Page 31 of The Pakhan’s Stolen Bride

I turn away from the grand staircase, heading down a narrow, dusty corridor in the east wing that I haven't explored yet. The walls here aren't covered in expensive silk wallpaper. They’re bare grey stone lined with old, empty candle sconces and heavy oak doors that look like they haven't been opened in decades.

A soft, muffled sound makes me stop near the end of the hall.

It’s a wet, ragged hitch of a breath. A sob.

I slide my hand over the heavy brass handle of a carved oak door. It’s slightly ajar, a sliver of warm, dusty light cutting through the darkness of the hallway. I push it open slowly, the old hinges making a faint, groaning protest.

The room is an old parlor, completely covered in white dust sheets. Heavy velvet curtains are pulled tight across the tall windows, leaving the space in a dim, amber twilight.

In the center of the room, sitting on the dusty floorboards between two sheet-covered armchairs, is Ekaterina. She’s huddled in a tight ball, her knees drawn up to her chest, her oversized knitted sweater pulled down over her hands. Her dark hair is a messy tangle around her face, and her shoulders are shaking with silent, violent sobs.

I step into the room, my bare feet making no sound on the dusty floor. "Ekaterina?"

She flinches, her head snapping up, her eyes wide, red, and swollen. She quickly tries to wipe her face with her sleeve, her hand darting to hide a small, silver picture frame under the edge of her sweater. "You... you shouldn't be in here. Ilya locked this wing."

"Ilya isn't here." I walk closer, slowly dropping to my knees on the dusty wood a few feet away from her. "And honestly, if he wants to lock me up for walking down a hallway, he’s going to have to buy a lot more padlocks. What’s wrong?"

She looks at the silver frame in her lap, her fingers tracing the tarnished metal edge. "I found her. In one of the boxes Yara was going to throw away."

I slide a little closer, my shoulder brushing against hers. "Your mother?"

She slowly lifts the frame, turning it so I can see the photo inside.

My breath catches. The woman in the picture is beautiful, with the same soft, dark eyes as Ekaterina and the sharp, aristocratic jawline of her brother. She’s standing in a sunny garden, wearing a simple white sundress, a gentle, genuine smile playing on her lips. She looks so full of life, so completely untethered from the violence of this house, that it hurts to look at her.

"She was so pretty," Ekaterina whispers, her voice cracking as a fresh tear spills over her lashes. "I don't remember her very well. I was only a baby when she... when the men came."

I reach out, my thumb gently wiping the tear from her cheek. "I know. My mother was beautiful too. She had these bright, hazel eyes that always looked like they were laughing, even when my father was being impossible."

Ekaterina looks at me, her brow furrowing through her tears. "Ilya said your mother died a long time ago."

"She did." I look back at the photo of her mother, my eyes tracking the elegant, handwritten script at the bottom of the white border.

Marina Kovalevskiia. October 14, 2006.

The air in my lungs completely freezes.

My vision tunnels, the dusty parlor vanishing into a blinding, white-hot flash of memory. The smell of sulfur. The wet, heavy thud on the marble floor. The red blood on the white lilies.

October 14, 2006.

It was the same night.

I grip the edge of my oversized sweater, my knuckles turning white as my heart hits my ribs like a sledgehammer. "Ekaterina... the night she died. Was it... was it the Russo family?"

Ekaterina nods slowly, her eyes wide with a quiet, matching horror. "Yara told me. It was a coordinated hit. They struck three different houses on the same night. They wanted to wipe out the leadership of the coalition before the treaty was signed. Ilya was only seven. He was hiding in the pantry. He saw them."

He saw them.

The puzzle pieces in my head finally click together, the realization hitting me with a force that makes my stomach do a violent, sickening roll.

It wasn't just a random tragedy. Our mothers didn't just die in the same world, they died in the exact same bloodbath. The Russo family had launched a city-wide execution twenty years ago, targeting the wives of the Bratva leaders to break their spirits. My mother took three bullets in our sunroom. Ilya’s mother was executed in her own garden.

On the exact same night.

I look at the picture of Marina, then think of Ilya standing in the ruins of the cathedral, his obsidian eyes burning with that cold, terrifying possessiveness. I think of the way he held me during my panic attack in the weapons room, his heart beating a steady, grounding rhythm against my back.

He isn't just a monster who wants to own me. He’s a broken, scarred boy who watched his mother bleed out on the grass, and he’s spent the last twenty years building a fortress of concrete and blood to make sure it never happens again.