Chapter 19
Artem
Three weeks after the wedding
The house had survived invasions before.
My grandfather hosted the first round of negotiations after the Soviet routes collapsed, back when half the men drinking his vodka were planning to kill him before dessert and the other half were waiting to see who won.
My father used this same room for politicians who denounced him in public and begged for his money in private, smiling beside him in photographs they'd later pretend were doctored.
The staff knew how to get blood out of expensive rugs. The guards knew which doors to lock when the laughter turned too loud and someone's hand drifted toward a holster.
None of that prepared the house for twelve Bratva heads and their entourages descending on a quiet Tuesday afternoon.
They arrived in black cars. Nothing new there.
They always arrived in black cars. At a certain level of criminal wealth, individuality became a liability, and so every family head pulled through the gates in an identical Range Rover, flanked by identical men in identical dark suits, as though they'd all been issued the same starter pack for organized crime.
The grand room filled with cigar smoke and expensive cologne and the pissing competition growl of alphas calibrating their dominance against each other.
It was a sound I'd grown up hearing. But it was better than the low hum of men deciding who to kneel to and who to kill, which I'd always found tedious.
Today it was like watching dogs circle a park, if the dogs had Swiss bank accounts, too much blood on their hands and opinions about wine.
But because my omega was close, I felt a fear I’d never felt before.
Every shouted greeting in Russian carried too far now.
Every glass set down too hard snapped my attention toward the staircase.
Every push of alpha dominance scraped against the part of me that had stopped measuring safety by money and started measuring it by whether my omega could breathe without her scent going sour.
Gregor had doubled the guards near the nursery without being asked. He'd also repositioned two snipers to the upper gallery, which nobody noticed because Gregor was very good at his job and the snipers were very good at looking like decorative statues in alcoves.
Ivan had removed three men from the east corridor. When I asked why, he said they'd looked bored near Mac's door, which wasn't technically a crime. Then he'd paused and added, "I was very polite about it."
"Were you."
"I didn't break any bones that can't heal."
"Ivan."
"Fine. One man might have a limp. But he was Russian. He'll survive."
Maeve, when I told her the council had arrived, looked down at Mac sleeping in his bassinet and said, "Lovely. The emotionally constipated uncle convention."
Then she'd put on the emerald dress.
I still had not recovered.
It was the wrong color. That was my first thought, which was stupid and unhelpful and entirely beside the point, because she was about to walk into a room full of men who treated women like currency and she needed to look untouchable, not beautiful.
But the dress was both. It clung to her hips and fell to her ankles in a column of dark green that made her skin look like it had been lit from underneath.
No jewelry. No pretense. Just Maeve with her chin up and her bravery on show.
"You're staring," she said.
"Strategizing."
"Is that what we're calling it now?"
"I'm allowed. I'm the Pakhan."
"Not yet, you're not. Currently you're a man who's about to be late to his own coup because he can't stop looking at his wife."
"Wife. I love it."
She raised one eyebrow.
“Are you sure about this? Mary is prepared to keep up the pretense.”
“No. I’ll do this for you.”
I smiled. “For us.”
“Yes. And for this pack. Everyone needs to know we’re strong.”
Downstairs, the noise was rising. Someone laughed too loudly. No doubt Yuri, he'd always laughed like a man who wanted to be noticed laughing, and the sound carried up the staircase like a warning.
"I should go down first," I said.
"Yes."
"Yuri will try to bait me before you enter. He's been working the room."
"I know."
"He'll call you a club girl, or worse. He's not clever but he's persistent."
"Artem." She put a hand on my chest. "I was once prepared to stab a man in an alley with a steak knife that cost eighty pence. I think I can handle a Russian in an off-the-rack suit."
"We still need to talk about that."
"Later."
I kissed her forehead because if I kissed her properly I wouldn't make it downstairs at all, and then Ivan would have to run the meeting, and Ivan's idea of diplomacy was asking questions while cleaning a sidearm and looking at the dead bodies on the floor.
"Mac?" I asked.
"Gregor has him. He's also got Fergus in the sling, which I feel is overkill, but apparently Fergus likes being up high now. It’s the Rottweiler in him. He thinks he is protecting Mac."
