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“Both. Just do it.”
“Fine. You choose one of them. I don’t care."
I hadn’t expected he would. None of us were marriage material, and we knew it. Just as with everything else, a marriage was simply a means to an end.
“One Bratva bride, coming up.” I sealed the deal. “Consider yourself engaged.”
Who would have thought? There was another talent I could add to my skill set: matchmaker. If only I could solve every problem in my life by throwing rice and diamond rings at them.
19
KATYA
They came at the break of dawn. Sokolov and his dreaded nieces. I compared them to locust. Word in the corridors was that the staff compared them to a pestilence. It seemed as if every staff member who was spoken to by one of the Sokolov women ended up in tears, quit, or asked for a raise. One would think that would be enough excitement in the Romanov household, but nope.
I stared at Kristoff. “Uncle Vik is engaged?” To one of those horrid Sokolov women?
“We will hold the wedding in a few days. Coordinate with the staff. I need this to go smoothly.”
“Wedding?” What was happening here? “So he met his fiancée like, today, and gets married in a few days. Are we living in the Middle Ages now? Did her uncle pay her dowry in sheep and horses?” I knew the Bratva was backward in some ways, but this was ridiculous.
“And coins,” Kristoff said. “Don’t forget the gold.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m sure Olga can manage a wedding. She lives for ordering people around.” In a past life, she might have been a general.
“I also need you to take care of another guest.”
I groaned. “Please don’t tell me there are more Sokolovs on their way.”
Something lingered in Kristoff’s gaze I couldn’t quite decipher.
“His nieces are all the family Sokolov has left.”
The way he’d said it didn’t invite me to ask any further. Sokolov was apakhan. A very powerful one, from what I’d gathered. It figured that his life was brutal, putting his family in danger.
“Then who?”
He didn’t answer, instead guiding me to the kitchen. A young girl sat at the island, fidgeting in her chair. She had white-blonde hair that fell around her shoulders like a waterfall.
I frowned. There was something about her…
“That’s Vicky. She’s Viking’s daughter.”
I blinked. Uncle Vik had a teenage daughter? I couldn’t believe it, yet the girl sat right in front of me. Now that I was connecting the dots, I could see the resemblance. The poor girl looked lost and a bit overwhelmed. I remembered that feeling well.
“How…” I wasn’t sure where to begin. “Where’s her mother?” And why did this feel like déjà vu?
Kristoff’s eyes hardened. “Don’t worry about her mother. She’s out of the picture.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “This must be like a twisted version of how we met. I had no idea it was so common for teenage girls to show up on your doorstep.”
His eyes narrowed. “There’s nothing common about how we met, Ekaterina. Nothing at all.”
Now what did he mean by that? It sounded as if he thought it had been fate, but Kristoff didn’t believe in that. He believed in facts and numbers. Before I could ask him, he walked away.
“Just take care of her,” he said over his shoulder. “She’s all alone.”
For the next three days I spent practically every minute with Vicky, whom I found to be a delight. We kept ending up in the kitchen though. She’d told me she used to always have tea with her mother in their kitchen. This was a mother who had told her daughter to go search for her biological father in case of an emergency.
