The truth is, I know almost nothing about Yaromir Volkov.
My father has worked beneath the Volkov name since before I was born, but he has never brought their business home. Not properly. Not the names, not the details, not the bodies buried under all that loyalty.
Whenever I asked questions as a girl, Sergei would shut them down.
Not your concern, Anya. Not your world.
Except it is my world.
It has always been my world.
I grew up around locked doors, men with guns, women who spoke in careful voices, and dinner conversations that stopped when I entered the room. I knew when my father came home angry not to ask why. I knew when he came home with blood on his cuff not to look at it twice.
But I was never told enough to understand. Only enough to obey.
And Dmitri is worse. Dmitri talks about parties, cars, watches, clubs, yachts, women he claims are boring, men he claims are jealous. He talks endlessly about himself.
But his brother? Never.
Not once in any way that mattered.
Yaromir is a shadow at the edge of the Volkov name. A man everyone seems to know and no one seems willing to explain.
Katya’s phone lights up again beside her plate. She turns it over before I can see the screen.
“Anyway,” Lena says, cutting through the strange pause, “Yaromir doesn’t really do family things.”
“No,” Irina says carefully. “He does other things.”
“What things?” I ask.
Again, silence.
Then Katya laughs softly. “Anya, you’re marrying Dmitri. You don’t need to worry about Yaromir.”
The way she says Dmitri’s name makes my fingers tighten around the stem of my glass.
Soft. Too familiar.
Or maybe I’m imagining it.
Maybe I’m annoyed because she embarrassed me. Maybe I’m looking for a reason to dislike her because she looked at me like I was still Sergei Sokolov’s daughter, not the woman who will soon carry the Volkov name.
I smile anyway. “That’s true,” I say. “I have enough Volkov to handle already.”
Irina laughs.
Lena smiles.
Katya’s phone buzzes again. This time, she picks it up and reads the message with her face turned slightly away from us.
The sun catches my ring, and for the first time all afternoon, the diamond feels heavy.
2
YAROMIR
I seethe ring before I see her face. The diamond catches the sunlight across the terrace, bright enough to drag my attention away from the man talking beside me. For a second, all I see is platinum and white fire.