PROLOGUE
Blood on Satin
Maksim
The smell of blood shouldn't mix with Chanel No. 5, yet here we are.
My wife is dying on our bedroom floor, and all I can think about is how her perfume still clings to the air like it's any other Tuesday night. Like she's about to turn around and ask me if I want tea before bed. Like our baby is still safely tucked inside her, instead of—
"Maksim." Her voice comes out wet. Wrong. Blood bubbles on her lips when she speaks. "The baby..."
I'm on my knees beside her, pressing my suit jacket against the wound in her stomach, but we both know it's too late. The creamcarpet is already ruined—a stupid thing to notice when my world is ending, but my brain won't stop cataloging details. The way her ballet-callused feet still point perfectly even now. How her wedding ring catches the light. The phone on the nightstand that won't stop ringing.
"Don't talk,moya lyubov. Help is coming."
She manages a smile that breaks what's left of my heart. "Liar."
The phone rings again. Fourth time. Fifth. The shrill sound cuts through everything—her labored breathing, my own hammering heart, the distant sirens that won't get here in time.
I snatch it up if only to stop the sound. "What?"
"You can't collect them all, Maksim." The voice is young, cocky, unfamiliar. There's something wrong with it though—like he's performing, putting on a show. "Some ballerinas are meant to fall."
"Who the fuck—"
"Did you really think you could have her? Elena Volovna, prima ballerina of the Bolshoi, reduced to a Bratva wife? She was art, Maksim. You turned her into a possession."
My blood freezes. This isn't random. This is personal.
"When I find you—"
"You won't. You'll be too busy burying your wife and child. Although..." He pauses, and I can hear him smiling through the phone. "I suppose it's just one coffin needed now. Efficient."
The line goes dead.
Elena's hand finds mine, her fingers already too cold. She's trying to speak, but blood keeps getting in the way. I lean close, close enough to feel her breath getting shallower.
"Promise me," she whispers, and I have to strain to hear. "Promise you won't let them make you weak. The reformers... They did this. They made us vulnerable."
"Elena, save your strength—"
"No!" The word comes out sharp, using up too much of what little she has left. "Listen. The reform movement, Alexei's grand plans for legitimacy—it's poison. Makes us soft. Makes us targets. This wouldn't have happened in my father's time. We were strong then. Feared."
She's not wrong. Her father ran the Volovna family like the old days—brutal, absolute, no room for weakness or modern ideas about cooperation with law enforcement. When he died and his territory was absorbed, Elena came with it. Part of the deal. ‘The most beautiful acquisition in Bratva history,’ Sergei had called her.
"Promise me," she says again, gripping my hand with surprising strength. "No reform... Keep the old ways. It's the only way to stay safe."
"I promise." The words taste like ashes and blood. "I promise I'll never let them touch our family."
She smiles again, softer this time. Her free hand moves to her stomach, where our child should be safe for three more months. "Our baby would have been beautiful..."
Would have been. Three words that rewrite everything.
"A dancer," she continues, her voice getting dreamier. "Like mama. I bought shoes yesterday. Pink satin. They're in the nursery."
I know. I saw them this morning, tiny and perfect, waiting for feet that will never wear them.
"Tell me about the nursery," I say, because talking keeps her here, keeps her with me a few seconds longer.
