I don't answer. The rain is soaking through my jacket. Somewhere behind me in the pub, Artyem Yakanov is pressing a bar towel to his face and memorizing a message for his boss.
"Who?" I ask.
"Nadia Semakina. Faddey Semakin's daughter."
I don't know her. I know the Semakin name. Connected family, respected, Bratva by blood. Faddey has a good reputation.
"When's the wedding?"
"Two weeks."
I laugh. I can't help it. "Two weeks? I'm twenty-six, Liam. I'm not ready for this."
"Nobody's ever ready for this. Come home. Meet her. It won't be that bad."
We both know that last part is meaningless. The Council has made the match and the match will stand. Liam can soften the edges, but he can't change the shape of it.
"Fine," I say. "Tomorrow."
"Tonight," he counters. “Theres a flight in three hours.”
I hang up and stand in the rain for a while longer, letting Dublin wash over me.
Two weeks. A wife. A marriage I didn't ask for to a woman I've never met. All because the Council decided that controlling the Orlov bloodline matters more than any single Orlov's preference about his own life.
I get in the car and drive to the airport.
Nadia
I haven't eaten in two days.
I know I should. I can feel it in the way my hands won't stop trembling and my head swims when I stand up too fast. But every time I try to put food in my mouth, my throat closes like a fist and the nausea rolls through me so hard I have to grip whatever's closest just to stay upright.
Kyle's messages have been coming in every few hours. Relentless. The five thousand I couldn't pay has turned into threats I can't ignore. Screenshots of our old text conversations. Thumbnails of photos blurred just enough to make my skin crawl. A countdown. Seventy-two hours, he said yesterday. Then your daddy gets an email he'll never forget.
I sent him everything I had. Eight hundred and fourteen dollars. Every cent from my checking account, my tip jar at home, the emergency twenty I kept folded in my glove compartment. I told him I needed more time. He told me time was a luxury I couldn't afford and I should go to my father for the money.
Now I'm standing in front of my bathroom mirror trying to make myself look like a woman who has her life together, because in forty minutes I'm meeting my future husband for dinner.
The face staring back at me is barely recognizable. My skin is gray. The circles under my eyes have circles of their own. I've lost weight I didn't intend to lose and my collarbone juts out above the neckline of the black dress I picked because it's the only nice thing I own that still fits.
I put on concealer. Then more concealer. Foundation over that. It helps, but only the way a fresh coat of paint helps a house with a cracked foundation. The structure underneath is failing.
My phone buzzes on the edge of the sink. I flinch so hard I knock my makeup bag onto the floor. Blush compact, mascara, lip liner, all scattering across the tile.
It's just my dad.
Have a wonderful evening, sweetheart. Be yourself. He's a good man.
I stare at the message until my vision blurs. Be yourself. I don't even know who that is anymore. I've spent three years being a hostage to my own mistake, performing normalcy for everyone I love while the real me sits in a bathroom and shakes.
I type back:Thanks Dad. Love you.
Then I pick up my makeup, fix my face one more time, and drive to the restaurant.
It's a hotel restaurant downtown. White tablecloths and low lighting, and the kind of menu that doesn't list prices because the people who eat here don't need to ask. Liam Orlov's choice, according to my father. Neutral ground.
I'm ten minutes early because I couldn't sit in my apartment any longer. The hostess seats me at a corner table and I order water while trying to keep my hands still in my lap. They won't cooperate. The tremor is constant now, a low vibration that runs from my fingers up through my wrists. I press my palms flat against my thighs under the table and breathe.
