I let it sit.
The night would vanish and the cold reality of tomorrow loomed.
??????
The cavalcade of cars descended on the quiet street like a deliberate occupation. An average neighbourhood by Chernograd standards—modest detached houses, salted pavements, net curtains that had already begun to twitch. The kind of street where nothing of consequence was supposed to happen. The kind of street that would be talking about today for years.
My father travelled with my uncle. Ruslan and Konstantin followed in a separate car. Tikhon parked in front of the house with the precision of a man who understood that even parking was a statement.
The front door opened before we had fully stopped. People spilled out onto the step as though they had been waiting behind it—which they had. The Kozlovs, arranged like a tableau. Presenting themselves.
I watched Konstantin tug at the collar of his formal shirt through the window and felt a grim satisfaction. He was as uncomfortable as I was.
Tikhon opened my door.
“Pakhan.” Bogdan’s voice was low. He held out the red velvet box.
I took it, turned it once in my hand, and slipped it into my breast pocket.
The ring. Five carats of pristine yellow diamond, another carat of smaller white stones encircling the setting. An old piece—Valentin had sourced it from a private collection, the kind of ring that had a history attached to it that no one would be sharing today. I had left my mark on it regardless. The girl would understand what she was the moment it touched her finger. Property. Protected, provided for, and accounted for. Mine.
I stepped out of the car. Polished black shoes on grey pavement. The winter sun was sharp and pale, the kind of brightness that gave no warmth, and the last of the seasonal ice was still dissolving in the gutters and along the garden walls. The street smelled of cold air and wood smoke and somewhere, something being cooked for guests who hadn’t been invited so much as summoned.
Ruslan and Konstantin fell into step beside me. My eyes dropped briefly to the file Ruslan carried at his side.
“Airtight,” he said, without being asked.
I nodded.
We followed my father and uncle down the garden path.
I took them in as we approached. Leonid Kozlov, squared up and proud in a way that didn’t quite conceal the relief underneath it. The mother beside him—soft, warm, her smile genuine in the way that only people who had learned not to fight tended to be. The older sister and her husband standing slightly apart, a gap between them that suggested the marriage was exactly what rumour suggested.
And then her.
Her blue eyes found me before I had finished scanning the group and they didn’t let go. Not the eyes of a woman pleased to see me. She was smiling—lips curved in something that passed for welcome—but her eyes were flat and cold and entirely without performance. She wasn’t afraid, or she was afraid and had decided not to show it, which amounted to the same thing from where I was standing.
I held her gaze for a moment longer than necessary.
I wondered what she would be. Her mother’s softness or something harder underneath. Cold and unyielding or worn down to compliance in time.
It didn’t matter in the end.
Her function was already decided.
“The sister looks like she wants to sit on you,” Konstantin murmured at my shoulder.
“Have you seen what she’s married to?” Ruslan returned, just as quietly.
I said nothing and stepped into the warmth of the house.
The younger siblings were nowhere to be seen.
Leonid moved forward and took my hand, bowing to press his forehead against it.
“Thank you for choosing my daughter, Pakhan. This is a great honour you have bestowed upon my house,” he said, his grip tightening.
I glanced past him to my father.
