YAROMIR
I waitfor her in the main hall.
That’s mistake number one.
I should wait in the car. I should let Viktor bring her down. I should already be on a call, already busy, already reminding myself that tonight is about strategy. Instead, I stand at the foot of the staircase like a husband waiting for his wife.
Alexei would enjoy that too much if he saw it.
The hall is quiet except for the low murmur of men outside the front doors and the distant movement of staff. Two cars wait in the drive. Viktor has already checked the route twice. My men know where Kirill’s men will be positioned if he attends. They know which exits to watch at the Imperial Exchange.
Larisa sits in the drawing room nearby, the door open just enough for me to know she’s watching.
Of course she’s watching.
She has said nothing since Anya went upstairs to dress, but her silence tells me everything about how she feels about this.
I hear movement above. My attention goes to the staircase before I can stop it.
At first, I see only the lower edge of the dress.
Dark red. Not bright. Not girlish. Deep, almost wine-colored, the kind of red that looks black where the shadows touch it. Then she steps into view, one hand on the railing, and every thought I have stops.
Anya descends slowly. Not because she’s uncertain, but because she knows I’m looking.
The dress fits her like it was made by someone who understood what a weapon could look like when sewn from silk. It clings to her waist and hips before falling cleanly to the floor, with a slit high enough to show one leg when she moves. The neckline is elegant, but not innocent. Her shoulders are bare. Her throat is bare. Her hair is swept up, with a few soft pieces left around her face.
Diamonds sit at her ears. My ring sits on her finger.
I forget, for a second, that there are other people in the hall.
At lunch, she looked tired and cornered. In the stable, restless. In my room last night, wrecked and furious. Now she looks like a Volkov wife.
Not Dmitri’s abandoned bride.
Mine.
The satisfaction is immediate and so strong I have to lock my jaw to keep it from falling off my face.
My aunt comes out from the sitting area, staring up at Anya. The dress. The posture. The quiet confidence Anya is still learninghow to wear. The way the hall itself seems to make room for her as she comes down.
Larisa does not like it.
Anya reaches the last step and stops in front of me. For a moment, neither of us speaks.
Her eyes move over my suit, then back to my face. “Well?”
I should say something ordinary. You look nice, you look pretty. All of these things are true, but there’s more to it. I think about how every man in that room will look at her, and I will have to decide how many of them I am willing to kill before dessert.
I almost tell her that I want to take her back upstairs and keep this version of her for myself. Instead, I look at the clasp near her throat, at the line of her shoulders, at anywhere that is not her mouth.
“You’ll do,” I say.
Her eyes narrow. For one second, I think she might hit me. Then she sees the corner of my mouth move.
“You are terrible at compliments,” she says.
Larisa’s mouth tightens. “That dress is dramatic.”
