In which this is not the wedding of anyone’s dreams.
Lucya…
When I was little, my parents used to take us to the beach in some decidedly warmer locale than St. Petersburg. I’d spend hours in the tidepools, fascinated by the swirl of the water and the little creatures caught up in its current.
I’m one of those little creatures now, caught up in a current I can’t control, and the women swirl around me and chatter as they arrange my hair, layer on enough makeup to make me unrecognizable, and then haul the enormous dress Dmitri insisted on over my head. The gown’s bodice is indeed encrusted with diamonds and laces up so tightly that drawing a full breath is impossible. The train stretches back five feet. I’m choking under the weight of an enormous ruby and diamond necklace that makes my skin look sallow and the heavy matching earrings feels like they’re going to tear off my earlobes.
I look ridiculous.
“You look beautiful!” Irina says, with an encouraging tone in her voice and a smile that keeps slipping from her face, as if she just can’t make it stick. Alexi’s sister is as beautiful as she is kind, but there’s no mistaking that even she knows this is a funeral, not a wedding.
Conspicuously absent is my sister, which is a gift from my mother. She made it clear to Inessa that she would drag her from the dressing room by her hair if she attempted to get within fifty feet of me, and for that, I’m grateful. I’ll never understand why Inessa would have forced me to attend that horrifying “party.” My sister has turned into someone unrecognizable to me.
Or, maybe I saw what I wanted to see when it came to Inessa.
We’re in an elaborately decorated antechamber in the Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral, the most magnificent church in St. Petersburg, of course. The Pakhan of the Turgenev Bratva must have only the flashiest possible church to highlight his power.
That said, this is such a beautiful church, the oldest one in St. Petersburg. The yellow stone of the cathedral rises over the city, with golden spires and elaborate towers of steel and copper. It’s built inside a fortress on Hare Island along the Neva River. Dmitri’s insistence on holding the wedding here couldn’t be clearer. I could never escape from this place. Dmitri wants me to know I will never escape him.
But I can kill him.
Excusing myself to go to the bathroom, I’m unsettled to find two of the Turgenev “cousins,” both very tall and strong-looking women trying to follow me in.
Stopping dead in my tracks, I’m bitterly amused when one of them nearly falls on top of me.
“Thank you for your attentiveness, cousins. But I prefer to pee in private.”
Irinia speaks up. “Vavara and Motya, come over here, would you? We’re going over the processional and I need your help on the order.”
They might ignore me, but they have to obey the sister of the Pakhan. Flashing her a grateful smile, I slip into the bathroom and lock the door. As I look in the mirror, I wonder how anyone can think I am sane. My eyes are glittering feverishly and the heavy makeup is doing little to hide my pale face.
Hauling up my skirt, I pat the secret pockets my mother sewed into the skirt, slipping the porcelain dagger in one and the vial of poison in the other. There’s a subtle metal detector built into the entries to the cathedral for the ceremony today and I have no idea if it would pick up a gun on me. So, stabbing or poisoning him will have to do. I’ll wait until we’re alone and…
The thought of being in a room alone with my husband’s – my true husband’s – murderer, him eager to rape me sends me to the toilet, vomiting up the little my mother could convince me to eat this morning.
“I’m sorry, milyy malysh, my sweet baby,” I whisper, resting my head on my arm and my hand on my stomach. “I couldn’t save your papa, but I’ll never let anyone hurt you.” I’d dreamed of having a child with Alexi since I was a teenager, envisioning the baby with his blue eyes, maybe a tall boy like his father, or a fierce, courageous little girl. But every dream I’d had included Alexi by my side. I can’t seem to create a new future in my mind for this child and me without him.
I have no idea what will happen when I kill Dmitri. Nikolai would be next in line for the head of the Turgenev family, but I don’t know if Bratva rule would allow him to spare me. I do know with utter certainty that Nikolai would never hurt Alexi’s child. I know he’d protect them. If he will let me live long enough to have our baby, Alexi’s and mine, I’ll meet death with a smile.
At least, Alexi and I will be together.
A hush falls over the enormous crowd as I’m propelled into the cathedral. The ceiling, covered in thin layers of gold, soars two stories over the crowd and there are magnificently colored frescos, hundreds of years old, on the walls. The scent of all the candles is making me sick, so I suck in a deep breath, trying to calm my stomach..
I don’t smile. I don’t pretend this is anything but what it is, and I can see the speculative looks from the men on the right side of the cathedral and the quiet whispering of the women on the left.
Dmitri stands to the right of the Archbishop, eagerness radiating off him. He’s nearly vibrating with the satisfaction of murdering Alexi and locking me into a life of hell. Nikolai stands next to him, grave and unsmiling.
