Page 2 of The Pakhan's Bride
I press a finger to my temple and breathe. Four minutes.
The first car crosses beneath the flyover. The tires send up plumes of slush. I hear the scrape of chains. Then the second. The third. Then the one I've waited for.
The moment crystallizes. The world seems to hold its breath, as if even the snow knows what's coming. I press.
The sound is not an explosion, it's a rupture. Atearing, like the world itself has cracked open from beneath. The blast lifts the armored car with startling grace, like a child's toy hurled skyward by an unseen hand. Fire devours the undercarriage. Metal peels away in molten curls. The shockwave knocks me back against the guardrail, hard enough to make my teeth rattle.
Flames bloom below like some ancient flower. Black smoke billows up, curling toward the clouds. Debris rains down, hot and hissing, across the frozen asphalt. I stay low, breaths ragged, ears ringing.
It's done. It's?—
A shape moves through the fire. At first, I think it's a trick of the heat, a mirage born of adrenaline. But it moves again, and a man steps through the haze like a man walking through memory. His coat is burned at the shoulder. One arm hangs, twisted, blood soaking the cuff. But he's breathing.
Konstantin.His face is streaked with soot. There's a gash above his brow, blood running down past his jaw. But his eyes cut through the smoke and find me,exactly me. His gaze locks with mine across distance, across flame, across years.
The street begins to stir with movement. Shouting. Radios. Sirens in the far distance. I hear men barking into comms. Metal on concrete. A drone arcs low over the smoke, blinking red.
I slide back behind the barrier. My fingers are trembling now. My time in Moscow is over as quickly as it had begun.
2
ZOYA
Six years ago
A pile of Italian dossiers lies open beside me on the velvet bench of the fitting salon, their thick cream-colored covers unblemished and new. Ekaterina delivered them this morning with a single instruction.Learn them. These aren't just profiles. They're early-stage negotiations disguised as diplomacy, comprising names of powerful heirs, family lines, assets, loyalties, pressure points.
Tonight at the Baranov gala, I'm not meeting men. I'm meeting trade routes, dowries, and political deals dressed in tailored suits. Each file is a potential match. My father wants me to smile, impress, and pick one, although I'm certain he'll have a favorite. Bending slightly, I trace the edge of one folder with a gloved fingertip, resisting the urge to tear it in half. I'd rather memorize a poem, something useless and lovely."I've outlived my desires, my dreams of love have faded,"Pushkin once wrote. He died in a duel over honor. I am expected to endure mine.
Not that I mean to sound like a complete brat. I love my Papa well, and he has provided for me and loved me as menin his position best can. He's also very indulgent until duty eclipses choice. If securing an alliance for the Baranov family via marriage is the way to keep ourselves afloat in what is definitely a troubled time, I supposed I should make concessions. The Belvinis have outpaced us with their weapons trade, shifting from cold steel to drone tech, partnering with rogue defense contractors. No one dares speak of the Molchanis out loud anymore, not with half the intelligence bureau rumored to answer their calls.
And us? The Baranovs are stretched thin. The ports are bleeding—new tariffs, digital oversight, EU crackdowns on trafficking. The Caspian pipeline isn't ours alone anymore. Smaller outfits nibble at our routes like carrion birds. Even the smugglers have lawyers now.
Papa says we need an alliance, or in other words, a marriage, but he has promised the man will be nothing if not respectable. In families like mine, violence often goes hand-in-hand with maintaining a promising social façade, so I remain unsure as to whether the man chosen for me will be good behind closed doors. Then again, Papa must have done his research. I bend to open one of the dossiers and skim over the details, then another, then one more. These men aren't strangers to violence, but violence is seldom a problem in securing the alliance of this family. What'll matter most is what they can offer the Baranovs.
The tailor's fingers are cold where they brush my collarbone as he adds the final touches to tonight's outfit. He balances a strip of pins between his lips, humming disapproval into the space between us as he adjusts the silk bodice of the gown. His breath smells faintly of cloves and starch. "Stand straighter," he mutters, tugging the fabric tighter across my ribs.
I comply without protest. My spine already aches, but that doesn't matter. Pain is just another kind of silence in this house, constant, instructive, ignored.
The gown is ice-blue, custom-fit with boning that curves like armor beneath my breasts. It's meant to evoke innocence and nobility. This room is my Papa's favorite because of how quiet it is inside. The walls are paneled in dark wood. A map of Europe hides behind faux-brushstrokes on the far wall. There are cameras embedded in the ceiling, invisible unless you know where to look. I learned this the hard way when I sneaked a boy back home as a teenager.
No wonder Katya is the better soldier,I think with a dry smirk. Risking a frown from the tailor, I dip slightly and flip open Matteo Ricci's file. His file, I notice, has a red star-mark on it. Papa's chosen one, then. He's thirty-four. Oxford-educated. Controls Mediterranean freight out of Palermo. Partial to Bordeaux. Rumored to have strangled a subordinate with his bare hands during a port skirmish. His smile in the surveillance photo is charming, but very manufactured. I rehearse the expression I'll wear when we meet—elegant, slightly warm, subtly impressed. My lips stretch into the shape, but the feeling behind it doesn't arrive. Tit for tat, I suppose.
The oak door creaks open without a knock. My papa, Valentin Baranov, steps through, casting a shadow that stretches farther than the chandelier's reach. He smells like Amouage'sInterlude Manand fairytales in old books that I never got around to finishing. At sixty-three, he walks like the street brawler he once was.
The tailor goes rigid. "I'm just about finished, sir."
Papa waves him off with a flick of two fingers. "Leave us."
The man scuttles backward like he's been shot, muttering something about fabric and measurements, and disappears through the side exit. I don't adjust the gown. I keep my arms at my sides, hands curled lightly. "Straighten," Papa says, not looking at me as he moves toward the sideboard where a crystaldecanter glows amber in the low light. He pours himself a drink. "You've reviewed the files?"
"Yes, Papa."
He takes a sip from the glass in his hand, then raises a brow. "And?"
I keep my tone neutral, neither too interested nor too detached. "The Ricci family controls sixty percent of southern European distribution. If we merge trade interests, we gain access to Valencia and Civitavecchia. It bypasses the Belvinis’ chokehold at Messina."
He hums, not displeased.
