Page 30 of Marrying the Savage

He sits opposite me in the back of the car, one hand resting near his jacket, his expression controlled but not calm. There is a difference. I have known him long enough to read it. He doesn’t like this. He hasn’t liked it since the invitation arrived at Volodin House in a cream envelope, addressed in careful handwriting that didn’t belong to a professional clerk.

He brought it to me himself. Not because he thought I would be surprised to receive paper from enemies. Because he already understood that whoever sent it had done something either very stupid or very deliberate.

Perhaps both.

Now he looks past me toward the church, where men are gathering on the steps in dark suits and polished shoes, their hands empty but their jackets cut to hide weapons.

“You know what this is,” Mikhail says. “A church full of Antonovs and Sokolovs, during a public ceremony, with every old family watching. If you step inside, they will not treat it as curiosity.”

“No.”

“They will treat it as a declaration.”

“Yes.”

He waits, but I don’t offer comfort. I’m too old to dress danger in softer clothes.

“Then why are we here?” he asks.

The obvious answer is strategy. The invitation creates an opening. The Antonov-Sokolov alliance is not merely a wedding. It’s a joining of money, men, routes, and old grudges under the protection of holy language.

More united means more difficult to break apart without leaving half the city burning behind them. My presence here fractures the illusion before the vows are finished.

That alone would be reason enough. But it’s not the reason I’m already reaching for the door handle.

Not entirely.

I look through the tinted glass at the church entrance, at the white flowers tied to iron railings, at the guards who don’t know yet that this ceremony is about to become less peaceful than planned.

“The girl invited me,” I say.

Mikhail’s mouth tightens. “She may not have,” he says. “The invitation could have come from Sokolov’s men. From Sergei’s enemies. From someone hoping to put you in the middle of a room where every gun is pointed at your chest.”

“Perhaps.”

“You came anyway.”

“Yes.”

He studies me for a moment longer. “For the girl?”

I don’t answer. That’s answer enough.

His expression shifts, not in surprise, but in the grim acceptance of a man watching his Pakhan choose the dangerous road because the safer one no longer interests him.

“You saw her once,” he says.

“I saw enough.”

“That is not like you.”

“No,” I agree. “It’s not.”

I don’t chase women. I don’t rescue strangers. I don’t walk into enemy churches because a young bride with angry eyes and reckless handwriting might be looking for a war.

But since that restaurant, Sofia Antonova has sat in my mind like a blade left on a desk. Visible. Sharp. Impossible to ignore once noticed.

I have thought of her pale blue dress. Her hidden smile. Her thighs pressing together beneath the table when she looked at me, though she probably believed no one had noticed.