Page 50 of The Pakhan's Bride
"Would you have made a better impression then than you did now?" I ask.
She finally looks at me. Her eyes are blue, but strangely warm. We stand in silence, the city behind us, the house at our back. I want to ask if she's cold, but I know she'd rather freeze than admit it.
After a minute, she says, "Was I invited as a wife or as a showpiece?"
I consider lying, but she would hear it. Instead, "You're both. That's the game."
She breathes in, lets it out slowly. "And when the game is over?"
"Then we see who's left."
She leans forward, staring into the dark beyond. For a second, I think she might leap, just to prove she can survive the fall. Before she can make up her mind or I realize what I'm meant to do, there's a shout from inside, punctuated by multiple dishes clattering, then the hoarse scream of a choking man.
Zoya and I lock eyes for a split second before we run.
In the dining room, the banker's son is on the floor, limbs twitching, his face swollen and turning a shade of blue no living man should wear. Chairs are overturned, a server is frozen mid-step, and the entire table has recoiled in horror. At the center of it all, Ekaterina is already kneeling, composed as if this were just another formality. She presses two fingers to his throat, looks up at me, and says, clear as crystal, "Call the medic. He's been poisoned."
19
ZOYA
The corridor outside the drawing room parlor is a wind tunnel of nerves, the air so cold I could snap it between my teeth. Frost slicks the windows, beads along the seams of the old glass, mapping the pressure inside. I press my back to the wall and feel the architecture thrum with it. At the far end, two guards are planted shoulder to frame, each with a hand ghosting the grip of a gun. They watch everything except me. The third, near the arch to the parlor, cracks his knuckles and mumbles into a radio.
No one speaks. The night has been shorn to its bones.
The banker's son is splayed inside on a velvet chaise. Sweat stains the silk at his neck and soaks through to the green brocade beneath. He looks like a man crucified by his own intestines. The estate doctor hovers, needle in one hand, portable monitor clamped to the other, his face stuck at maximum pale. Orlov circles the perimeter, boots quiet, tablet open and fingers dancing. He never stops moving.
I stare through the crack of the double doors. The glass is leaded, but a single strip lets me count heartbeats by the twitch of the doctor's jaw. The first hit of adrenaline hasn't faded, andnow I feel the burn start to climb my arms. I clench a fist and uncurl it. Blood moves. That's all that matters.
A phone chirps. Orlov slides it from his inner pocket, old-school flip with tape on the hinge. He ducks his head and murmurs, "Alexei, code one. Confirm." His voice barely leaks past the marble arch, but I catch the shift in the air. Alexei Vetrov. Cousin, fixer, the man who made a few of my husband's enemies vanish like a magic trick. If he's on the call, this is containment—family only. The walls are about to close in.
I want to move, but I know better. The correct play is to let the adrenaline spin, observe, and wait. That's the game Ekaterina taught me, back when we'd crawl under the billiards table to eavesdrop on our father's meetings. She'd narrate every gesture, every lie.Watch the hands, little dove. No one tells the truth with their mouth.
The parlor is full now. Five guards, two of whom I don't recognize, at the four points of the compass and one float. Sokolov, ever the shadow, stands by the fireplace with a poker balanced across his forearm. His eyes are rimmed with red. He watches the banker's son warily. Konstantin is at dead center, a pillar of muscle. He doesn't move, not a blink. The only sign of life is the twitch at the corner of his left eye. His face is set to off, but the room rotates around him, everything measured to his axis.
Orlov slides into the corridor, gives me a look. His shirt is untucked at the waist, a detail he'd never allow if things were under control. "Alexei's ten out," he mutters, voice low. "No press, no cops. He's calling a hard seal." His eyes flit to the guards, to my hands, to my throat. "You should go to your rooms. For optics."
I shake my head, though my whole body is trembling. "I'd rather see it play out."
He sighs, not a full exhale, just enough to show the crack. "Don't say anything yet to other staff. Not to anyone. We'll be running a check shortly."
"Like you'd trust me with a secret," I say, and his mouth quirks, the barest flicker.
"I trust you more than the walls," he says, and then he's gone, back through the doors.
A minute later, the doctor steps out. He peels off his gloves and wipes his brow with the back of his hand. He looks at me, as if for the first time. "Is there a nurse?" he asks.
I shrug. "Just my old nanny, but she's…" I picture involving Galina in this mess. "Old."
He grimaces, disappears again.
Footsteps echo up from the service stairs. Sokolov calls from the parlor. "Mrs. Vetrov, come in." His tone is flat, but I hear the intent. There's no denying this one.
I walk in. There is a medical funk overlaid on the old cigar and leather. The banker's son is slumped, eyes half-shut, his left hand clawing at the armrest. There's a fresh IV in his wrist, and the line snakes back to a bag that the doctor holds at shoulder height. Konstantin doesn't look at me. Sokolov points at a spot near the chaise. I take it, standing. "We need a statement," he says. "For the family."
I know what he wants—the outsider's view, the record of events before the Bratva rewrite begins. I replay the last hour in my head—the wine, the toast, the conversations and the adoring eyes, me feeling suffocated inside and escaping into the night air as soon as I had the chance, my husband joining me, then the shouts. Running back in, and for one awful second, thinking that my sister was smiling before her eyes grew dark and she told Konstantin to send for a medic. "Nothing in the food," I say. "It was the wine. French. 200."
Sokolov nods, confirms with Orlov's tablet. "The bottles?"
