Page 72 of Dark King Daddy

We looked like a powerful couple announcing a strategic alliance. But there was something else there, too.

Within the hour, Nikita distributed the photograph alongside a formal announcement to every Sokolov captain, every Orlov captain, every client on the shared freight list, and every union representative whose jurisdiction touched our routes. The announcement was brief: Daniil Sokolov and Ksenia Orlova would marry the following afternoon. The alliance between the Sokolov and Orlov organizations was not only intact but formalized through family.

Nikita tracked the responses from the security office.

Harbor Freight Logistics paused its transfer to independent carriers. Not reversed. Paused. Which meant they were waiting to see whether the marriage would hold. Which meant we had bought time.

At the Maspeth yard, the next shared load—Orlov cargo on a Sokolov truck—was accepted without refusal. The driver did not comment. He simply climbed into the cab and drove.

One load. One client. Not a victory. A foothold.

But the marriage was already doing what Ksenia had said it would do.

I stood in the corridor outside the council room and listened to Nikita report the numbers, and for the first time since Lev’s blood had cooled on my hands, something that was not grief occupied the space behind my ribs.

Not hope. That was too large a word.

Possibility.

The Church of the Holy Protection smelled of incense and fresh candles.

Two days ago, I had stood inside these same doors and watched my father’s coffin pass down the center aisle. The wax on the floor was the same. The icons on the walls were the same. The particular quality of light — grey November filtered through narrow windows — was the same.

Only the purpose had changed.

Outside, armed men secured Brighton Fourth Street. Sokolov soldiers on the north side. Orlov soldiers on the south. They did not mix. They did not need to. The photograph from yesterday’s announcement had done more than any handshake could. Two organizations that had spent the week fracturing were now standing on opposite sides of a street, guarding the same church, watching the same doors.

Fewer than twenty people sat inside.

Arkady stood to my left at the front of the church. He wore a black suit and a black tie and the expression of a man who had been told to attend a wedding and would attend it but refused to enjoy it. His eyes moved through the room continuously, tracking entrances, exits, the priest’s movements, the position of every guest. Even here, Arkady was working.

Nikita stood beside him. He had shaved. His green eyes were quiet. No jokes today. No insinuations. He understood what this ceremony meant politically and had decided, for once, to let the moment exist without commentary.

Kiryl stood at the end. He had wanted to come. I had not objected. He wore a dark suit that Yelena had helped him choose, and his pale eyes kept drifting toward the icons on the walls with the unguarded attention of a twenty-year-old who still found churches beautiful.

The priest waited at the altar. Father Alexei had buried Lev on Wednesday. He would marry his son on Friday. He did not comment on the speed. In our world, the distance between grief and necessity was measured in hours.

Funerals, weddings, ceremony, politics. Life, death, joy, sorrow. The mix of it, the strange brew we all sip.

The side door opened.

Ksenia entered on Anton’s arm.

The ivory silk dress was simple. High-necked. Long-sleeved. The fabric caught the candlelight and held it, soft and warm against her skin. Her chestnut hair was gathered at the back of her neck, loose strands catching the light from the windows. She wore no veil. No jewelry except the small gold studs.

Her friend, Zoe, had found the dress, apparently. I did not know how, on such short notice, in a city that did not care about the urgency of a bratva wedding. But the dress was right. It was Ksenia—polished, individual, not dressed to match anyone’s expectations.

Anton walked slowly. Not for ceremony. Because each step carried the weight of a father who should have been walking this aisle instead of his son. Anton’s face was controlled, but his grip on Ksenia’s arm was tight enough that I could see the tension in his fingers from ten feet away.

Mikhail Orlov should have been here.

Lev should have been here.

Two empty spaces at the front of the church, filled with incense and silence. But of course, if they were still here, this wedding would never have taken place.

They reached me.

Anton stopped.