Katya
I stand in front of the mirror and study the woman looking back at me. Hair pinned tight. Skin pale beneath careful makeup. Posture immaculate, shoulders back, chin level, spine like a rod of iron because that's how he trained me to stand. Straight and silent and perfectly composed, the way a Lazovski woman should present herself to the world.
"Katya." My father's voice cuts through the door without the courtesy of a knock. "The car is here."
"I'm ready," I say.
I don't look at the mirror again. There's nothing left to adjust. Nothing left to feel.
The hallway is dim, curtains drawn against the afternoon light the way they've been drawn since the night Gennady Petrov walked into our home and everything shattered. My father stands at the top of the stairs in a charcoal suit, freshly shaved, looking every inch the composed patriarch. Only his eyes betray him, hollowed out and hard, the bitterness calcified into something permanent.
He lost a son. He lost a daughter. And instead of grieving, he schemed.
It took him eleven months to arrange this marriage. Eleven months of phone calls and meetings and negotiations I wasn't privy to but could hear through walls, his voice low and urgent,trading what little influence the Lazovski name still carries for an alliance that might restore it.
Killian Orlov.
I know almost nothing about the man I'm marrying. My father shared only what he considered relevant: Orlov. Shipping empire. Eastern operations. Brother to Liam Orlov, who runs the family. Quiet. Controlled. Unmarried.
That last detail was delivered like a sales pitch. As if the fact that no other woman had been shackled to him yet was supposed to comfort me.
"You look acceptable," my father says, his eyes moving over me with the flat efficiency of a man inspecting merchandise.
"Thank you."
The words are automatic. Reflex, not gratitude. I've been producing the right words at the right times for so long that they come without thought, shaped and smoothed by years of practice until they carried no weight at all.
He turns and walks down the stairs. I follow.
My mother is waiting by the door, dressed in dark blue, clutching a small handbag like it's the only thing keeping her upright. She looks at me and her chin trembles, just once, before she schools her expression into the same blank composure we all wear like armor.
"You look beautiful, darling," she whispers.
I nod. I don't say thank you this time, because my mother's compliments have always come laced with apology, and I stopped accepting apologies that never lead to change.
The car is black and anonymous. My father holds the door open, not out of courtesy but control, positioning me, directing me, making sure I enter the vehicle in the correct order so thatwhen I arrive at the Orlov estate, I'll exit on the right side, facing the right direction, presenting the right image.
Every detail curated. Every movement choreographed.
I slide onto the leather seat and fold my hands in my lap. The dress pools around my knees, heavy and stiff with fabric that hasn't been worn or washed or softened. Brand new. Pristine. Untouched.
Like me.
That's the point, of course. The whole point of this arrangement, the dress, the timing, the contract my father negotiated with the Orlov family's representatives. A Lazovski bride, pure and compliant, delivered to a powerful man in exchange for an alliance that will drag our name out of disgrace.
The contract was specific. I know because I found it in my father's study three days ago, tucked inside a leather folder he forgot to lock away. Marriage, consummation with verification, heirs to follow.
Verification.
I'd read that word and felt nothing. Just a quiet click of confirmation, like the last piece of a puzzle I'd already assembled in my mind.
This is what I'm for. This is what I've always been for. A correction. A clean-up. The dutiful daughter sent to repair what the rebellious one destroyed.
Matilda broke the family. I have to fix it.
The car moves through the city, my father in the front seat speaking quietly into his phone, my mother beside me radiating anxiety in small, contained waves.
I watch the streets pass and think about what I know of Killian Orlov.
