewhere across the ballroom, Vika is still performing widowhood in couture.
Mama has the children with her now, thank God.
Sofia is asleep against her shoulder. Nikolai stands at her side, looking exactly as trapped as I feel.
Roman is gone. I almost had a heart attack when I saw him talking to Sofia. I don’t want my children anywhere near him. If he finds out the truth…God, I shudder to think what will happen.
I can feel Papa’s frustration with it even if he never says so. He has been smoother since Roman’s departure, more attentive in the wrong places, more eager to redirect the evening toward something usable. Which means Roman leaving cost him whatever quiet plan he had been assembling in his head.
And I hope it ruined his whole night.
Arkady is still talking.
He owns hotels, apparently. Or casinos. Or ports.
Or girls shipped between all three. Men like him collect industries the way mold collects corners.
I stop listening halfway through a speech about the Black Sea because he says “logistics” with the kind of pride that suggests trafficking or tax fraud, and frankly the specifics feel ungenerous.
Then he says, “A woman in your position must value stability.”
I blink at him. “My position?”
He nods as though we are sharing something frank and adult. “A mother. A lady. A woman who has seen some disappointment.”
I almost laugh.
Papa steps in before I can answer. “Katerina has matured.”
Arkady smiles at me as if maturity is a thing he personally enjoys discovering in damaged women. “I’m sure she has.”
“Yes,” I say. “Trauma is very educational.”
Papa’s jaw tightens.
Arkady laughs too loudly.
I decide at once that I hate him.
Not because he’s older. Not because he’s hideous in that very polished way certain men manage. Because he thinks he’s doing me a kindness by looking interested.
That’s the part that makes me want to set something on fire.
“And the children?” he asks.
“My children continue to exist,” I say.
Papa’s hand returns to my elbow. Harder this time.
Arkady smiles as if I have made a delightful joke. “Sergei says the boy is exceptional.”
“Sergei says many things when he wants something.”
Silence.
Papa turns his head slowly. “Katerina.”
I lift my brows. “What? I’m agreeing with your reputation.”
Arkady clears his throat. “A strong family needs directness.”
“Then you must be thrilled.”
Papa decides at that point that I have had enough liberty.
He steps half in front of me, smoothly reclaiming the conversation, talking to Arkady now about old ties, trusted names, mutual interests, and all the other phrases men use when they want to arrange lives without ever admitting that’s what they are doing.
I stand there smiling faintly and say almost nothing, which makes Arkady like me more.
That’s the worst part.
The less I speak, the more he seems to imagine softness where there is only restraint. I catch him looking at my ring finger once, then at my father, then at the children across the room.
Alliance, I think. You old snake.
Papa is frustrated Roman left.
So now he’s shopping.
By the time Arkady finally kisses the air near my cheek and promises they will speak again soon, I’m one insult away from chewing through my own wrist to escape.
The second he’s gone, I turn to Papa.
“No.”
He doesn’t pretend not to understand. “You embarrassed me.”
“I saved us all time.”
“He’s interested.”
“I noticed. He looked at me like a man examining horseflesh.”
Papa’s face hardens. “You’re no longer in a position to be difficult.”
The words hit my like a slap.
I lower my voice. “If you try to marry me off to that man, I will poison his soup.”
“Katerina.”
“No, really. I will. Slowly if I have to.”
He looks at me for a long moment.
Then, in a tone so calm it almost passes for kindness, he says, “You should count your blessings.”
I stare at him.
Papa’s eyes move over me, and I know exactly what is coming a second before he says it.
“You’re not a girl anymore,” he says. “You have two children, no husband, and you’ve let yourself go.”
I hear every word clearly.
Papa continues, low enough that no one else can hear.
“You were soft before. Now you’re fat, difficult, and carrying scandal like perfume. The fact that I convinced a man like Arkady Belov to consider you at all is not an insult. It’s a favor.”
My father has always known how to hurt me without raising his voice.
For one second, I cannot speak.
Not because I’m wounded. That comes later. Right now, I’m too angry to feel properly.
Then I look at him and smile.
It’s not a nice smile.
“You should count your blessings too,” I say.
His brows draw together. “What does that mean?”
“It means if I had married well and stayed obedient, you wouldn’t have Nikolai to parade around at your little mafia parties.”
Papa goes still.
Because now, we’re hurting each other honestly.
I step closer, just enough that from a distance we might still look like a father and daughter having a civil conversation.
“You want the boy,” I say softly. “You value the boy. You tolerate me because I produced the boy. Let’s not dress it up as generosity, Papa. It spoils the elegance.”
His nostrils flare slightly. “Go home,” he says.
I almost laugh. “With pleasure.”
I turn before he can change his mind and walk straight to Mama.
She sees my face and asks no questions. She only hands me Sofia, who curls into me without waking, and nods toward Nikolai.
He takes my free hand at once.
On our way out, Vika watches from across the room with the sort of lazy smile women wear when they believe a scene has gone badly for someone else.
I smile back.
Not because I’ve won.
But because I’m leaving.
The moment the car door shuts, the whole evening seems to collapse inward.
Outside, the house is still glowing behind us, all chandeliers and polite lies.
Inside the car, it’s dim and overheated and close, with Sofia asleep across my lap and Nikolai leaning against my side, already half-gone himself.
Mama sits opposite us, one gloved hand folded over the other, quiet for once.
Papa does not come out to see us off.
That’s almost a relief.
The driver pulls away from the curb. Streetlights smear across the windows. Sofia makes a small sleepy sound and presses her face deeper into my dress. I smooth her hair back automatically, but my mind is nowhere near the child in my arms.
It’s still with Roman.
Roman Sokolov. Roman Morozov.
Who is he really? And what is he hiding?
No one in that ballroom knew.
Not Papa. Not Vika. Not any of the old sharks circling the room with their daughters and grandsons and dead eyes.
If they had known, the air would have changed.
Men like that don’t hide shock well when bloodlines collide in front of them.
They stare. They go still. They begin making calculations with their faces before they even mean to.
None of that happened.
They know him as Sokolov.
Maybe rich. Maybe dangerous. Maybe self-made. Maybe something half-guessed and left unspoken.
But not as a Morozov.
I shift slightly in the seat, and the movement sends a fresh memory through me so fast I almost close my eyes.
His mouth. His hand at my waist. The way he stepped back, then looked at me like he still wanted to drag me into something neither of us would survive cleanly.
I push the thought away.