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“Oh wow, that’s—” Anya tips her head to the side, assessing. “That is kind of plain, but still a nice gesture. Ivan has clearly never bought a woman jewelry before.”
I pick up the plain gold band, running my thumb over the polished edge.
No frills. No gaudy gems or diamonds. No over-the-top detailing.
Just a simple gold band. Like the engagement ring I wanted.
The same one I wanted when Mikhail and I were in Kieran’s shop, a lifetime ago. I hoped Kieran wouldn’t recognize me. He sees so many customers that there was no way he’d remember me, right?
Wrong,as it turned out.
“It’s perfect,” I murmur under my breath.
“Really?” Anya inspects it a bit closer and then shrugs. “Then Ivan knows what he’s doing. That’s another good sign.”
I close the lid and tuck the box carefully in my lap. “A good sign for what?”
Anya’s brows shoot up innocently. “What? Oh, nothing. I’m just talking. I do that a lot. You’ll get used to it.”
Ivan was right: when it comes to loving Anya, she really doesn’t give you a choice.
“Anyway,” she chirps, “I’m thinking we need to get you out of the house and do some wedding planning. You need to see and be seen if we want this plan to work.”
I’m beginning to wonder whose plan she’s executing: Ivan’s or her own secret agenda.
“Every time I’ve gone out in public, I’ve been threatened.”
Or absolutely ravished by her brother.
Either way, it’s a bad idea.
“Which is why I’ve booked private appointments, duh! Your dress fitting and cake tasting are going to be exclusive. No one will be allowed in or out without some extensive vetting and there will be security everywhere. No one will touch you.”
“Maybe someone could just come to the house and I could look at dresses here. Then we wouldn’t need all of the guards and security measures.”
She swats away my idea. “There is no way in hell that my brother’s wife is trying on wedding dresses in her walk-in closet. Not gonna happen.”
“Have you seen the closet, though? It’s amazing.”
“It’s still a closet. This has to be extravagant. It’s like royalty getting married,” Anya says. “That’s what you and Ivan represent to people. It’s a way of life that has to be maintained and flaunted.”
I squeeze the box in my lap until my knuckles turn white. “I don’t want to be royalty.”
“We aren’t really royal,” she laughs. “But our family has a lot of responsibilities.Ivanhas a lot of responsibilities. We need to exude strength and normalcy right now until this threat is under control.”
I hear the words Anya is saying, but I can’t make sense of them. She’s talking like we’re spies in the midst of some foreign war. Like this is an espionage movie instead of my real life.
I blink at her, mouth hanging open for a moment. “Whoareyou people?”
Anya’s smile falters. “We’re ungodly rich; that’s who we are. This all comes with the territory.”
Assassins. Executions. Armed guards.
I know rich people. I’vebeenrich, no matter how briefly. None of this comes with the territory.
This ismafiastuff.
Maybe that’s what Ivan’s dad was talking about when he mentioned a Bratva. I mean, it fits. Who else aside from career criminals can murder people with no remorse the way I watched Ivan kill that sniper?
