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He doesn’t. He holds the door open, and I walk through it. We go downstairs and out to the garden where they’ve set up for the ceremony. White chairs, no flowers because nobody asked me about flowers, a small gathering of men in suits who all have the same look about them, the look of people who could end a conversation in more ways than one. Bratva leadership on one side. On the other, the Crown heads, the kings, standing in their respective silences.

Lorenzo DeLuca I recognize from research. Silver-templed, immaculate, the kind of suit that costs more than most people’s rent. Beside him, a man I don’t know yet, dark-haired, expensive cologne from here, the kind of face that probably gets him whatever he wants. Next to him, broad-shouldered, red-headed, a drink already in hand. At the end, the youngest, olive-skinned, jaw set, eyes that haven’t stopped moving since he walked in.

And at the end of the aisle, Volkov.

Black tuxedo, no tie, the top button undone because he’s constitutionally incapable of full compliance with anything. The wolf tattoo is invisible under the shirt, but I know it’s there. He’s watching me come down the aisle. When I get close enough to see his face clearly, there it is. The smirk.

I hate it. I hate him in the tuxedo. I hate that the tuxedo fits him the way it does, broad through the shoulders, every inch of it doing exactly what good tailoring is supposed to do on a man built like that.

Something tightens low in my stomach, sharp and without permission, and it has no business happening at my own wedding in front of thirty armed men.

What I also tell myself, walking the last few steps toward him, is that my father is dead because of this man. I tell myself that clearly, in plain language, the way I’d state a fact to a jury. The man at the end of this aisle ordered his execution. I am marrying him on purpose. I haven’t lost my mind. I haven’t forgiven anything. I’m just playing a longer game than grief allows.

Marka stops at the end of the aisle. Volkov takes my hand before the officiant can open his mouth, leans down, lips at my ear.

“You look good enough to fuck standing up,” he says, quiet enough that only I hear it. “That dress is coming off with my teeth tonight.”

I keep my face forward. My hand stays loose in his. The color is in my neck again, I can feel it. There’s nothing I can do about it except stand very straight and hope the white silk is distracting enough that nobody looks at my throat.

Both things are true at once, and I don’t know what to do with that. I don’t have enough experience with the first thing to separate it from the second. I’ve never stood close enough to someone to feel their body heat and had my own body respond before, not like this, not with that pull low in my stomach. That’s the part that unsettles me more than anything else today.

The vows are not what I expected.

“I take you,” Volkov says, voice carrying across the garden without any effort, “as mine. Not borrowed, not shared. Mine to keep, mine to protect, mine to drag back if you’re stupid enough to run.” His eyes stay on me. “I’ll have my hands on you every night, and you’ll know exactly who you belong to. I’ll keep you safe, keep you satisfied, and put a bullet in anyone who looks at you wrong. That’s my vow.”

There’s a silence across the garden. Half the room looks like they’ve never heard vows like that. The other half looks like they didn’t expect anything less.

The officiant nods at me. My turn.

“I take you,” I say, “to have and to hold, to honor and cherish, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, for as long as we both shall live.”

He slides the ring onto my finger. I slide his onto his. His hands are warm, and the scar across his right knuckle is visible up close.

For a second I think about my father’s hands. Softer than these. A lawyer’s hands, not a soldier’s. He used to rest them flat on the chessboard when he was thinking. I haven’t thought about that in weeks, and I don’t know why it surfaces now, here, with this man’s ring on my finger.

“You may kiss your bride,” the officiant says.

Volkov cups my jaw with one hand, tilts my face up, and kisses me in front of every king and every Bratva soldier in that garden like he’s making a point to all of them simultaneously. His tongue parts my lips before I’ve decided how I feel about that, slow and thorough, one hand still on my jaw making sure I stay exactly where he put me. When he pulls back, his thumb drags across my lower lip, and his eyes say everything the vows didn’t.

I have been kissed before. Three times. None of them produced anything I needed to think about afterward, which is why I concluded I simply wasn’t particularly interested in that kind of thing. I don’t know what to do with the fact that this is different. I don’t understand why my hands want to move or why my breath is coming wrong or why the thumb dragged across my lip feels like it’s still there after he’s pulled back. I look straight ahead and breathe and tell myself it’s the circumstance. The strangeness of the day. That’s the most reasonable explanation, and I’m keeping it.

The reception is in the house, the main room opened up, food and drink appearing from somewhere, the staff invisible but efficient. I’m introduced to the kings one by one. Lorenzo takes my hand and holds it a beat longer than a handshake, looking at me with warm assessment.

“You made a bold move,” he says. “I respect it.”

“I made a practical one,” I say.

He smiles. “Even better.” He moves on, and I’m passed to Adrianos, who takes my hand like he’s known me for years, charm dialed to a level that probably gets most people immediately.

“The new Mrs. Nazarov,” he says. “Brooklyn’s gain.”

“You’re very kind,” I say, which is the diplomatic version of you’re very smooth, and we both know it.

Declan shakes my hand with the directness of a man who doesn’t bother with performance. “Good luck,” he says, and I’m not entirely sure he means it as a congratulation.

Santiago doesn’t say much. He looks at me like he’s deciding what category I belong in, then nods once, and moves away. I file him under undecided and move on.

I’m standing near the window with a glass of champagne I haven’t touched when a small hand takes both of mine.