I don't even know which ones are available. I don't even know if the rumor is true. Diomid mentioned it weeks ago, offhand, almost amused.The Council's put the screws to the Orlovs. All the unmarried men have to take wives or the family loses its seat.He'd said it like it was gossip. Like it had nothing to do with us.
But for some reason, it stuck in my mind. And now, sitting in this driveway with four days between me and a monster, it's the only card I have left to play.
I kill the engine and get out of the car.
The front door opens before I reach it, and Saoirse Orlova is standing there like she's been expecting me. She's smaller than I remember, or maybe I'm taller, but her eyes are exactly the same. Sharp and warm at the same time, the way mymother always described her.Saoirse sees everything, darling. Everything. She can know the worst parts of a person’s life and love them anyway.
"Anya." She says my name like a confirmation, not a question. "You look so much like Marina." She pulls me into her arms and holds me so tight that tears squeeze into my eyes and I have to blink them away quickly.
And just like that, the composure I've been white-knuckling since the hallway cracks down the middle.
"I need help," I say. My voice doesn't break, but it's close. "I need help, and I didn't know where else to go."
Saoirse pulls back without a word and holds the door open.
She takes me to the conservatory. The same room, the same view of the garden, even some of the same furniture. She presses a cup of tea into my hands and sits across from me and waits. She doesn't push or fill the silence. She just waits until I'm ready.
"The Baron Kuznetsov wants to marry me," I say, and I realize I’m shaking now. Like all the adrenaline that has kept me upright for the last few days is evaporating to nothing. "He's made it a condition of a business deal with Diomid. Access through his European territory in exchange for me." I wrap both hands around the cup. "Diomid is trying to negotiate, but it's not working. I have four days."
Saoirse's expression doesn't change, but something behind her eyes goes very still. "Grigori Kuznetsov."
"Three dead wives.” It comes out as a whisper. The horror of it taking grip of my throat. "I'd rather not be the fourth."
"No," Saoirse says quietly.
I set the cup down because my hands the shaking is getting worse and I don't want to spill tea on her furniture. "I heard theOrlov men have been ordered to marry. By the Council." I meet her eyes. "Am I too late?"
Saoirse studies me for a long moment. I can see her doing the math, not just the logistics, but the politics, the implications, the weight of what I'm asking. She knew my mother. She watched me grow up, at least for the first ten years. But this isn't a social call, and we both know it.
"Anya —"
"If I marry an Orlov, the Baron can't touch me. No one can. It solves their problem and it solves mine." I hear myself talking faster, pitching harder, and I force myself to slow down. "I'm not asking for love. I'm asking for safety. And I know that whoever your sons are, whatever they've become, you raised them. And that means more to me than any arrangement Diomid could make."
Saoirse opens her mouth to respond, but the door to the conservatory swings open and Liam Orlov walks in.
I've never met Liam, but I know him on sight, late-thirties, broad, with the kind of quiet authority that fills a room.
"Ma," Liam says, his gaze sliding from Saoirse to me and back. "What's going on?"
"Liam," Saoirse says calmly. "You remember Anya Agapova, Marina's daughter."
Liam's expression shifts to recognition, then calculation. He looks at me properly, and I can see him noticing every detail of me. The coat I didn't hang up. The shaking hands. The fact that I'm here without an escort, without a phone call, without an invitation.
"I heard what she's asking," he says. Not unkind, but not warm either. "And I understand why. But this can't happen in a vacuum. If we take Diomid's sister without his knowledge,without his agreement, we're starting something we don't need. The Council is already breathing down our necks, that's why we're in this mess in the first place."
"I know," I say.
"I'll have to contact your brother." Liam pulls out his phone. "If this is going to work, it has to be done properly. Diomid has to be part of the conversation, or it will blow up in everyone's face."
I nod. I expected this. I didn't expect it to feel like such a relief, someone else picking up the weight, even just a corner of it.
"Liam's right," Saoirse says gently. "But you're not leaving this house, Anya. Not tonight."
Liam steps into the hall to make the call, and I'm about to let out the breath I've been holding for forty minutes when a voice comes from the doorway.
Low. Rough. Almost amused, but not quite.
"If you're that desperate, you'd marry me."
