Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 93463 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93463 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
The air still holds a chill, the scent of thawed earth and everything, giving me hope. The streetlamp casts golden halos through the mist following rain.
The pussy willows droop slightly, casting long shadows that slither across the path. It smells like the sun’s coming, like life waking up again after too long in sleep. I’ve always loved this time of year. The green buds on the trees, the slow retreat of winter, the way summer promises longer days and fewer obligations. It always made me feel free.
But I don’t feel that anymore. I haven’t in a while.
Not since Seamus left.
Still, I shove the thought out of my mind the second we fall into step, side by side. Even thinking of him feels dangerous. Feels like invoking something I’m not ready to face.
Rafail exhales sharply. His breath fogs in the evening air. He’s got a little gray at his temples now, something he didn’t have when he first became head of the family. The years have marked him, but they’ve also hardened him. Refined him. We’re more powerful now. Financially stable. Feared, respected. His name carries weight across every organized crime ring from Europe to beyond.
But it wasn’t always that way. We’ve survived betrayal, infighting, chaos.
“I knew we’d have to have this conversation eventually,” he says, scratching the back of his neck. For a moment, he looks almost boyish.
“What conversation, Rafail?” My voice is wary, tight.
“You knew, didn’t you, Zoya? That eventually I’d have to marry you off.”
Oh god. That’s why he’s here?
I nod. The lump in my chest rises, thick and sharp. Six months ago, I would’ve broken down. I would’ve cried, screamed. Raged. Because back then, I still believed I might get to choose. Still hoped I might get married for love.
But now? Now it just feels like the next inevitable season of my life.
God, I only hope he doesn't marry me off to some fat, ugly relic with hairy ears and sausage fingers.
I’m only twenty.
“Yes,” I say. My voice cracks. I try to hide it. “I know.”
I blink hard, swipe at my eyes before he sees. The tears aren’t because I’m afraid of marriage. It’s because I know deep down it won’t be to the man I want.
“We did the best we could,” Rafail says quietly, shoving his hands in his pockets. “But Morozov’s brother Pavel… he’ll be a good match for you.”
I steel myself. “What can you tell me about him?”
“He’s Bratva, like us,” Rafail says. “His family’s got businesses that’ll blend well with ours. Strategic. Profitable. He’s… a little older, widowed.”
“Pavel?” I repeat, eyes narrowing. “I thought you hated him.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t hate him.” But the way he says it—the shrug, the tension in his shoulders—tells me all I need to know.
There’s something about this arrangement he’s not telling me.
They've all been watching me lately, and not in the usual way. Not with suspicion, not with curiosity. With concern.
I’ve lost weight, I know it. My clothes hang differently, looser around my waist and collarbone. My appetite’s disappeared, like someone snatched it away in the night and replaced it with this constant, hollow ache in my chest. I don’t sleep. I can’t. The nights blur into mornings, and no one dares ask me why.
How do you explain the kind of grief that can’t be named?
That’s what happens when you fall in love with someone you were never meant to have. Someone you can’t keep.
Seamus.
Just thinking his name is enough to send my chest spiraling into a tight knot. Mourning something that was never mine in the first place feels even more impossible. But I’ve done it. I’m doing it.
Because I have no choice. This is the only way.
“We tried to make dinner plans, tried to put it off,” Rafail says, shaking his head, a hint of regret in his voice. “But it didn’t work. He wants you now, Zoya. We barely talked him into the end of the month.”
I nod, trying to absorb it, but it feels like I’m underwater, his words distorted and muffled, reality pressing in around my ears. The kind of cognitive dissonance that settles into your bones when you hear life-altering news and your mind refuses to fully register it. Like it’s protecting you. Like it knows if it sinks in all at once, it’ll shatter you.
Still, I nod. Go along with it and ask the only question that matters. “Will this help our family?”
That guilt, always simmering in the background, flares up, hot and nauseating. Every secret I’ve kept, every stolen night with Seamus, every lie I told, every cover I spun—it all boils to the surface.
I hate lying to them, I whisper inside my own head. But I’d do anything for them.
“Yes, Zoya,” Rafail says, meeting my eyes, his tone serious. “More than I can even tell you.” He pauses, shakes his head as if the weight of it all is too much.