I climb in, slide the phone into the cup holder, and it starts vibrating again like a trapped insect.
"Give," Oksana says.
I hand it over. She taps it on and leaves the call open to air. My father’s voice fills the car in Italian, a storm ofYoudon’t know what you’re touching,andThis is bigger than your pride, and, softest of all,Son, please?—
Oksana lets it ride for a beat. Then she speaks fluent, crisp, aristocratic Italian, the kind you learn in ballrooms. "Signor Conti, this is the woman your son married."
There is a silence you can taste.
"You have no idea what you’ve done," he breathes.
"That makes three of us," she replies. "But I do know what we are about to do. We’re going to make it legal."
She kills the call, pulls a slim folder from the door pocket, and drops it in my lap. Two passports. A set of forms stamped by someone’s cousin. A tiny red velvet box.
I look at her. "What are you up to?"
She tilts her head. "You tell everyone I'm your zhena in front of men who gossip like a salon filled with debutantes. You put a line in the sand, and I’m sealing it."
For a moment, I just blink at her. Because my emotions don’t know which order to fight in—they all launch at once. I want to laugh. I want to kiss her. I want to put my hand around her throat and demand that she understand what she’s doing to me.
This woman is going to be the death of me.
Her timing, her audacity, heron my schedulecertainty, she turns my entire world sideways every time she opens her mouth. And the worst part? The very best part?
I fucking love it.
I wouldn’t want her any other way.
Somewhere between the lair, the blood, the lies, and the war my father built out of our bones, this woman walked in, turned everything upside down, and made it feel like the first thing in my life that wasn’t a duty.
I look at the passports, the folder, the ring.
I realize—clean and terrifying—that I love this woman.
"You think we can do this tonight?" I ask, voice rougher than I intend.
Her eyes glint. "Dear Marito, this is Mexico City. Everything is possible with cash, a signature, and a notary who owes me his life."
The driver threads the Suburban into the arterial chaos known as traffic here. Oksana texts with her thumbs the way men set charges: decisive and merciless. We pass luminous taquerías, shuttered tiendas, and a procession of street dogs trotting like they own the night. It is almost pretty, if you don’t know what kind of ghosts walk here.
The Registro Civil is a block of old stone and fluorescent light trapped in a dream. Inside, behind a bullet-scratched window, a clerk looks up with eyes that have seen every story people tell at midnight. Oksana lays down the folder, a wad of pesos, and a single sentence in Russian asking for a judge . Two doors open.
We go through the second door.
Thechapelis a room with a Mexican flag, a crucifix hung slightly askew, and a plastic bouquet that has outlived governments. A judge in a cream suit sleeps behind a desk, his tie loosened, a half-eaten concha perched on a plate like a surrendered moon. He stirs, sees Oksana, and wakes completely.
"Señora," he says with grave warmth in English. "You look lovely when you come to threaten my retirement."
"You look terrible when you fall asleep on the Constitution," she replies sweetly. "Judge Molina, this is my marito. We just need the ink to make it legal."
He stands, shakes my hand, and studies my face with the alertness of a man who names the wolves in his city. "And you must be Señor Conti, a pleasure to meet you. You must be someone really special to have won the heart of one…"
"So heartless?" Stephano winks at me. I make a face. Molina laughs nervously.
He nods, something like respect ghosting his mouth, and gestures to a line on a form.
"Here, here, and here."
