It isn’t a soulless mausoleum.
It’s as homey as a palace can get.
Of course, that isn’t to dismiss the amount of security. It isn’t just the cameras that blend right into the crown molding. People are walking about with guns holstered at their hips. Hired help in uniform.
The sound of several voices, interlacing and overlapping, spills down the hallways. Through my haze, I’m led into the main living area. I realize I’ve never seen wedding photos and weapons in the same room before.
No one has to say it.
I’m Alice down the rabbit-hole, and this isn’t a world I know anything about.
“Iosif!” A young woman with silver-blonde hair flies off one of the sofas and throws her arms around the man by my side. His grunt upon impact is swiftly followed by merry laughter. He sweeps her off her feet, spinning her around until she’s whining about him cracking her bones.
My eyes struggle to take in every face in the room.
It doesn’t help that they all look so damn alike. Almost all of them share the same dark hair, with the exception of the silver-haired woman, another with hair that’salmostblonde without ever quite getting there… and a redhead that walks in behind us, in—
“Scrubs?” I blink, flustered, at Leonid. “Am I about to need a doctor?”
Apparently, it’s a family tradition to laugh in my face.
Leonid laughs so hard he drops my arm and finds himself bent over, roaring with it. Iosif is at my side a beat later. He’s so tall that it obscures my view of anyone else.
“What did you say?” he asks, his eyes already bright with amusement.
“I said—”
“That’s justYulia,” Leonid chips in, wiping a dramatic tear from his eye.
I glare at him. “Well, I don’t know who that is, do I? This being purchased and wifed up thing is new to me!”
“Oh, I feel that,” the almost-blonde says.
“I heard my name,” the redhead says, looking up from where she’d been locking lips with a man who oozes masculinity, all dark brows and salt and pepper hair.
There is a sleeping baby in his arms, the sleeves rolled up on his forearms, unveiling tattoos every man in this room has in some variation.
Oh my God.
“Who’s this?!” the silver-haired woman excitedly demands.
“My wife,” Iosif says.
That’s when everyone in the room finally comes to a standstill.
I’d be grateful if my heart hadn’t just stilled in my chest.
“Janella,” Iosif says, enunciating my name. For some reason, it makes my face heat. “This is my family. You’ve already met Leo and Miron. That’s Yulia. She’s our sister-in-law. Our eldest brother and wannabe-Papa there—” He points right at the man with his hand on Yulia’s hip, the baby now passed to her arms. She waves calmly, an exhausted but serene smile on her heart-shaped lips. “That’s Trifon.”
The almost-blonde springs to her feet and strides over to me confidently. “I’m Gela Jones,” she introduces herself.
A man stands up behind Iosif and clears his throat. His eyes are a light, piercing blue.
Gela adds, “Hyphen Yuri.”
She clasps my hand with both hands and squeezes warmly.
I croak out, “Hi?”
