"I'm the one who's grateful." Her accent thickens slightly with emotion, the careful English slipping just enough to reveal the girl from Zagreb who came to me five years ago with nothing but trauma and determination. "Forever in your debt, Victoria. You know that."
I rise from my chair, smoothing imaginary wrinkles from my cream silk blouse. The diamond engagement ring catches the fluorescent light, throwing cold fire across the desk between us. I haven't been able to stop touching it, twisting it, feeling its weight, reminding myself it's real.
Three weeks until I marry a man I barely know.
"I need to go," I say. "After all, I have a wedding to organize. Three weeks isn't much time."
Jelena stands too, and her expression shifts into something more serious. Warning. "Victoria. Be careful. Don't get too close to them. The Severyns. They're lethal in ways that have nothing to do with violence."
The words land with more weight than she probably intends.
I think about Maksim's ice-blue eyes across the lunch table, the way his presence made the air feel heavier. The intelligence behind that cold mask. The control that mirrors my own in ways I don't want to examine too closely.
I think about the ring on my finger that I can't stop touching, even though I know it means nothing. Just a prop. Just performance.
I think about Zakhar outside the restaurant, the way tension coiled through his body when I spoke to him. The heat in his gaze that he tried so hard to hide.
"I know," I say finally, and the words feel like confession.
But even as I speak, a traitorous thought whispers through my mind.
I'm already too close.
And the most terrifying part is that I'm not sure I want to pull away.
6
VICTORIA
The makeup artist's brush whispers across my cheekbone, feather-light and precise. Through the window of the preparation room, Lake Michigan spreads like hammered silver beneath golden hour light. The Adler Planetarium sits on its peninsula like a temple to the sky, and I'm getting ready to marry a stranger inside a building dedicated to studying distant, unreachable things.
"Are you nervous?" The makeup artist's voice breaks through my thoughts, bright with the particular optimism of someone who still believes weddings are about love.
"A little," I lie.
I'm not nervous. I'm numb. There's a difference.
She applies another layer of highlighter, tilting my face toward the light streaming through the glass. "It's so quiet in here.Usually the bride's suite is buzzing with people. Friends. Family." She pauses, then asks with careful brightness, "Where's your mother?"
The question cuts swift and clean.
"Dead."
The brush stills against my skin. Horror and embarrassment flood her face in equal measure. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean—"
"It's fine. I was five." I keep my voice level, controlled, giving her nothing to work with.
The lie of time healing wounds sits bitter on my tongue. Some losses don't get smaller with distance. They just get quieter. Learn to whisper instead of scream.
"Would you like some champagne?" She gestures desperately toward the bottle chilling in the corner, trying to recover from her misstep. "To settle your nerves?"
"I don't drink alcohol."
"Oh." Her smile wavers. "That's... that's actually really healthy."
She finishes the last touches in silence, and I'm grateful for it. The room smells like roses and hairspray, expensive products meant to transform women into brides. Outside, gulls cry over the water. Somewhere in the building, a string quartet rehearses, notes drifting through walls and glass like ghosts of music.
The past three weeks blur together in my memory. Wedding planning compressed into an impossible timeline. I'd managed exactly two phone calls with Maksim, fully intending to weaponize every detail, to be the demanding, insufferable bride he'd regret buying.
