"That the Mostovoi family isn't just expanding. It's establishing. Five brothers. Five wives. That's not a family. That's a dynasty."
I look at my brother with pride I don’t bother concealing. He understands. He has always understood, of all of them, the long game, the slow build, the structural importance of permanence.
"Dayan," I say. "Thoughts?"
Dayan is looking at Amelia. His expression is his usual mask, controlled and unreadable, but his hand is resting on the table next to hers, their smallest fingers almost touching. A distance that is almost contact.
"I'll follow Akyl," he says. "Two weeks after."
Amelia's eyes widen slightly. She turns to look at him, and whatever she finds in his face makes her press her lips together and nod once.
"Volody," I say.
My youngest brother leans back in his chair and looks at the ceiling. Then at Liv. Then at me.
"I don't need a month. I don't need two weeks. I’ll marry her as soon as I can."
"It's not a race," Serik says.
"Everything's a race. I'm just the only one honest enough to say so." Volody pulls Liv closer, his arm around her shoulders, and she leans into him with the instinct of someone who has found a warm place and has no intention of moving. "Ten days. Then we're married and I can stop pretending I'm patient."
"You've never pretended to be patient," Akyl says.
"Exactly. Why start now?"
Liv looks up at Volody with an expression that is simultaneously exasperated and adoring. "You could have warned me we were discussing this tonight."
"Where's the fun in that?"
"The fun is in me not having a panic attack at the dinner table."
Volody's expression shifts, softening, and he presses his lips against her temple. "No panic," he murmurs, low enough that it's meant for her but close enough that I hear it. "Just me. Just us. Same as always."
She leans into the kiss, and for a moment, the youngest Mostovoi, the loudest, the most reckless, the one who treats life like a dare he's determined to win, looks like something I never expected to see.
Content.
Claudia squeezes my hand under the table. I turn to her and she is looking at me with an expression that takes me apart, quietly and completely. She is proud. Proud to be a part of what’s unfolding in front of us.
"Then I suppose we need dresses," she says, turning back to the table.
A murmur of agreement circulates the table.
She smiles, and the warmth of it reaches into my chest and settles beside my heart, and I let it stay.
The dinner goes late. Greta clears the dessert plates and brings coffee and then disappears, and my brothers and their women spread through to the living room. Volody stretches across the sofa with Liv tucked against his side. Serik and Juliette stand at the windows, talking quietly, her hand on his arm. Akyl and Katriona remain at the table, speaking in low voices, their heads inclined toward each other at an angle that excludes the rest of the world.
“You need to decorate this place,” Serik comments. “It’s been kept in the past too long. Imagine the absolute field day kids would have with the antiques in here and a set of markers.”
“Who is giving my kids markers?” Claudia asks, causing a thrill to run through me. She said it like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“I’ll be that uncle, Claudia, we all know it. Glitter and markers for Christmases and birthdays.”
“And you, Serik, will be the one cleaning it up,” Claudia counters with an eyebrow raised in challenge.
The night draws to a close and they leave in pairs. Volody hugs Claudia at the door, lifting her off her feet despite my pointed look. Akyl kisses her hand with an old-world formality that is either genuine or designed to irritate me, and based on the look he gives me over her knuckles, it's both.
Serik and Juliette nod their goodbyes with matching efficiency. Dayan simply raises a hand from the doorway, and Amelia waves, a small, genuine gesture that Claudia returns with a warmth I know she doesn't manufacture.