The Wedding Candle ritual is the first part of the ceremony, moving on to the elaborate golden crowns held over our heads. Then, the Betrothal, where the Archbishop binds my right hand to Dmitri’s with the bridal cloth, his touch sending a visible shudder through me. Dmitri’s hand is soft and he’s squeezing mine tightly, grinding my knuckles against each other in a warning to behave.
Can’t the man marrying us see my horror and disgust? He’s a man of God, how can he do this?
The wizened creature in his magnificent gold and white robes keeps his eyes on the Bible in his hand, intoning, “Unite these two in one mind and one flesh.” The thought of Dmitri’s body over mine nearly makes me gag and he squeezes my hand even harder.
By the time we make it to The Dismissal, I’m deeply grateful to have the weight of the crown removed from my head and my hand free from Dmitri’s sweaty one. I flex my right hand subtly, trying to get the blood flowing again and the heaviness of the stupidly enormous, vulgar ring he’s shoved on my finger feels like it’s pulling me off balance.
It’s stupid, I know this. But I thought somewhere in my poor, foolish heart that someone would burst into the massive cathedral at some point during the ceremony, shouting “Stop this abomination!” They would free me from the shackle resting on the ring finger of my right hand.
It never happens.
The worst is yet to come. Dmitri grips me by the back of the neck and pulls me in for a kiss. This time, my gag is audible and he hisses, “Who should I shoot first? Your mother?”
Forcing a weak smile, I close my eyes. I’m somewhere else. This monster’s rubbery lips are not slobbering over mine.
This isn’t me.
At the Four Seasons Hotel, the wedding coordinator has decorated the Grand Ballroom with enough flowers to create its own weather system, and the competing scents of thousands of roses, lilies, and peonies is choking me.
The beautifully dressed men and women from the Six Families pass by us, some sincerely wishing us happiness, some eyeing us with amusement and speculation, and then I see Maksim and Yuri from the Morozov Bratva in the line. Their father Yevgeniy is another harsh Pakhan, but at least they aren’t involved in the Red Trade. Maksim is around sixteen, but he already has that grave countenance of a man in charge.
Yuri shakes my hand very gently. “Are you well, Lucya Dubrovina Turgeneva?”
With Dmitri bristling next to me, there’s no other answer I can give but a weak, “Yes, thank you for coming, Yuri Yevgeniyevitch Morozov.” I’ve always liked Yuri, he’s a smartass, and yet still kind. But he knows and I know that it doesn’t matter if I’m well or not. If I’m being forced into this wedding. If my true husband was murdered.
None of it matters.
So, I nod and shake hands and accept congratulations that are false and wait for the moment I’m alone with the monster next to me and I can kill him.
The wedding feast is magnificently ostentatious and ridiculous. Our families are seated on a raised dais at the front of the room, where the guests can watch my despair and Dmitri’s giddy triumph. We’re at the center of the table with my family on my side to the right and his family on the left. Irina sends me tentative smiles, Nikolai and Damien simply ignore me.
Inessa stops by on her way to her place at the end of the table, my mother having protectively seated herself next to me. “You look so happy, sister,” she says, her eyes glittering with malice, “The wedding planner hired J-Lo to perform after the feast, isn’t that wonderful?” She leans close, giving me a kiss on the cheek, wrapped in barbed wire. “You won’t last long,” she whispers, “And then I’ll have my turn.”
We’re almost through the misery of the banquet when Nikolai rises from his seat, taking a microphone from a server.
“Welcome, honored guests!”
There’s a rousing round of applause from the five hundred guests, drunk on expensive vodka and champagne.
An enormous floor-to-ceiling screen that looks like it belongs in a football arena brightens behind us with an image of Dmitri and me leaving the cathedral. “It is my duty as the next surviving brother-” There’s a rustle of murmurs that sweep around the room like a dark wind. “-to honor my Pakhan and his beautiful bride.”
Next to me, Dmitri stiffens, his jaw tight.
“You may wonder how this memorable alliance was created,” Nikolai continues, sending us a cheerful smile. “Allow me to show you their story.”
The next image up on the colossal screen is that of Alexi and me. I don’t know how it was taken, but I remember when. We’d been skating on our rooftop ice rink and he’d paused to pull me in for a kiss, the snow falling behind us.
I feel like I’ve been punched in the heart.
There’s a low growl from Dmitri and he’s about to rise to his feet when I see Nikolai’s free hand make a signal.
A flood of gunmen surge through every door in the ballroom and there are the sounds of scattered screams, glasses and china crashing to the floor. The men surround the dais and Nikolai shouts, “There is no threat to you, esteemed guests! Give us five minutes to explain.”
The next man through the door to the left of our table is Alexi.
The Red Trade refers to human trafficking
