Chapter 06
Maksim
The back room of the registry office smells of old paper and reheated coffee. The official Vladimir bribed has trembling hands. He adjusts the papers at least three times and looks everywhere but at me.
I’m wearing my mask, as always, even though I don’t need to.
The room looks more like a storage closet converted into an office than an actual registry.
We’re in a tiny building in one of the most remote neighborhoods of St. Petersburg.
The only window faces a dead-end alley, and apart from me and Vladimir, the only other person here is the frightened man. He won’t live long after today.
But I keep the mask on for my bride. She still hasn’t seen my face, and I don’t want the first time to be here.
As if summoned by my thoughts, she appears. Igor holds the door open for her to enter, and I take her in.
Dark dress, neat bun, minimal makeup. Nothing that draws attention. Svetlana stops in the middle of the room and looks around until those large green eyes land on me, scrutinizing me from head to toe. Or rather, scrutinizing the mask.
“You’re going to get married like that?” she asks.
It’s the first thing she’s said to me today.
We haven’t seen each other since I left her in the entrance hall with Olga and retreated to the office.
When I returned to the bedroom, she was already asleep.
This morning, when I left, I only gave Olga instructions to hurry her along to meet me at the registry office.
Nothing more.
“I am.”
“All right.” She pulls out the chair and sits down elegantly. “I just wanted to know if I’d have to swear eternal love to a plastic skull.”
Vladimir, beside me, makes an unusual sound for him: he clears his throat. I know immediately he’s holding back laughter. Anya doesn’t even look at him, keeps her eyes on me, waiting for my response.
“There’s no oath, Svetlana. Just a signature,” I say, my voice serious and flat.
“Even better.” She folds her hands on the table. “Oaths break easily. Signatures have witnesses.”
I sit in the chair beside her, ignoring the bizarre sight of Vladimir trying to contain a smile. Her knees are inches from mine, but neither of us pulls back, making it clear that giving ground isn’t an option.
The trembling official looks from me to her, unsure what to do, then clears his throat and points to the lines on a printed sheet.
“Here, here, and here,” he says, sliding the sheet across the table. “Both of you sign.”
Anya picks up the pen before me. Again. It’s not haste—it’s just a silly competition I refuse to admit I’m enjoying. Her handwriting is firm, beautiful, without unnecessary flourish on the name she’ll never use again.
Svetlana Anastasia Voronova.
She pushes the sheet a few millimeters in my direction, careful not to seem agitated. Anya wants to give the impression of disinterest, but disinterest is the one thing missing from this room.
“Your turn, husband.”
The word lands on the table between us.
Husband.
She uses it on purpose, to see what it does to me. It does nothing she can see from the outside. One of the many advantages of wearing this mask is hiding the small facial expressions I can’t control. She caught me off guard. Again.
Maksim Borisovich Nikiforov.
I sign just below her name, letting her know my name for the first time. Like my face, this is a privilege few are granted.
“The rings?”
the official asks, as if he’s not sure men like me carry rings.
I roll my eyes under the mask. Yes, I’m the Pakhan of the St. Petersburg Bratva, Muzhchina v Maske, but I’m not a savage. I wouldn’t come to my own wedding without a ring!
I take the small box from the inner pocket of my jacket. Inside are two identical matte gold bands, nothing flashy, but elegant. Classic.
“You brought a ring,” Anya comments quietly, surprised.
“I did.”
“Exactly my size,” she notes.
“Exactly.”
She quickly picks up the smaller ring and examines it, turning it between her fingers, looking for an inscription.
Does she think I reused a ring? Did Svetlana expect to find another person’s name there?
She doesn’t find anything, though. When I left this morning for the jewelry store to pick up the ring I ordered the second I decided who would be my wife, I told them not to engrave anything. We’re not a conventional couple.
Actually, we’re not a couple. Period.
“How did you know my size?” she asks, distrust edging her voice.
“I didn’t know. Vladimir did.”
“Of course.”
She returns the ring to me, and for an instant, her long, slender fingers touch my skin. The rough, calloused palm of my hand against her soft, warm skin. We both register the touch and say nothing, just pull our hands apart.
Spinning the ring between my fingers, I decide to get this over with and order:
“Extend your hand.”
She’s already extending her right hand before I even finish the sentence. The right. Following Orthodox custom throughout Russia. This triggers a reaction in me I don’t recognize—precisely because it’s so rare.
I freeze.
I don’t know what to do. The left hand would be easier. It would embody our contract: a marriage of convenience. A fake marriage. Placing the ring on her right hand is saying, without saying, that this isn’t just paper.
Svetlana notices I’ve frozen. Of course. She seems to notice everything. Still, she doesn’t pull her hand back. Instead, she looks at me steadily, trying to read my decision behind the mask.
“The left?” she asks.
And it’s not provocative—she seems to be offering me an out. I could accept. Maybe I should. I should just slide the ring onto her left ring finger and be done with it. The terms would be clear and we’d move forward from here: clean contract, nothing beyond what we agreed to.
“Right.”
The word comes out firmer than I expected, considering my heart is beating faster than it was two minutes ago. Vladimir looks up from the folder and I catch a glimpse of surprise on his face, but it passes quickly. He didn’t expect me to do this.
Neither did I.
I slide the ring onto the finger Anya offers me, trying to be brief. Trying not to think about the soft warmth of her skin.
“Your turn,” she says.
I extend my right hand as well, watching her precise movements as she takes the ring with one hand and my fingers with the other.
She slides the ring on while staring down, not at me, not at the mask.
When she finishes, she doesn’t let go of my hand right away—lingers another second, as if she needs to absorb what just happened.
