"Artem. Don't."
He thought I was about to name Maeve. He was already calculating how many men he'd need to kill to get us out of the room.
I turned to Ivan and whispered for him to check on Gregor. He knew what that meant. Then I turned my face to Yuri and smiled.
"I'm marrying Mary McCarthy."
The silence changed shape. It went from anticipatory to bewildered.
Ivan slipped out of the room.
Yuri's face twisted. His mouth opened, closed, opened again. "The McCarthy daughter? Callum McCarthy's girl?"
"The same."
"You refused that match. Publicly. I remember because—"
"I renegotiated it." I leaned back, projecting ease I didn't feel. "Quietly. The McCarthys control Irish movement into the States. Ports, papers, clinics, registries. We control Europe. Put them together and you've got the most profitable alliance available to this Bratva. My father laid the groundwork before he died. I completed it. She's under my protection in London as we speak."
"Callum McCarthy won't agree to hand over his daughter now," Yuri said. "Not after you humiliated him."
"Callum McCarthy likes profit more than he likes his pride. I'm offering him Europe with one ceremony. He'll survive the romance deficit."
A few of the older men actually chuckled at that. Not because they liked me. Because they liked profit even more.
But Mikhail was watching me with the kind of stillness that meant he was hearing the shape beneath the words. He knew something was off. He was old enough and smart enough to sense the lie without knowing which part was false.
He also didn't care.
That was the difference between him and Yuri. Yuri wanted the chair. Mikhail wanted the empire intact. If the machine kept running, he would bless whatever lie fed it.
"An alliance with the McCarthys," Mikhail said slowly, "would secure your position. Assuming it's real."
"It's real."
"Then you won't object to proving it."
Yuri slammed his hand on the table. The teacups jumped. "Proof? He's lying. He's always been—"
Mikhail raised one hand. Yuri stopped mid-sentence like a dog on a choke chain.
"Words are wind," Mikhail said. "You know this, Artem. We need more than your say-so."
"What kind of proof?" Ivan asked, and his voice could have cut glass.
"A wedding." Mikhail looked at his watch, a Soviet-era Pobeda that had probably stopped keeping accurate time during the Khrushchev administration. He then looked back at me. "In one month all the Bratva heads will come to London. Show us the McCarthy girl, show us the contract, prove the marriage. If she's yours, the seat is yours."
He paused.
"If she's not, the London operations go to Yuri. And we revisit the succession in its entirety."
I had one month to plan a wedding that didn't exist. A bride who didn't know she was engaged. An omega who'd just given birth to my son and didn't yet know I'd put another woman's name between her and the council's hunger.
"One month," I said, standing. "You'll have your proof."
I didn't wait for dismissal. I was past needing one.
The cold outside felt almost good after the stuffy reek of the council room. Snow had started falling properly while we were inside.
