Page 31 of Beautiful Ruin

Eventually when we finish, he shows me the walk-in fridge and its cavernous space. The shelves are stacked high with produce that looks too perfect to be real. The air bites at my cheeks and creeps beneath my sleeves, raising gooseflesh along my arms. I gather armfuls of herbs while he picks from a crate of tomatoes, squeezing them gently to test their ripeness.

Inside the fridge, the noise of the kitchen fades away almost completely, though I lower my voice anyway. “Can I ask you something?”

Dima shrugs while putting another tomato into the basket next to him. “Depends.”

“That man who came to visit earlier, Nikolai,” I hesitate. “Who is he? Everyone acted like he was the king of Russia.”

He lets out a short breath, though it’s far from a laugh. “Not far off.”

I frown. “What does that mean?”

He sighs and repositions the crate of tomatoes before turning to rifle through the one filled with lemons. “He’s the leader of the Iron Pact. Many people, the ones in this estate included, treat him like that simply because none of us wish to step out of line and risk being killed for it.”

The words sink into me slowly.

The Iron Pact.

I’ve heard the name before, whispered once or twice when I was younger. Mentioned only in passing by the guards here when they didn’t realize I was listening nearby.

From what I’ve gathered, the Iron Pact is some sort of shadow alliance. Not a formal government, obviously. Nothing so visible. It is the real power behind the visible one. Families bound together by blood, money, favors, secrets, and the promise of mutual destruction if any one of them steps too far out of line.

And if Nikolai leads it…

My mind flashes back to the foyer, to Alina who seemed on edge despite trying not to be, and Rowan acting colder after they were gone. If Nikolai Malyshko leads the Iron Pact, then whatever he discussed with Ivan must have been serious and not at all a social visit.

Would someone from the Iron Pact be bold enough to visit the person they attempted to assassinate?

My stomach twists. “Are they behind the attack on my uncle?”

Dima goes still. One second, he’s sorting lemons with quick, careless efficiency, and the next his hand freezes around one of the bright yellow fruits, fingers tightening slightly against the rind. His eyes flick to the closed door behind us, then back to me.

“I don’t know.”

Dima might be young, and he might make bad jokes at my expense about vegetables and how lacking I am in culinary techniques, but he is not stupid. No one working this close to my uncle’s inner world, whether staff or otherwise, survives this long by sheer luck alone.

“But if they wanted him dead, he’d be dead.” He continues, “He’s part of the Pact. They don’t tend to eat their own.”

Interesting.

That certainly explains a lot.

Until now, the Iron Pact has existed in my mind as a faceless thing that was more rumor than reality. A shadow behind shadows only spoken about in lowered voices. I have always understood, in a vague sense, that my uncle’s ties to what he does for a living would put him in the crosshairs of other powerful men. Ones who move money and influence the state with violence and blackmail.

While it’s certainly surprising to know Nikolai is not simply a predator stopping by to remind those beneath him of their place but a co-worker of sorts, things are finally beginning to click. It makes sense, what Dima is saying. Kings don’t murder other kings in public unless they’re ready to inherit the war that follows.

If the Iron Pact truly holds the kind of power people here seem to believe it does, then the attack on my uncle would not have been as sloppy as it was. It wouldn’t have ended with him wounded but alive, recovering in his estate. He would have been dead and disposed of before any of us knew what happened.

Which means someone outside of the Iron Pact is responsible and they’re nowhere to be found.

I stare at the crate of herbs in my arms, suddenly reminded of Italy. I’m pulled back to Giulia’s tiny apartment kitchen while Matteo complains from the table that studying political theory should be classified as a legal form of torture.

I miss the days where my life consisted of worrying about passing mid-terms and catching up with my friends after classes. The careless drama of other people’s love lives in my dorm and the way Giulia always took up too much space at our small tables with her notes and bright, chaotic certainty. I miss Matteo drawing terrible caricatures in the margins of serious textbooks while I tried not to laugh hard enough to get us thrown out of the library.

Now, that life seems so far removed from the one I’m living now. A pretty fictional place I wrote for myself in another language I no longer know. Italy feels softer every time I think about it, and it makes me miss it that much more.

Long after Dima dismisses me from the kitchen, almost fondly by the time dinner service is done with its prep, I feel like I’m floating above myself. Chef doesn’t thank me, but he does hand me a wrapped slice of warm bread before I leave and says nothing when I take it. Dima salutes me with a fresh carrot from across the way before getting wrapped up in something else again.

By the time I step back into the main hallway, the estate has changed again. The kitchen noise fades behind me, swallowed by the distance. Out here, everything returns to hush. The house is quieter this late in the afternoon, caught in that narrow hour between daytime movement and evening formality.