Chapter 5
KATIE
At eight in the morning, a woman I met twelve minutes ago fastens an ivory thong over my hips and asks me to hold still for her evaluation of my breasts.
“My breasts are cooperating,” I tell her.
The stylist lifts one eyebrow. “The bra disagrees.”
Cherry sits near the courthouse anteroom window with an ice pack against her swollen lip. “Katie has that problem with authority.”
The stylist replaces the first bra with a balconette cut low across the cups. Ivory lace holds my breasts high, leaving their upper curves bare under the dress waiting on the garment rack. The matching thong disappears between my ass cheeks whenever I move.
The leather folder on Cherry’s lap holds the license Artur and I received from the probate office at seven thirty. Yesterday I agreed on paper to marry him; this morning a magistrate will make me Katie Dymova.
Two staff members finish my makeup with foundation and powder that won’t transfer to a white cloth. The stylist curls my brown hair, pins one side away from my face, then paints my mouth in muted red.
Cream rather than white, the dress has corset seams that fit under my breasts, draw close around my waist, then let the fabric follow my hips. The neckline exposes the tops of the lace cups if I bend too far, and a narrow slit opens along my right thigh above the knee.
The woman in the mirror looks composed despite the night behind her. She also has expensive lace against her skin, a dress fitted to her actual body, and diamonds at her ears worth last month’s rent.
I like looking at her; after years of making myself presentable with whatever survived clearance racks, always planning how quickly each purchase could be packed, this dress was tailored overnight for my body, then given without anyone asking whether I’d earned anything beautiful.
“You can breathe,” Cherry says.
I release the breath trapped high in my lungs. “I’m preserving the stitching.”
“Take a full breath,” Cherry replies. “The dress will hold.”
A guard knocks before opening the door. “Mr. Dymov is ready.”
My heart kicks once, hard enough to disturb the breath I was holding.
Cherry notices my hand rise toward my throat and catches it halfway. “You negotiated every clause, and you can still walk away.”
I look at the black duffel under the garment rack, packed with my license, photographs, and clothes salvaged from the apartment. The bag has followed me through every place that stopped wanting me.
Artur is dangerous, yet after I refused his protection, he hid surveillance outside my home; even so, he left Nadia alone with me and accepted every safeguard I demanded. Under the contract, he has no claim on my body. For one year, with an exit I wrote myself, I can choose this much.
“Let’s go,” I say.
The courthouse has the faded grandeur of a place built to make ordinary lives feel small.
Stone walls lift toward windows that turn the morning light white and stern, brass railings have gone dark beneath decades of hands, and the corridor smells of wool, floor wax, and cologne.
Armed Dymov men stand among people waiting for marriage licenses or traffic hearings, their tailored suits and watchful silence making everyone else speak more quietly.
Artur waits beside the ceremony-room door.
His black suit fits close through the hard breadth of his shoulders before narrowing at the waist and drawing taut over his thighs.
Under the jacket, a white shirt lies open at the throat with no tie to soften him, while the pale scar near his temple shows below short dark hair.
Gray eyes move from my face to the neckline of my cream dress, follow its fitted waist and hips, then stop where the slit exposes my thigh.
His attention has weight, and by the time it returns to my face, heat has traced the same route under the fabric.
He doesn’t pretend the inspection is polite.
Heat gathers low in my abdomen as his attention returns to my breasts, and the lace under my dress feels rough against my nipples.
“Explain your face,” I say.
Artur walks toward me with his gaze on the neckline. “I’m trying to figure out whether the lingerie matches.”
“It does.”
His nostrils widen on a slow breath, giving me a small, vicious pleasure.
“The thong is very small,” I add.
Artur’s eyes close for one beat. When they reopen, the amusement has gone. “You enjoy making armed men suffer.”
“Only the arrogant ones.”
His attention drops to my mouth. “Keep describing the thong and the magistrate will learn how much paperwork a courthouse desk can survive.”
My pulse beats faster. “That sounds like damage to public property.”
“I’ll donate a new desk.” His voice stays dry, but his hand closes once at his side.
As Ivan approaches from the security checkpoint, Artur rests a hand at the small of my back, careful to leave me room to step away.
“Katie, this is my uncle, Ivan,” Artur says. “Ivan arranged the route.”
