EPILOGUE
VIKTOR
Six months pregnant, Tati walks out onto the patio, a tray of lemonade in her hands. She practically glows in the sunlight in her flowy yellow dress. Her curly brown hair is longer now, past her shoulders, and she’s resigned to dying colored streaks throughout it. Somewhere along the way, she said that she wanted to remember Marla and every part of the journey that got us here. I couldn’t agree more.
She’s as lovely as the day I married her, roughly about a month after that fateful day in my office. I’ve watched her confidence grow like a weed since then. She holds her head up high when she walks among the other Bratva, almost daring them to question her place there. And no one has and if they know what’s good for them, no one will.
She sets the tray down on the table between me, Teddy, and Borya—the one I’ve promoted to be my right-hand man. Then she slides herself down on my lap. “You two have been out here for a while,” she says. “I thought you might be a little thirsty.”
Teddy and Borya take a glass each and thank her in unison. Borya says, “You look lovely today, Tatiana.”
“Thank you,” she says with a smile. “Are you staying for dinner? Ilya usually makes entirely too much food. She’d be thrilled if you wanted to stay and eat some of it.”
“Not after last time,” Teddy says, patting his already round belly. “I almost had to be rolled out of here last time.”
“Same,” Borya says in his bland tone. “Ilya reminds me of mybabushka. Always trying to stuff me with food.”
“She’s old school,” I say with a shrug. “I’ve been doing double time in the gym just to keep up.”
“Anyway,” Teddy says, looking at his watch, “we’re burning daylight. We’d better get going.”
Borya nods and takes another big swig from his lemonade. “Indeed. We’ll call you from the road, sir.”
“Good luck,” I tell them as they both get up. Each of them gives Tati a nod and a half hug as they leave. Once they’re gone, I rub Tati’s back and she leans into me.
“How are you feeling?” I ask her.
“Pretty good, considering.” She rubs her round belly and adds, “He’s finally stopped kicking me in the bladder.”
She lifts her eyes to the back yard beyond the house, to the garden that we just had redone. “I’m going to go for a little walk in the garden. Care to join me?”
I nod. She gets up, and I follow her off the patio.
It’s a beautiful day. We walk down the bath on a warm, nearly breezeless day. The sun is peaking out from a few fluffy clouds above us, but it’s clear otherwise. Together, we walk through the high hedges leading to the plots of daisies and violets and wildflowers. Nikolai’s roses have all been pulled up. At the time, Tati talked about burning them in a big bonfire, but I talked her out of it for safety’s sake.
“I’ve been thinking,” she says. “We’ve got another three months until the baby is born. Maybe we should have some kind of party or something?”
I smirk and say, “Like a dinner?”
“No,” she says, shaking her head vigorously. “I have no intention of having an upgraded version of my father’s stuffy dinner parties. No, I want something fun. Like a celebration. I mean, there haven’t been any chances to let our hair down as a brotherhood.”
I’m in love with how she refers to the Bratva in the possessive. It’s always ‘our brotherhood’ or some other such thing. It makes me feel like we’re truly united as a couple.
“Well,” I say, “the history of this Bratva has never really leaned into the ‘fun’ things. Everything’s always very staunch and dignified.”
“That’s fine for funerals and charity events. I want a party. A fun one with a DJ and strippers?—”
“Strippers?” He laughs.
“Yes! What? Don’t you think the brigadiers would like that?”
“I think they wouldloveit, actually.” I pause and look down at her, throwing her a skeptical look. “Is this what I can expect in this marriage? Balloons, Booze, DJs, and strippers?”
She giggles and steps away from me, half jogging toward the newly built patio in the center of our garden. “At least.”
The circle of concrete has been carefully crafted. It’s a heavy block of stone about a foot thick with nothing between the bones of my predecessor and dirt.
Tati stops at the edge and slips her feet out of her sandals. She pulls out her phone and scrolls while she stands there.
