Page 5 of Marrying the Savage

Dmitri misses it. He’s too busy turning the pages of the folder, reviewing names as if he’s inspecting troops. Guest lists. Seating charts. Security notes. My entire wedding has been reduced to paper, ink, and quiet threats.

No one has asked me whether I want roses or peonies, but three separate men have apparently debated whether the Petrov cousins can be trusted near the open bar.

Romance is alive and well.

The waiter returns with coffee. He places the cups down carefully, his eyes fixed on the tablecloth rather than any of our faces, which tells me he has either excellent instincts or previous experience serving criminals in tailored suits. I thank him softly. He looks startled by the kindness, then relieved, then terrified that relief itself might offend someone.

Poor man.

I’m about to ask for more sugar, mostly because sugar is the only thing in this room that has never disappointed me, when the sound of the restaurant outside our private room begins to thin.

It’s subtle at first. The kind of shift a person might miss if she is not raised around dangerous men and trained, by accident and survival, to notice something has shifted.

The piano continues, but the notes lose confidence. A woman’s laugh cuts off too abruptly. Cutlery stills against plates. Even Dmitri pauses, his finger resting on a name in the folder.

My uncle’s attention moves past my shoulder. I follow his gaze.

A man has entered the restaurant. He stands near the host podium, removing one black leather glove with unhurried precision while the maître d’ looks as though he has just been handed a death sentence written in cursive. Four men wait behind him, all dressed in black suits, all expressionless in the way only truly dangerous men can afford to be. They are large, silent, and armed without needing to show a single weapon.

But I barely notice them.

I notice him.

He’s older than Dmitri by at least fifteen years, maybe more, though age doesn’t soften him. If anything, it makes him more imposing. There’s silver threaded through the dark hair at his temples, and the lines of his face are severe enough to make beauty feel like the wrong word, though he’s beautiful in the same way winter is beautiful from behind glass. Cold. Merciless. Impossible not to look at.

His suit is black and perfectly cut. Not flashy, not loud, not begging for attention the way Dmitri’s expensive clothes do. This man wears power as though it bores him.

He doesn’t scan the restaurant like someone checking for threats. He simply looks across it, and every person in the room seems to understand they have been assessed.

My body reacts before my brain has the decency to stop it. Heat gathers low in my stomach, sudden and completely inappropriate. My spine straightens. My thighs press together beneath the table before I can think better of it, and the realization that I’m sitting between my uncle and my fiancé while becoming physically aware of a stranger makes me want to stab myself with the dessert spoon.

Absolutely not, Sofia. Not him. Not now.

Not while Dmitri is sitting three feet away explaining seating arrangements like a tyrant with a Pinterest board.

The stranger’s gaze reaches our private room, and for the briefest moment, his eyes meet mine. They are pale gray. Not soft gray, not romantic gray, but the flat, wintry color of a frozen river that would kill you without raising its voice. He looks at me with faint interest, no more than that, but it’s enough to make the air feel warmer against my skin.

I should look away, but I can’t. It’s as if I’m completely hypnotized. And that’s not even the worst part. That would be the fact that I’m completely soaking wet between my thighs. And it’s all because of this damn man.

2

SOFIA

My uncle rises beside me, and the scrape of his chair against the floor snaps the moment in half. “Volodin.”

The name cuts through the room. I know it, of course. Everyone in our world knows it, even if they only say it quietly.

Damir Volodin.

Pakhan of the Volodin Bratva.

My uncle doesn’t talk about him often. When he does, he says his name the way other people might mention a disease that once nearly killed them. Dmitri has mentioned him too, usually with the careless contempt of a younger man protected by locked doors, armed guards, and other people’s blood.

Damir Volodin finishes removing his glove before he answers. That alone tells me something about him. Most men react to my uncle immediately, either with respect, caution, or some stupid attempt at dominance. Damir gives him nothing quickly.

Only when the glove is fully removed does he look at my uncle. “Sergei.”

Dmitri stands as well, his smile arriving a second too late to be convincing. “Volodin. I didn’t know they let ghosts dine here.”