Page 134 of Cruel Submission

“It was chaotic.”

“It was a minibar.”

“Chaos is chaos, zaychik. Scale is irrelevant.”

I laugh, and the sound carries across the garden.

Sara is asleep. This is her primary contribution to the wedding—sleeping through it. She’s in her carrier on the table beside Dad. Her fists are curled above her head, her mouth working in tiny, invisible circuits.

She has my coloring—the warm skin, the dark eyes—but there’s something in the set of her mouth, something stubborn that is entirely her father. Arkady won’t admit it. He insists she looks like me. But I’ve watched him study her face when he thinks no one’s looking, and I’ve seen what moves through him—the startled, stripped-back discovery of himself in miniature.

“Speech time.” Stefan appears at Arkady’s elbow. He’s holding a microphone. Where he got a microphone is anyone’s guess, but Stefan has a talent for producing necessary objects from thin air.

Arkady takes the mic. Glances at it. Glances at me.

“No threat matrices,” I say.

“You take all the fun out of public speaking.”

He turns to face the garden. The conversations soften. Glasses lower. Even Aleks pauses his assault on the dessert table, distracted by the sound of his father’s voice.

“Thank you all for being here,” Arkady begins. His voice carries easily—it always does. “Most of you know that I’m not particularly good at gatherings. Or speeches. Or…” he glances at me, “expressing emotions.”

“True,” Yanis calls from the bar.

“Spasibo, bratok. Always helpful.” Arkady pauses. Recalibrates. “Six months ago, my family was at war. Not the metaphorical kind—the real kind. The kind that marks you forever.” A beat. Sixty people go still. “Today, we’re at peace. Not because we forgot what happened—you don’t forget. You learn to carry it differently. You learn that it doesn’t have to crush you if you’ve got the right people standing next to you.”

He looks at me. Then, at Aleks, who has resumed crawling. Then at Sara, asleep and oblivious. Then at Yanis and Debra.

“Mirabel gave me a family,” he says. “Not just children—though they’re excellent, even the one who’s trying to eat grass right now—but a reason to build something worth protecting. She also gave me daily lectures on emotional availability, and an understanding that locked doors are not, apparently, a personality trait.”

Laughter. Mine included.

“To my wife.” He raises his glass. “Who walked into my life looking for answers and refused to leave when the answers were ugly. I don’t deserve you, but I intend to spend the rest of my life making the argument that I do.”

Glasses rise across the garden. The clink of crystal. The murmur of voices.

Arkady hands the mic to Yanis, who takes it, straightens, and looks at Debra.

She nods. Gives a small smile.

“For those who don’t know,” Yanis says, “tonight is also an engagement celebration. Debra and I.” He says it simply, without fanfare, and reaches for her hand. She takes it. No hesitation. “I won’t say much; that’s not how we work. But I want to say this: I spent years believing that the only way to keep people safe was to control everything around them. Debra taught me that safety isn’t about control. It’s about trust. About giving someone the room to choose you, and being worthy of that choice.”

He lifts her hand and kisses the back of it. The sapphire catches the light.

“She chose me,” he says. “I still don’t know why. But I intend to earn it every day.”

Debra leans into him—shoulder to chest, the key at her collarbone glinting—and the garden erupts into applause that startles Aleks and does absolutely nothing to wake Sara. The applause dies down eventually, and the murmur of conversation resumes. Arkady and I circulate, making conversation with guests who want to spend time with the happy couple.

Later, when the sun has dropped behind the water and the fairy lights have taken over, I find Dad alone at his table. Sara is still asleep in her carrier beside him, and he has one weathered hand resting on the edge of it, his thumb moving in absent, gentle strokes along the fabric of her blanket.

“Dad?”

He looks up. His eyes are damp, but he’s smiling. “Come sit with me, love.”

I pull up a chair. Kick off my sandals—pointless, really, since I was barefoot for the ceremony and only put them on for the garden under protest. The grass is cool now, the last of the day’s heat fading into evening.

“How are you feeling?” I ask, because I always ask, still half afraid of what his answer will be.