30
EPILOGUE
SERGEI
The reception is in my own house.
We thought about renting some clean hall, but in the end we chose this place. We bled here. We fought here. We almost lost everything here. It feels right to fill it with music and food and people who are not pointing guns at us.
The dining room is open, but half the seats are filled by guards who will never touch the champagne. They eat, they watch, they blend with the crowd. Outside, the street is closed, the garage is locked, the cameras are on a loop that Andrei wrote himself.
The usual long table is shorter tonight. Only the people who matter sit near us. Aunt Tanya. Nadia, of course, right between us. Vlad and Kirill. Andrei. A few old men whose loyalty never broke even when others sold their souls to Ilya.
There are toasts.
Vlad stands first. He wears a dark suit that almost fits and a tie that does not. He lifts his glass.
“I’ve watched this man walk into places no sane person would go,” he says. “Today, he walked into a church. I think that’s the bravest thing he’s ever done.”
The room laughs. The old Sergei would smirk. I just smile and take the hit. Vlad goes on, but his voice softens.
“He built an empire with blood,” he says. “He kept a city quiet when it could have burned. I saw him make choices most of you only heard about in rumors. I also saw him sit on a kitchen floor with his daughter and fold paper birds. I saw him look at this woman like she was the only honest thing he ever had. He is better with them than he was without them. I drink to that. To Raina, who walked into hell and walked out with his heart. To Nadia, who made him a father. To a house that is finally more than steel and money. To family.”
He drinks. So do we.
Others speak. Short, rough words. Men who speak in their own tongue about loyalty and respect. They talk about how my marriage means new rules. They see it, even if I have not read them the full script yet. There will be less chaos. Less flair. More focus. My war is smaller now. My field is my family.
At one point, Nadia stands on her chair and clinks her juice glass with a spoon. The room quiets at once.
“I want Mama and Papa to stop having to leave at night,” she says. “I want more mornings with pancakes. I want more days when they sit with me when I paint. I want them to remember that I’m watching when they fight.”
She looks straight at me when she says the last line.
Laughter breaks out. My face burns. I love her so much I almost cannot breathe.
“We’ll remember,” I tell her.
Raina squeezes my knee under the table. Her eyes shine again, but there is laughter there now too.
Later, when the food is done and the plates are cleared, someone starts music. Not a band. Just a good sound system and a playlist Andrei put together from things he thought “normal families” play at weddings. Some of it is wrong. Some of it is perfect.
We open the dance floor.
I take Raina’s hand and lead her out. Men who once watched me break jaws now watch me put my hand on my wife’s waist and move in slow circles.
Her dress brushes my leg. Her head fits under my chin. My hand spreads across the small of her back. I feel the warm line of her spine under my fingers.
“You look tired,” she says quietly.
“I am,” I admit. “But it’s a good tired. Not the kind that comes from looking over my shoulder.”
“You still will,” she says.
“Yes,” I say. “But now I have something to look forward to when I stop.”
We move with the music. It is not a perfect dance. Our steps are rough. We step on each other once. We laugh.
At the edge of the room, I see Nadia swaying by herself, bear in her arms. She watches us with big eyes.
