Page 146 of The Darkness is Calling

She sighs and shakes her head, visibly too exhausted to keep fighting me.

She signs the certificate, then places the pen on top of it with a sigh.

“And now?”

“War!” Sasha exclaims just as theatrically, fists lifted toward the ceiling, making her smile sadly. “But before all that, we drink.”

He places a glass of vodka in front of Katya, and my brothers raise theirs, accompanied by wellwishes and congratulations.

I copy their gestures, but Ekaterina does it with a small trace of reluctance.

I don’t like seeing her upset. That’s exactly why, after I take a sip, I pull her into my arms and press my lips to my wife’s ear.

“Now I really can kiss my bride,” I whisper, and her eyes search mine with a spark she can’t control, one that makes me feel the colors she used to tell me about when she played the piano.

This woman is the melody of my life.

I kiss her slowly, tasting her lips one by one. She doesn’t give me what I want, but she doesn’t reject me either. For now, it’s enough to mark this symbolic moment.

“Get a room,” my youngest brother chuckles, making my wife immediately pull away from my lips.

“Sorry,” she quickly says, turning cold again.

“You’re my wife. You don’t need to apologize, most of all in your house,” I say whit an unreadable face.

“I am also a person with respect for others, and because I possess those qualities, I will.”

“Not if you’re the wife of a Pakhan.”

She rolls her eyes. “I don’t care. They’re your brothers.”

I press my lips together at her argument and sigh. “Fine.”

Yaroslav clears his throat and puts his glass back on the table.

“Before you two start your honeymoon or wedding night, let’s get organized a little,” he begins, looking at me.

Then he turns to Katya.

“I understand you have questions. Until you’re clear on everything that happened, we’ll be talking for nothing, because you won’t understand a thing.”

She blinks a few times and exhales, rubbing her forehead.

“I don’t even know where to start... Artem told me Oliver is actually a mobster who planned everything involving me from two years ago, when we met.”

“That detail surprised us too,” he answers. “No one knew the Prescott family had been trafficking weapons for several years. We found that out when Malcolm Prescott came forward with the idea of a partnership with the Bratva in the form of an engagement between you and his precious son. More precisely, six months ago. Our question concerns that year when he courted you and acted as if he had no idea about your origins, even though he obviously knew who you were.”

“I never mentioned that my father was Vor, or that he had any connections with Bratva. I always said my father was a former businessman who had retired after my mother’s death, which, in fact, he had.”

“Someone with the right connections could have found out about him being Vor,” I tell her carefully, making her look at me with concern.

“And the Lord had those connections,” she confirms to herself.

“And not because he was a Lord, but because he had ties to mafia circles all over the world,” I continue.

“It means that, from the start, their plan was to create a partnership with Moscow and, exactly as in royal houses, nothing symbolizes such a union better than a marriage.”

“Exactly,” I confirm, fascinated by a strand of hair falling over her eyes, which I tuck behind her ear.