Ivan inclines his head. “The vehicles are ready when the ceremony ends.” His gray eyes resemble Artur’s under silver brows. He studies my throat, then returns to my face without smiling.
“Thank you,” I reply.
The ceremony room abandons that grandeur at the threshold.
Six wooden chairs face a signing table beneath flat fluorescent light; an artificial plant gathers dust beside a flag leaning slightly away from the wall.
Against the government beige, my cream dress, Artur’s black suit, Cherry’s red mouth, and the diamonds at my ears look almost indecently alive.
The room is too plain to compete with the decision being made inside it.
Nadia stands beside the license while Cherry takes the front chair, and Boris and Ivan guard the door as the magistrate checks our identification.
Hearing “Katie Alba” beside “Artur Dymov” makes the arrangement feel more permanent than every clause Nadia negotiated.
My mouth dries, and I taste mint from Cherry’s water as the magistrate explains that the filed certificate will let me change my records to Dymova.
Katie Dymova.
The name is foreign in my head: Alba may come from people who didn’t keep me, but it’s the only part of my childhood nobody could pack into a garbage bag or leave behind at another foster house. Giving it up for a year presses grief under my ribs where I didn’t expect to find any.
The magistrate places the marriage record in front of me.
My fingers close around the pen, but the numbness from the electrical cord makes my grip unreliable; I adjust it twice, and nobody rushes me.
I look at Artur, and the room has gone quiet enough for me to hear the ventilation above the flag. His hand rests open beside his own unsigned line, leaving the decision entirely in mine.
I sign Katie Alba for the last time.
Artur signs beside me, followed by Cherry and Boris as witnesses.
The magistrate completes the certificate section and announces us legally married.
Nadia opens a narrow case I hadn’t noticed beside the folder.
Inside lie two plain bands, mine slender and Artur’s wider, both made from the same darkened gold.
Without closing his fingers around it, Artur takes my left hand, and only after I turn my palm upward does he slide the ring over my knuckle.
His eyes remain fixed on my face rather than the metal, watching for a refusal even now.
The darkened gold is cool and unexpectedly heavy, its narrow band settling at the base of my finger like a beautiful little lock whose key the contract placed in my own hand.
When I fit his wider band in return, his hand could swallow mine, yet he holds perfectly still while I work the gold into place.
For one suspended moment, our joined hands look more intimate than the kiss waiting to follow.
“You may kiss your wife,” the magistrate says.
Artur looks at me instead of moving. “Performance?”
I understand the question. A public kiss is expected, but the contract requires nothing. I nod once.
He places his palm against my cheek and bends until his mouth touches mine.
The first contact is restrained, closed lips and warm skin for one breath in front of the magistrate, until my fingers catch in his lapel.
Artur responds to my grip, and his other hand moves around my waist and brings me against him as his mouth opens over mine. I taste coffee on his tongue. Heat moves from his palm through the fitted dress, reaching the bare skin above my thong as his thumb slips under the edge of my waistline.
I stop hearing the witnesses under the pressure of his mouth. My nipples tighten against the lace as a pulse starts between my thighs and makes my knees briefly unreliable.
I end the kiss before my body makes another contractual amendment.
Artur’s mouth follows mine an inch before he stops. His breathing reaches my lips, warmer and faster than before.
The magistrate clears her throat; Cherry doesn’t bother hiding her smile.
“Congratulations, Mrs. Dymova,” Nadia says.
Nadia and Cherry leave first in a courthouse security car with two guards, bound for Cherry’s protected apartment. We follow through a restricted side entrance, where morning sun flashes against three black vehicles idling at the curb. Ivan gives a signal, and guards open the center SUV.
The first vehicle reaches the intersection before a white box truck turns across both lanes. Its rear doors face us, unmarked, with a steel bar clamped across the handles. A dark sedan pulls too close behind the last SUV.
Boris swears from the front seat. “False plate on the truck.”
My heart begins hammering, and the seat belt bites across my chest when our driver brakes, bringing back the bedroom door breaking inward and a pistol aimed at my face. A metallic wash gathers along my gums.
“Move,” Artur orders.
Guards open our doors toward the sidewalk, and engines roar as men shout positions I can’t follow. Artur takes my hand, pulling me low between two vehicles with exhaust burning my nose, and a guard blocks the street with his body.