Mina will be my wife, in full. The situation is not ideal, but it need not remain that way. I will treat her better than my father treated my mother. I will give her keys, not cages.
She will be a partner, not a pretty decoration.
In the small glass gazebo off the garden, the clerk arranges the book for signatures. Fyodor is with him, hat in his hands, watching the door. He looks me over the way he used to whenI was a boy and had scraped both knees on the same day. “You slept?”
“Enough.”
He lifts a brow. “Today is the loud part.”
“It is.”
“It paints a target,” he says, because he will not stop saying the thing no one else will say to me.
“The target was painted a long time ago.”
He doesn’t smile. “You were born for sentences like that.”
“I was born for my father to have an heir. Nothing more.”
“This situation is unusual. A big production like this invites tests.”
“The tests were coming either way.”
“And you,” he says, “are nervous.”
“Yes.” I don’t lie to him. “Not about them. About her.”
He sits with that for a moment, then nods as if the answer satisfies a rule he keeps. “Good. It will keep your attention where it belongs.”
The guest list is a map of the city’s power. Captains and their wives. Rivals who want to see if they made a mistake staying rivals. Old men who remember when I was young and expected me to become my father. New men who think they are the future and will learn otherwise.
The invitation did not include babies. We will announce the twins, not parade them in front of these people. Not until Vitaly has been dealt with.
My suit is dark. My tie is one shade from black, unlike the very formal tuxedo I wore during my first wedding. That one was not for love.
This wedding is for…love of family, perhaps.
This marriage is a plan. It protects Mina. It shields our sons. It steadies the organization when others are watching for weakness. Practical, dry reasons to marry a stranger.
Romance later, if it comes at all. Considering how all of this came together, I doubt it ever will.
I was a romantic once. I thought being pakhan would mean I could marry for love and bend the world to make room for it. My first marriage taught me how wrong that was. Power does not buy freedom. It only buys better illusions.
If life had taken a gentler road, I would not have chosen Mina now. Not like this. Not with danger at the door and a clock ticking. I choose her because she carried my sons. That is the truth, and I do not dress it up.
But another truth sits beside it. I look at her and feel something open that I thought was shut for good. Respect. Heat. A stubborn hope that refuses to die. Maybe love can be built. Brick by brick.
Maybe after everything, I am still a romantic.
It doesn’t matter now. Whatever comes of this, I do it for my sons and the hope of a better future. Romance has been off the table for me for a very long time.
I stroll through my home toward the garden where the ceremony will be held in a few minutes. Heads turn the way heads do when they expect to be seen turning. I greet who I must greet. I nod at men who mistake proximity for friendship. I hold back enough that they remember the line.
The noise dimples and then smooths. The music begins, not loud, not sentimental. Tanner gives me a small nod from the back. He has eyes on the doors and a voice in his ear. Fyodor is at my right shoulder.
When she steps through the French doors at the entry to the garden, all thought evaporates.
She is simple and exact in ivory, a square neck, shoulders bare, hair pulled back. No veil. She doesn’t look intimidated or worried. She looks at ease. Gorgeous, in fact. That is the part that surprises me. Entering a space filled by criminals and bosses, she shines instead of shrinking.
