It was still dawn, but I was changing into dark jeans and a T-shirt already. Grabbing my jacket from the couch, I left my room and went downstairs.
“Good morning, sir!” Georgiy greeted, his hand pausing mid-air with the glass of juice.
“Morning,” I replied, walking past the dining room and into the kitchen.
“Good morning, sir,” Russie greeted, turning whatever he was scribbling on a sheet of paper beside the gas cooker.
“Morning.”
I took out a bottle of water from the tall refrigerator and left the kitchen. After taking a few refreshing gulps, I dropped the almost-empty bottle on the dining table.
When I got into the guestroom Alina occupied, I was met with a surprising scene. There she was at the foot of the bed, her legs crossed as she looked up at me like she knew I’d come. She had changed into a simple, plain blouse and a skirt that covered her knees.
Her expression was nothing like the resistance I’d expected. It was calm.
I was about to speak but she beat me to it.
“So, when is this farce happening?”
I took a few steps closer until I was right in the middle of the room, facing her.
“In a few days. But it’ll be here in Russia. It’s going to be a small affair,” I answered.
“How small?” she inquired, her eyes not looking away from mine.
“Very small. It’ll be at the safehouse chapel here. We’ll fly in a priest from nearby to conduct it.”
“What about your brothers? Liza?”
“We’ll meet them in New York,” I uttered, hoping my evasion was successful and she wouldn’t press further on that area.
“It’ll be civil, right? I don’t suppose you’ll want to get married in a church,” she asked, chuckling.
“This is not about what anyone wants. It’s what we have to do to keep other factions off your back. The only alternative to killing you for not having any valuable information about the intel Vitya laid his hands on. You know that.”
“Yeah,” she breathed.
“It’ll be a rushed civil ceremony. We’ll have a few witnesses, and that’s it. Just signatures; no rings or press.”
“Okay,” she answered, shrugging.
If her confidence intrigued me before, her composure doubled that effect. She threw questions at me and took in my declarations like we were just talking business. It irritated and puzzled me that she seemed to be okay with how everything was going. That she didn’t break or bend in the face of the new reality. In my head, I contrasted my disturbed thoughts and her current calm—and it intrigued me even more. It felt like she had some kind of control that I didn’t understand.
“But, since the aim is to keep the other guys from coming for me, why are we keeping it hidden? Wouldn’t it be better to clarify that I'm busy honeymooning or whatever and not hiding like a suspect? I mean, does it work differently in the criminal world?”
The world you’re about to enter.
“We’re not hiding it,” I corrected. “But what you just described is a very common tactic. It has happened too many times that a mafia boss marries someone to protect them from rivals. To cover the lie and sell it as the truth, it’s often made an extravagant wedding. Destination weddings, even. It just takes alook at the circumstances around the union to see that the whole thing is a hoax.”
“So…doing the opposite is how to make it believable?”
“Exactly.”
She shrugged, looking around the room.
“And if I say no?” she asked.
My steely gaze met her steady one as I told her calmly, “Saying no will put you in the ground.”
