I find Karolina's face in the front row. Her eyes are red, but she nods once. Permission to continue.
"My father built an empire from nothing. He arrived in this country with empty pockets and a name no one couldpronounce. Within twenty years, he had created something that will outlast all of us in this room."
The representatives from allied families lean forward slightly. This is what they came for. Not grief. Not sentiment.
Power.
"He taught his children that loyalty is not given. It is earned through sacrifice. He taught us that family comes before everything. Before comfort. Before safety. Before our own desires."
I pause, letting the words settle.
"The world remembers the hard edges of powerful men. The decisions that changed fates. These stories travel fast. They become legends before the bodies are cold."
Natalia's shoulders shake. Vladimir places a hand on her back.
"But I stand here today to speak of what travels slower. The things that get lost in the noise."
I reach into my memory, past the training and the violence and the endless tests of worthiness.
"My father read to us every night until we were old enough to read ourselves. Tolstoy. Dostoevsky. Pushkin. He believed that understanding the Russian soul required understanding its literature. He would sit in the chair by the fire, his voice rough from cigars, and bring words to life for children who didn't yet understand the weight they would carry."
"He taught Karolina to ride before she could walk. He spent three months teaching Vladimir to tie a proper knot because my brother refused to accept help. He held Natalia the day she was born and wept. The only time I ever saw tears on his face."
I swallow against the tightness in my throat.
"He built a stable for Aleksander's horses when my brother was twelve, even though he hated the smell and the mess. Heattended every one of Oleg's boxing matches, sitting in the front row with his arms crossed, never cheering but always present."
My gaze finds Vittoria.
She sits perfectly still, her dark eyes fixed on my face. Nico watches me with calculating interest. Pietro's expression remains unreadable.
"And me." I grip the podium harder. "He made me into what I am. Every lesson. Every test. Every moment of silence that taught me more than words ever could. He saw something in me that I didn't see in myself, and he refused to let me waste it."
The speech in my pocket remains untouched.
Mikhail's words were perfect. Professional. They would have accomplished everything I needed them to accomplish.
But they weren't true.
"People speak only of the good when someone dies. We stand at podiums and paint saints from sinners, angels from demons. Perhaps this is mercy. Perhaps it is cowardice."
I straighten my spine.
"I choose to believe it is wisdom. The bad travels fast enough on its own. It needs no help from eulogies. But the good—the quiet moments, the private kindnesses, the love that never learned how to speak its own name—these things die with us unless someone gives them voice."
The incense curls upward, carrying prayers to a God I'm not certain exists.
"My father was not a gentle man. But he loved us. Fiercely. Completely. Without reservation."
I echo Karolina's words deliberately. Let them see we are united.
"And we will honor that love by protecting everything he built. By standing together as he taught us. By proving that the Baganov name will endure long after this cathedral crumbles to dust."
I step down from the podium.
The walk back to my seat stretches longer than the walk up. Every eye in the cathedral tracks my movement.
I slide into the pew beside Vittoria. The wood creaks beneath my weight, the sound swallowed by the vastness of the cathedral.
