Page 12 of Marrying the Savage

Mikhail’s mouth tightens. “There are different versions.”

“Give me the useful one.”

“That they were killed off by your family,” he tells me.

I raise a brow. “I didn’t know I had killed someone without knowing about it myself.”

“It’s only a rumor.” Mikhail coughs. “He kept control of her after that,” he adds.

That’s why he is my second. He understands the difference.

I look out the window as Moscow moves past in gray stone and black glass.

Young men like Dmitri are predictable. It’s one of their few virtues.

“Why keep the wedding quiet?” I ask.

Mikhail sits back. “Could be they wanted to avoid interference until every agreement was signed.”

I almost smile.

Almost.

He continues, “If the marriage is real, it gives Sokolov legitimacy with the older families. It gives Antonov access to Sokolov muscle and money. Together, they become harder to isolate.”

“Harder,” I say. “Not impossible.”

“No.”

“Who else knows?”

“Enough important people to fill a church, apparently. But the invitations are controlled. Private couriers. No open digital trail. No formal announcement.”

“That you found.”

“That we found,” he corrects.

“Better.”

He nods once. “I will correct the rest tonight.”

My gaze lowers to my gloved hands. The right one aches, as it often does in cold weather. An old injury. An old reminder. Yuri used to mock the gloves and say they made me look like a funeral director with aristocratic ambitions. Perhaps he was right.

The girl noticed them.

That thought arrives without permission.

Sofia’s eyes dropped to my hand when I removed the glove. Only for a moment, but she noticed. Most people look at the face first, the suit, the men behind me, the threat. She looked at the glove, then at my hand, then at my face, as if she was assembling a question she knew better than to ask.

“What else?” I ask.

“About the girl?”

“Yes.”

“Little. No public scandals. No confirmed lovers. No active role in Antonov business. Staff reports are thin because Sergei’s household is difficult to penetrate.”

“Difficult is not impossible.”