“There. Now we’re even.”
“Will you...” the official interrupts, gesturing awkwardly between us. “Newlyweds usually kiss to finalize...”
“No.”
My refusal comes out clipped. Imperative. Anya doesn’t comment, but turns her head slightly to look at me.
“We’re done then,” she says, and stands, collecting the copy of the paper from the table before the official can offer it.
Vladimir signs as witness. The official stamps the certificate with too much force, hands still trembling, relief written all over his face that we’re about to leave.
In the hallway, Igor leans against the wall with his arms crossed, two meters of man pretending to blend in. Svetlana passes him and stops.
“You stayed out here this whole time?” she asks.
“I did,” Igor responds.
“And if something had gone wrong in there?”
I feel a pang in my stomach—something like indigestion—when I realize Anya expected Igor to protect her. Igor. Not the man who just became her husband.
Igor looks at her, then at me, then back at her.
“The Pakhan was in there. Nothing would go wrong.”
She considers his answer while sizing up the enforcer. It’s cute how her neck has to crane back to take in all of Igor.
“What’s your name?”
Despite being with us yesterday and bringing her here today, Svetlana hasn’t been officially introduced to any member of the Circle.
“Igor.”
“Anya,” she responds, equally direct, but doesn’t extend her hand. “What are you to him?”
“Whatever he needs.”
“What are you today?”
“The door.”
Anya nods briefly, accepting the answer as if it’s the most sensible thing she’s heard all week. And maybe it is.
Igor just lets out a grunt. He’s not angry or anything like that—it’s just what he gives in response to someone he’s known for so little time. That sound, however, says a lot. It says that Igor, my longtime friend, my brother for all intents and purposes, approves of my new wife.
As soon as she gets in the car, parked in the alley behind the decrepit registry office, Anya takes off the ring. I watch her, thinking she won’t notice, but she does.
“Relax,” she says, spinning the ring in the light coming through the window, examining the band once more.
“I’m not returning it or refusing to keep it.
I’m checking if it’s the kind of cheap gold that’ll turn my finger green after a week.
” She slides the ring back on. “Looks like it won’t. You didn’t skimp. Noted.”
“Were you testing me?”
“Everything in life is a test.” She faces the window. “You should know—you do the same thing all the time, with everyone. The difference is I warn you when I’m testing. You don’t.”
“I warn, sometimes.”
“You never warn.” She turns to face me. “You tested whether I’d cry at the registry office. I didn’t cry, so I guess I passed.”
“I didn’t do that.”
“Yes, you did. Maybe you didn’t even realize it.
But it was written all over you—you were waiting to see if I’d fall apart when it came time to sign.
A woman who falls apart signing a marriage contract is useless.
I’m not like that, and now you’re recalculating what you bought.
” She turns back to the window. “It’s all over your face. Oh, wait—you’re wearing a mask.”
I almost laugh at her bite. It’s the most she’s said to me since we met, and I like it. But I don’t let the laugh escape. Not yet.
Silence settles in the car for a few minutes as I drive toward the Nikiforov estate at the edge of the city. It’s not uncomfortable, exactly, but it’s heavy. As if the reality of what we just did is sinking in.
We’re married now.
“Is this a facade or a contract?” she asks, breaking the silence.
“Contract,” I answer. She nods. “But it’s not a facade.”
She turns then, staring at me, studying me behind the mask. It sounds contradictory, and she wants to know why I see it that way.
“Don’t those two things conflict?”
“No. A facade is what the world sees, and underneath there’s nothing.
A contract is what’s signed. Both parties honor what’s written, or someone dies.
” I pause, choosing my words carefully, because Anya deserves the real answer, not a comfortable version.
“Out there, you’ll be the wife of the Man in the Mask—proof that I have something to lose.
That’s what the world needs to believe. And you’ll make them believe it.
But what’s written between us, underneath all that?
No one sees it, and no one can break it. That’s what counts.”
She processes that for a second before responding.
“So the outside is a lie.”
“Yes.”
“Good.” She turns her face to the window. “I spent the last five years living a facade. Smile at the door, you know—just so the clientele could see everything was fine. Don’t recommend it. Don’t want to repeat it.”
I don’t ask about those five years. It’s all in the file I didn’t read.
But it’s also written on her—in the way she acts, the way she responds.
I don’t need to read any paper to know she spent half a decade being a facade version of herself.
The version others needed to see, while the real one rotted away unseen.
Her hand rests in her lap, the ring catching the light. Fifteen minutes until we reach the estate.
“One more thing.”
“Go ahead.”
“When you decide to take that off”—she makes a vague gesture toward my mask without looking—“give me a heads-up. I don’t like surprises.”
“Who said I’m going to take it off?”
Out of the corner of my eye, even with the mask, I catch her smiling for the first time since we met. It’s not a happy smile, not yet, but it’s just as beautiful. A knowing smile, like she’s figured out something I haven’t. I respect that as much as it puts me on guard.
“You brought a ring the exact size of my finger, Maksim.”
It’s the first time I’ve heard my name in her voice, and I still don’t know how I feel about it.
Good, but strange. After more than a decade keeping my face and identity secret, hearing someone outside the Circle call me Maksim is oddly comforting.
I don’t think that comfort is unique to her, of course.
“A man who thought about the ring has already thought about everything else,” she continues. “You’re going to take off the mask. I know it. You just haven’t decided when.”
Anya falls silent again, watching the street and the buildings pass through the window, closing the subject and leaving me to think. She was right and wrong. It’s not that I haven’t decided when to show my face. It’s that she just made me want to.
This woman came into my life less than forty-eight hours ago and is already changing everything. Fuck.