I'm adjusting my cufflinks in the hallway mirror when Claudia comes downstairs.
She's wearing a dark green dress, fitted, not formal but deliberate, with her hair down the way I like it.
"You're staring," she says.
"I'm observing."
"You're staring." She stops in front of me and straightens my collar, a small, possessive gesture that she's begun doing without thinking. I let her. I more than let her. I lean into it.
"Are you nervous?" I ask.
She gives me a look that is pure Claudia, level and faintly amused. "Should I be?"
"My brothers can be a lot, collectively."
"I've met them individually. I survived."
"Individually is different. Together, they feed off each other. Volody gets louder. Akyl gets sharper. Serik and Dayan start competing for who can be the most irritating."
"Sounds like a family. Besides, there’s five women now to balance things out."
She says it simply, without weight, but I hear the thing underneath it. The thing she doesn't say, which is that she hasn't had a real family dinner since before her father's indictment. That the concept of people gathered around a table because they want to be there, rather than because cameras are watching, is something she lost and is quietly hungry to find again.
I take her hand. Her fingers close around mine with the easy certainty that has begun defining us.
"They'll love you," I say.
"They already love me. Volody told me so. Twice."
"Volody tells everyone he loves them. It doesn't mean what it means when I say it."
She looks up at me. Her eyes, that deep whiskey gold, go soft at the edges. She rises on her toes and presses a kiss to the corner of my jaw, and it takes more discipline than I'm comfortable admitting to not carry her back upstairs.
The doorbell saves us.
Akyl arrives first. It's a trait we share, this need to occupy a space before anyone else, to read the room and position accordingly. He comes through the front door with his hand on the small of Katriona's back, guiding her forward with the subtle proprietary pressure I recognize because I do the same thing with Claudia.
Katriona is dark-haired, pale-skinned, quiet in the way that conceals rather than reveals. She was at the auction dinner,seated two places from Akyl, and I remember watching him watch her. She has sharp cheekbones and careful eyes.
"Brother." Akyl clasps my hand. His grip is firm, his expression neutral, but there's something different in the way he's carrying himself. Lighter, maybe. Or heavier, in a way that grounds him rather than weighs him down.
"Katriona," I say. "Welcome."
"Thank you." Her voice is low, measured. She looks at me with the calculation of someone assessing risk. Then her gaze shifts to Claudia, and recognition settles over her features.
Claudia extends her hand. "I'm Claudia."
"I know." Katriona takes it. Their handshake lasts a beat longer than necessary. "It’s nice to meet you."
Serik and Juliette arrive next, and the energy shifts. Serik enters rooms the way he does everything, with a quiet competence that doesn't demand attention but commands it anyway. He's the middle brother, the fulcrum, the one who balances Akyl's sharpness and Volody's chaos with a steadiness that the family relies on more than we acknowledge.
Juliette is beside him, and she is the first surprise of the evening. She's tall, blonde, striking, and she moves with the confidence of someone who has decided that being afraid of things is a waste of time. She scans the entrance hall with open curiosity, taking in the art, the ceilings, the security system's discreet blinking light above the door.
"This is nicer than Serik's place," she says.
"Everything is nicer than Serik's place," Volody announces from behind them, and I didn't hear the door open again, which means he let himself in through the back entrance because he has never once in his life used a front door when a more inconvenient option existed.
He fills the hallway immediately. Volody has always been the loudest brother, the largest presence, the one who walks into a room and reshapes it around his energy. Beside him, with her hand in his, is Liv. The redhead. She was at the auction dinner, seated near Akyl, and I remember the way she laughed behind her hand at something my brother said. She isn’t laughing now. She's looking at the gathered women with an expression that I recognize from my years of reading rooms.