I know her schedule. I know she trains three times a week in self-defense and combat fitness. I know Stefania has been training with her for three years and that she's progressed far beyond what a woman with a casual interest in fitness would pursue.
I know she goes out at night sometimes, but not on any predictable schedule. She leaves the estate alone dressed in dark clothing, and she comes back hours later. My people couldn't track where she goes because she's good. Better than good. She moves through the city like someone who's been trained to disappear, and the fact that a twenty-four-year-old Bratva daughter can shake a tail set by professionals told me more about her than her file ever could.
I don't know exactly what she does on those nights. I have theories. I have patterns I've pieced together from news reports and police blotters and the timing of her outings. A man arrested after an anonymous tip three days after she went out in October. A predator found beaten in an alley after she disappeared for a night in January. Coincidences, maybe. Except I don't believe in coincidences, and the pattern is too clean to be random.
She's hunting.
I don't know the full scope of it. I don't know how long she's been doing it or how far she's willing to go. But I know that the woman who will shortly be walking toward this altar in a white dress is something more than what her brother thinks she is. More than what the council thinks they're giving me.
They think they're giving me a quiet, obedient Bratva daughter. A transaction. A body to fill the role of wife so the optics are satisfied and the families stay aligned.
What they are actually giving me is a predator.
And the best thing about it, is that they have no idea.
The doors at the back of the chapel open and the noise in my head goes quiet.
She's wearing white. Simple. A dress that fits close to her body and doesn't try to be anything more than what it is. No veil. No train. Her dark hair is down around her shoulders and her chin is up and she's walking beside Ruslan with the kind of measured, unhurried stride that most people would read as composure.
I read it as control. The same control she uses when she moves through dark streets at night. The same discipline that keeps her face blank when she's burning underneath.
Ruslan walks her down the aisle with his hand on her elbow. Possessive in the way of a man who thinks ownership and care are the same thing. I watch his fingers press into her arm and I think about how easy it would be to break every one of them.
They reach the altar. Ruslan turns to her and there's a moment where I think he might say something. Something fatherly, maybe, or at least something that pretends to be. But he just nods once and releases her arm and steps back to his seat.
She turns to face me.
This is the first time I've seen her up close. The photographs and the surveillance footage and the file photos from familyevents don't capture it. None of them caught what I'm looking at right now.
Her eyes.
They're dark. Nearly black in the low light of the chapel. And they're assessing me the same way I've been assessing her for three weeks. Deciding how dangerous I am and where she'd strike first if she needed to.
She doesn't know she's doing it. Or maybe she does and she can't stop. Either way, it confirms everything I suspected. This woman doesn't look at people the way a sheltered Bratva daughter looks at people. She looks at them the way I do.
Like a predator deciding if the thing in front of them is a threat.
I hold her gaze. I let her look. I don't soften my expression or offer her a reassuring smile because she wouldn't believe it and I don't insult people by pretending to be something I'm not.
What I am is a man who sees her. All of her. The controlled surface and the thing that moves beneath it. The obedient daughter and the woman who goes out in the dark and comes back with bruises she hides under long sleeves.
I see it because I recognize it.
The ceremony is short. Traditional. The officiant speaks in Russian and then in English and Stefania says her vows in a voice so steady it could cut glass. There’s not a shred of hesitation as she recites the words like she's already decided that compliance is cheaper than resistance, and she's right, but she doesn't know yet that compliance isn't what I want from her.
I say my vows looking directly at her. Every word. I don't look at the officiant or the guests or my sister's carefully neutral face. I look at my wife and I mean every syllable and I don't care if she believes me yet.
She will.
The officiant tells me I may kiss the bride.
I step closer. Close enough that I can smell her perfume, something clean and faint, barely there. Close enough that I can see the slight tension in her jaw and the way her fingers are curled at her sides, not in fists but close.
I lean in.
My mouth brushes hers, brief and light. Just enough.
And then I press my lips to the shell of her ear and I whisper five words.