"I think it’s so he can see Duke."
"He and Duke are getting in quite well considering you thought Duke would eat him."
I grinned at her and then made it down the staircase with approximately twelve seconds to spare.
The room was exactly as expected. Crystal glasses sweating onto mahogany.
Cigar smoke curling toward the ceiling fresco, which depicted some mythological scene my grandmother had commissioned and nobody had ever bothered to identify.
Twelve men in various stages of expensive decay, plus their seconds, plus their security, all pretending they weren't here to decide whether I lived or died.
Yuri was holding court near the fireplace, which was appropriate because he'd always been drawn to the hottest part of any room.
He'd spent the past week whispering to the older heads, spreading doubt, promising them a share of the London operations if they voted against me.
I knew this because three of the men he'd approached had come to me directly, which was either loyalty or hedging, and at this level of power those were the same thing.
He looked up as I entered. His smile was the same one he'd worn since we were boys—too wide, too quick, the smile of a man who thought charm could substitute for competence.
"Artem." His voice carried across the room. The conversations around him died in sequence like candles going out. "We've enjoyed your hospitality. We've drunk your vodka." He paused, clearly enjoying the silence. "But we are not here for a party."
"No," I agreed, taking my place at the head of the table. "You're here because I invited you."
A few of the older men smiled at that. Not because they liked me. Because they liked watching Yuri get corrected in public.
"Proof," Yuri said, louder now, trying to reclaim the room.
"You promised the council a wedding. Which we never got invited to.
So now we need proof of the McCarthy alliance.
Where is your bride, cousin? Where is the certificate?
" He spread his hands, performing disappointment.
"Or do we take the vote tonight and strip London from a man who cannot deliver what he promised? "
I didn't blink. I'd spent thirty-two years learning not to blink when men like Yuri asked questions they already thought they knew the answers to.
I nodded toward the double doors at the end of the hall.
Blade opened them.
And Maeve walked in.
She wasn't on Ivan's arm or Gregor's. She walked alone, three paces ahead of them, her spine straight and her chin elevated just enough to make eye contact with every man at the table as she passed.
The dress moved with her. The liquid emerald catching the chandelier light.
But it wasn't the dress that silenced the room.
It was her scent.
Our scent. Pack-scent, the three of us tangled through her skin so completely it was impossible to tell where one alpha ended and the next began. Champagne and caramel, and underneath it all, storm-clouds, the note that had secretly haunted me since Prague.
The secret note that only came out since she found her mates.
The effect was immediate.
Three of the older alphas lowered their glasses. Dmitri, who'd been halfway through a sentence about shipping lanes, stopped speaking mid-word. Petyr removed his glasses and cleaned them, which was the closest thing to shock his face was capable of producing.
Ivan walked on her right. Gregor on her left. And in Gregor's arms, wrapped in a dark blanket and completely indifferent to the most dangerous room in Europe, was Mac.
Yuri's face went through several expressions very quickly, none of them flattering.
"What is this?" His voice had climbed half an octave. "This isn't the McCarthy girl. Who is this omega?"
I didn't answer immediately. I let the silence stretch long enough for everyone at the table to understand that Yuri had just demanded information from me in my own house while standing next to my fireplace.
"This is our pack omega." My voice carried without shouting. The acoustics in the hall were excellent for moments like this. "And our son."
The murmurs started low and built quickly. Uncle Mikhail, who had been watching the entire exchange from his seat near the center of the table, raised one hand. The room quieted.
"Artem." Mikhail's voice was measured. The voice of a man who had survived seventy-two years of Bratva politics by never committing to a position until he knew where the bodies would fall.
"You have an omega, and an heir." He glanced at Mac, then back at me.
"This is unexpected. But it’s also not what you promised this council.
You promised the McCarthy alliance. You promised the routes. "
Yuri saw his opening and lunged for it. "He lied! He brings a bastard and some—"
"Finish that sentence," Ivan said quietly, "and I'll finish you."
Yuri's mouth closed. He was stupid but he wasn't that stupid. Ivan's reputation had been earned at eighteen and reinforced every year since.