Page 71 of Dark King Daddy

Solomon opened the portfolio and placed two identical copies of the agreement on the table. The language was formal — Russian and English in parallel columns, each clause numbered, each condition stated with the precision Ksenia had demanded.

He read through the key provisions aloud. Financial independence. Professional autonomy. Security protocols. Separate residences within the marital home. No expectation of children. No intimacy without consent.

His voice was flat and professional. He did not editorialize.

When he finished, he looked at Ksenia.

“Miss Orlova.” He folded his hands on the table. “I am required to ask you directly. Is this marriage your decision? Are you entering it freely, without coercion, and with full understanding of its terms?”

Ksenia’s jaw tightened. I watched the irritation move through her—not at Solomon, who was doing his job, but at the question itself. At the fact that every person in this room had needed to hear her say it. That her answer had been treated, at every stage, as something fragile that might shatter if examined too closely.

“Yes,” she said. “It is my decision. I have read every clause. I drafted most of them. I am entering this freely.”

Solomon nodded.

Yelena stepped forward.

“Then I’ll witness it.”

The room shifted. Yelena’s voice carried the particular authority of a woman who had been offered as a bride and had refused. Who understood, better than anyone present, what it meant for a woman to say yes and mean it.

She met Ksenia’s eyes. Something passed between them that I could not name — recognition, perhaps. Solidarity. The shared understanding of women who had grown up inside organizations that valued their usefulness over their autonomy.

Anton stepped forward and signed as the second witness.

Solomon offered Ksenia a pen.

She took it. Her hand was steady. She signed both copies with the same controlled precision she brought to everything — each letter formed deliberately, the line of her signature clean and unhesitating.

She was not performing reluctance. She was not performing enthusiasm. She was signing a document she had chosen.

Solomon offered me the pen.

I signed.

The scratch of the nib on paper was the only sound in the room. It lasted perhaps four seconds. When I finished, the agreement was complete. Two copies. Two signatures. Two witnesses. One marriage pending.

Solomon dated both copies, sealed them, and placed them in his portfolio.

“A photograph,” he said. “For the announcement.”

Anton moved to stand beside Ksenia. Yelena moved to stand beside me. The arrangement placed the engaged couple between their respective families — a visual that would communicate exactly what it needed to communicate.

Solomon raised his camera.

I turned to Ksenia.

“May I?”

She looked at me. At my hand, which hovered near her waist without touching.

Her surprise was visible—a brief widening of her eyes, a fractional parting of her lips. She had not expected the question. She had expected the hand, placed without asking, the way men in our world placed hands on women they considered theirs.

“Yes.”

I rested my hand at the small of her back. Light. Deliberate. The fabric of her charcoal coat was smooth under my palm. I felt the warmth of her body through it.

Solomon took three photographs. In each one, Ksenia and I stood between Anton and Yelena, our faces composed, our posture formal, my hand at her waist.