"All five Pakhans gather with their advisors at a neutral historic location," he continued, circling back toward me with that shark-like grace. "Violence there is unthinkable. Not just forbidden—cosmically wrong. The kind of violation that would unite all families against the transgressor regardless of prior alliances or enmities."
My mind was racing, processing. Nikolai had called this Council. Had invoked protocols sacred enough that even Anton—who clearly operated by his own brutal moral code—wouldn't violate them.
"He's called Council to challenge my legitimacy," Anton said, and there was something almost admiring in his voice now. Like Nikolai had made a chess move Anton hadn't anticipated but could appreciate on technical grounds. "Using your bloodline as the weapon. Your claim to Belyaev leadership versus mine. Clever."
He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes.
"Won't work, of course. You have no training, no base of power, no support structure within the organization. Blood matters, yes. But blood without capability is just genetics. The Council will rule in my favor. But still—" He paused, studying me like I was a puzzle he was reevaluating. "Clever. I didn't think Nikolai Besharov had it in him to invoke old protocols. Thought he was too modern. Too strategic and careful to gamble on ancient codes."
But Anton didn't understand. Nikolai wasn't gambling. Nikolai didn't gamble—he calculated. Planned seventeen moves ahead. If he'd invoked this Council, he had a strategy I couldn't see yet. A play that went beyond challenging Anton's legitimacy. Something deeper.
I just had to trust him. Had to believe that the man who'd held me while I was Little, who'd brought me to the Garden Room and watched over me while I played, who'd promised to keep me safe—that man had a plan that would work.
"We leave in two hours," Anton said, checking his watch with the casual efficiency of someone whose schedule mattered more than human suffering. "You'll need appropriate clothing. Something that shows you're Belyaev blood, not Besharov property."
The distinction made my skin crawl. The implication that I was property at all—that the only question was which family owned me—reduced everything I was to a possession beingfought over by men who saw women as assets to be acquired or consolidated.
But I nodded. Compliant. Cooperative. Because two hours meant two hours until I saw Nikolai again. Two hours to prepare for whatever desperate gambit he was planning. Two hours to survive.
"My people will help you dress," Anton continued, already moving toward the door like the conversation was finished. "White would be appropriate. Symbolic. Shows purity of bloodline, if not—" He paused, his smile turning cruel. "—other kinds of purity. I know you've been Besharov's whore. But we can overlook that once you're properly married into your own family."
The casual cruelty in his voice made rage flash hot in my chest. But I swallowed it. Breathing through the fury that wanted to make me stupid, that wanted to make me fight when fighting now would just get me hurt.
Anton left. The guards remained, flanking the door with their weapons and their dead eyes. And I sat in the red velvet chair that cost more than my childhood home, cataloging what I'd learned.
TheCathedraloftheTransfiguration rose against the Brooklyn sky like something out of a fairy tale. Onion domes gilded in gold caught afternoon light and threw it back in sheets of impossible brightness. The architecture was pure Russian Orthodox—Byzantine precision in every curve and angle, windows arranged in patterns that meant something to people who understood sacred geometry. Even from inside the SUV, I could smell it. Incense and centuries of prayer soaked into stone walls, the weight of ritual and belief made physical.
I'd been dressed like a bride heading to her execution.
The white cocktail dress hit just above my knees—too short for a cathedral, too symbolic for my comfort. Silk that probably cost more than my rent would have for a year if I'd still had an apartment instead of living in Nikolai's compound. Anton's people had arranged my hair in soft curls that took an hour of professional styling, had applied makeup with the precision of people who did this for a living. Foundation to cover the shadows under my eyes. Mascara to make my heterochromatic eyes—one blue, one green—even more distinctive. Lipstick in soft pink that looked innocent. Virginal.
I looked like a bride. Felt like a sacrifice being led to an altar for purposes I didn't fully understand yet.
The SUV convoy pulled up to the cathedral's side entrance, and through tinted windows I watched other vehicles arriving. Black sedans and SUVs, all expensive, all carrying men in dark suits who moved with the kind of controlled violence that marked bratva security. The Volkovs. The Kozlovs. All five families gathering for something unprecedented, something that almost never happened according to Anton.
My heart was hammering so hard I could feel it in my throat. Somewhere in one of those vehicles was Nikolai. Somewhere in this converging mass of dangerous men was the person I needed most, the Daddy who'd promised to keep me safe even when I'd made that impossible by walking into danger.
Anton's hand found my elbow as we exited—his grip firm enough to bruise, fingers pressing into the soft flesh above my elbow with casual ownership. His breath was hot against my ear when he leaned close, his Russian accent making the English words sound like threats.
"Remember," he murmured, "you're Belyaev. Act like it. Show them you're blood, not some frightened girl who got in over her head."
But Iwasa frightened girl who'd gotten in over her head. Was so far out of my depth that drowning seemed inevitable.
Then I saw him.
Mikhail Besharov was being helped from a Volkov vehicle by two guards who moved with careful precision, supporting his weight without making it obvious he needed support. But he did. He was moving stiffly, favoring his left side, and when he turned enough for me to see his face properly my stomach dropped.
One eye was swollen completely shut. Purple and black bruising that extended down his cheek, the kind that came from repeated blows. His silver hair was disheveled, matted on one side with what might have been dried blood. His expensive suit was rumpled, missing buttons. He looked like he'd been beaten. Systematically. With intent to cause pain without killing.
Anton had done this. Or ordered it done. Had hurt a seventy-three-year-old man to make a point about power, about control, about what happened when people interfered with Belyaev plans.
Rage flashed hot in my chest, but then Mikhail's good eye found me across the parking area. Twenty feet of pavement separated us, plus guards and vehicles and the entire apparatus of bratva security. But in that moment, something passed between us that didn't need words.
Recognition.
Apology.
Determination.
