Page 23 of My Wedding Night Massacre

Not literally. I’m alone, the room exactly as it was, the city light the same grey it gets before full morning, the curtain still. But the memory sits on my chest with a weight I can’t breathe past, his hands, his voice, and the way he said my name, low, wrecked, and real like none of the other versions ever managed to be.

I lie there and let it settle. I don’t fight it. Fighting it has never worked, and I’ve got three years of evidence to back that up.

It wasn’t real. I know that. I was on the pill and half-asleep, so my mind did what it does when the suppression slips, creating him from the mix of grief, desperation, and cruelty that comes from a wedding I don’t want. The most convincing version yet. The beard was a new detail, the weight through the shoulders, and the longer hair. My subconscious getting creative in the final stretch.

But the message underneath it landed anyway. That’s what I’m taking from the experience. My mind showed me Slava last night because I’m about to do the thing that can’t be undone. Some part of me that’s been quiet for a long time rose up in the night and forced me to look. It forced me to remember what I’m giving up.

I think about Denis.

I think about the first time I held him, in a hospital room with my father standing near the window and Nadia holding my hand. I think about this small dark-haired person who looked up at me with grey eyes I recognized before I had words for why. I understood in that moment that I was going to be alive for a very long time whether I wanted to be or not, because this child needed me to be. I made a decision in that hospital room that I’ve made every day since: Denis first. Denis always. Whatever it takes.

I built everything after that around him. Every compliant smile, every signed document, every dress fitting, every dinner where I sat across from men my father chose, and performed exactly what was needed. Denis. It was always Denis. He’s the reason I’m still here and the reason I cannot leave. I’ve known both of those things since the day he was born.

I get up.

I shower, then dress. I do my hair without looking at my own face in the mirror, which is a skill I’ve developed over three years of not wanting to see what’s there. Then I go downstairs.

My father is in his office. Door slightly open. Available. I’ve read those signals my whole life, open means he’ll see you, closed means he won’t. The consistency of it used to feel like reliability, but now it feels like a system designed to make me feel managed rather than handled, which is the same thing with better manners.

I push the door open.

He looks up from his desk and raises his brow.

“Sit down,” he says.

“I’d rather stand,” I counter.

He considers this, then nods once. “All right.”

I’ve rehearsed this. In the shower, against the tiles, in front of the mirror. I have the words in the right order, and I know exactly how I’m going to say them, composed and resolved. This won’t be a conversation where I fall apart before I reach the end.

“I’m not going to marry David Gachev,” I say.

The room is quiet. He looks at me without surprise, which is the most unnerving thing about him, the absolute absence of reaction, even when reaction would be the human response.

“I’m not going to be in that ballroom in two days,” I continue, so he understands I know the timeline and I’m saying it anyway. “I’m not signing the documents. Whatever you need from this alliance, find another way to get it.”

My father looks at me for a long moment. Then he picks up his phone and makes a call. It rings twice.

“How is he this morning?” he says, into the phone. A pause while he listens to the response. “Good. Tell him his mother asked about him.” Another pause, shorter this time. “Let him have the car, then. He can play with it after breakfast.”

He sets the phone down.

“Denis had a good morning,” he says. “He asked for you when he woke up. Nanny said he was at the window for a while, looking for your car.”

I look at my father across the desk.

Denis waiting at the window. Denis asking for me when he woke up. I know that image without having seen it because I’ve imagined it every morning I’ve been kept from him, every Tuesday that got moved, every Sunday afternoon that became unavailable. He’s two years old, and he doesn’t understand why his mother isn’t always there. My father knows that image is more effective than any threat he could put into words.

“He’s been asking more lately,” my father continues, straightening a paper on his desk. “I told him you’ve been busy with the preparations. He accepted that. He’s an easy child.” A small smile. “He gets that from you, I think. The adaptability.”

“Don’t,” I say.

He looks up. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t talk about him like he’s a character in one of your arrangements,” I say. My voice is still level, which surprises me, because what’s happening inside my chest right now is nothing close to level. “He’s a child. He’s my child.”

“He is,” my father agrees, without any change in his expression. “Which is why I make sure he’s well cared for. Well fed, well supervised, well loved by the people around him.” He looks at me. “You’ll see him when things are running smoothly. You know that. You’ve always known that.”