PROLOGUE
IRINA
I can’t believe I’m being buried alive in three thousand yards of Chantilly lace, and everyone in the room is laughing and clapping at my funeral.
Not funny.
"Oh,Gospodi, Irina! You are a vision!" Maria, the lead stylist, gushes. She tweaks a microscopic fold in the heavy, ivory skirt of my wedding dress. Her eyes keep darting toward the heavy oak door.
Everyone’s is nervous today. They know what happens if a Petrov bride doesn't look like a porcelain doll or worse, if she looks like she’s reconsidering the deal.
I stare at the stranger in the three-way mirror of the St. Regis penthouse. I see the reflection of a girl with high, sharp cheekbones and icy blue eyes. My golden-brown hair is pulled into a sleek, careful knot, pinned with enough diamonds tofund a small revolution. It’s a crown of thorns disguised as high fashion.
"I look like a doll," I say, my voice flat, cutting through their nervous chatter. "A very expensive, very suffocated doll."
"You look like the future Queen of New York, Miss Petrova!” another stylist chirps, her voice a pitch too high as she pins a veil so long it feels like it has its own zip code.
I’m really trying not to be rude. I know what is on the line for everyone involved but… I can’t do this… I can’t?—
"I can’t breathe," I snap, the stubbornness I’ve spent twenty-five years honing finally bubbling to the surface. "Get out. All of you."
Maria pales, her hand fluttering to her throat. "B-But the ceremony starts in twenty minutes, Ira. We still need to?—"
"I need to be alone," I cut her off, my gaze dropping to the silver Orthodox cross around my neck. It’s the only thing I’m wearing that is actually mine. "Unless you’d like to see how a bride looks when she has a full-blown panic attack and ruins ten thousand dollars worth of makeup? Out. Now."
They scurry. The click of the heavy door closing behind them is the most beautiful sound I’ve heard all day. Finally, silence. I try to take a deep breath, but the corset—cinched so tight it feels like my ribs are trying to trade places—refuses to allow it.
I want to cry, I want to ruin things or scream like in the movies but I can’t, my lips are trembling and my fingers shaky.
Is this the life I’m expected to lead?? This?
I’m not just a bride. I’m an apology. A political correction for the fact that Artyom Morozov, the Ice King himself, looked at the alliance my father offered and chose a nurse instead.
I’m an unwanted leftover.
Not that I actually care about Artyom’s rejection. What burns is the way my father simply pivoted. Artyom said no, so the great Boris Petrov just pointed his thick finger at the next brother in line as if he were choosing a different bottle of top-shelf vodka. I am being passed around like prized cattle, a bargaining chip traded for territory and peace, and today, the trade is Mikhail.
A heavy, measured knock sounds at the door. I don't need to ask who it is. That rhythm belongs to only one man. The air in the room seems to grow colder before he even enters.
The door opens, and my father steps in, a wall of a man, six-foot-one and broad-shouldered, carrying the thick build of someone who broke bones for a living before he started breaking empires. His salt-and-pepper hair is cut very short, and his dark, heavy-lidded eyes scan me with the same cold calculation he uses for a shipment of contraband.
"Stand up straight, Irina," he commands as soon as his eyes land on me. His voice is a low rumble that vibrates in my chest like a warning.
I don't move from the velvet stool. "I’m already standing as straight as the wire holding this dress together allows, Papa."
He walks toward me, the gold rings on his thick fingers catching the light. He smells of expensive cigars and a sharp, metallic cologne that lingers long after the man is gone. He reachesout, catching my chin in a grip that isn't quite painful, but is definitely a reminder of who owns whom.
"Look at me," he says. I force my eyes to look into his. "After the mess with Artyom, after the shame you brought upon this house by being discarded, you should be on your knees thanking me for this day."
"Thanking you?" I let a dry, sassy laugh escape, though my heart is drumming a frantic rhythm against my stays. "For marrying me off to the Morozov brother who likes to set things on fire for fun? Mikhail is a volatile mess, Papa. I’ve heard the stories about what he did in Naples. The men he left in the streets. What good is having a predator like that for a husband? Are you trying to get me killed?"
"Mikhail is a Morozov," Boris growls, his grip tightening for a fraction of a second, just enough to make me wince. "And you will do something beneficial for this family for once. This wedding isn't just about a name, Irina. It’s the gateway. You will go in, you will play the dutiful wife. Do you understand?"
His eyes are ominous, glinting with a hidden intent I can't quite place, something that makes the fine hairs on my arms stand up. There’s something he isn't saying—something about the way he’s been whispering with Mikhail’s father, Vladimir Morozov, in the dark corners of the club.
"I was supposed to marry the Pakhan," I whisper, the stubbornness in my voice replaced by a sharp, defensive edge. "Artyom was manageable. He’s cold. He’s predictable. I could have lived in his shadow and found a way to survive. But Mikhail... he’s different."
"What about him?"
