Liam's jaw tightens. "Kuznetsov is not happy. He's already making noise with the Council. Claiming we poached his deal, that the Agapovs reneged on an agreement. The Council is listening because the Council is already prickly about us, and adding the Agapovs to our ranks doesn't exactly make us look less powerful."
"Which is exactly what they're worried about," Connor says from the wall. His arms are crossed and his voice is flat. I can tell he's already five steps ahead. "They forced us to marry to clip our wings, and now we're gaining territory and manpower through the marriages. They're going to see that as us gaming the system."
"Which is why this needs to happen fast," Liam says. "The marriage. If you and Anya are married before the Baron can mount a formal challenge with the Council, it's done. He can complain all he wants, but an Orlov wife is an Orlov wife. Untouchable."
"How fast?" I ask.
"Days. A week at most." Liam leans back. "Diomid is on his way here. He wants to see you before anything is formalized. He wants to see Connor." His eyes flick to his brother. "He wants to look the man who's marrying his sister in the face."
"Good," Connor says. "He should."
Liam nods. "I'll handle the Council. Killian is reaching out to our contacts in Europe to get ahead of whatever the Baron tries. Diomid and I will work out the formal terms of the alliance. Allyou two need to worry about is being ready to say yes in front of a priest by the end of the week."
He says it like it's simple. Like it's logistics.
But I'm sitting in this chair thinking about the end of the week, about standing beside Connor in front of a priest, about the wordwifeattached to my name, and what I feel isn't fear.
It's anticipation.
Because if my body reacts the way it did this morning, just from watching him lift weights in a basement gym, just from the brush of his fingers on my wrist as he helped me out of a chair... then I want to know what happens when there's nothing between us at all.
I want to know what his hands feel like on my skin.
I want to know what that rough voice sounds like when it's just for me.
I want to know if the heat I felt in that doorway, watching sweat roll down his chest while he watched me watch him, is the start of something that will burn slow and steady, or if it's going to consume me whole.
Either way, I want it.
"End of the week," I say to Liam. "I'll be ready."
Connor's good eye finds mine from across the room, and the look in it, dark and intent and hungry in a way he's not bothering to hide, tells me he heard what I didn't say.
He'll be ready too.
Connor
The meeting with Diomid went about as well as a conversation can go when a man is handing his sister to a stranger with a ruined face.
He arrived the morning after Liam's call. Walked into the estate like he owned it, which I respect, because the alternative is walking in like you're afraid of it, and that's worse. He's younger than I expected, late-twenties but carrying himself like a man twice his age, with the kind of quiet intensity that tells me he's been running his family's operation since he was barely old enough to drive.
He looked at me the way I knew he would. Took in the scar, the dead eye, the size of me. Didn't flinch, which tells me the Agapovs are made of the same steel across the bloodline. Then he sat across from me in Liam's office and asked me one question.
Why my sister?
I told him the truth. That she walked into this house and asked for help and I was the one who answered. That I don't know her yet, but I know what I saw when she looked at me, and it wasn't pity. That I can't promise I'll be a perfect husband because I don't know what that looks like, but I can promise that no one will touch her while I'm breathing.
He watched me through all of it without interruption
Then he said,If you break her, I'll find a way to break you, Orlov or not.
I told him I'd expect nothing less.
He and Liam spent the rest of the day hammering out the details of the alliance. I left them to it. That's Liam's world, the politics, the negotiations, the careful chess of keeping the Council satisfied while expanding our reach. I'm better with my hands than I am with strategy, and Liam knows it, which is why he handles the boardroom and I handle the problems that can't be solved with a handshake.
That was yesterday. Now it's Friday, a day before the wedding, and the house has been taken over.
The women have turned the estate into a command center. Every time I walk through the main floor, there's a new crisis happening. Flowers. Seating. Music. Katya is somehow project-managing the entire thing from the kitchen table while eating her way through a second batch of Ma's cinnamon waffles. Grace has Lorcan on one hip and a phone pressed to her ear, calling in favors from florists who apparently owe her. Tanya is handling the logistics with the quiet, terrifying efficiency of someone who used to coordinate Aidan's business operations. Iris is doing whatever Iris does, which seems to involve strong opinions about everything and a refusal to be assigned a task she didn't choose herself.
