Page 21 of Marrying the Savage

“Yes,” I say. My voice sounds perfectly calm. “They’re ready.”

She leaves with the invitations held against her chest, unaware she is carrying a small act of war down the hallway.

I close the door. Lock it. Then I press my back against the wood and laugh once, breathless and terrified.

For the first time since this wedding was announced, I don’t feel like I’m walking toward a cage. I feel like I have opened one.

Only a little.

Only enough to let something dangerous in.

5

SOFIA

The invitation is gone. That should make me feel better.

It doesn’t.

For the next two days, I keep expecting someone to burst into my room holding the envelope between two fingers like evidence in a murder trial. I keep expecting my uncle to call me into his study with that calm, terrifying voice he uses when he already knows the answer and is only giving me the courtesy of lying badly. I keep expecting Dmitri to arrive with narrowed eyes and ask why one of my personal invitations has been sent to the single man he hates more than humility.

Nothing happens. The house continues as if I have not just mailed a cream-and-gold declaration of treason to Damir Volodin.

Flowers arrive. Dresses are steamed.

My wedding planner develops a facial twitch.

My uncle disappears into meetings and returns with the same controlled expression, which tells me either he knows nothing or he knows everything and is waiting for the perfect moment to ruin my life. With Sergei Antonov, both options are equally believable.

By the third evening, I am exhausted from waiting to be caught.

Which is deeply unfair. If I’m going to do something dangerous, I would at least like the dramatic satisfaction of immediate consequences. Instead, I am being tortured by silence, seating charts, and a woman named Polina asking whether I prefer ivory napkins or champagne napkins.

“They’re both beige,” I tell her.

“They are very different tones,” she says.

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “They look like puke.”

She pretends not to hear me.

Everyone pretends not to hear me lately.

That is why, when Anya calls and announces that she has arranged a small bachelorette party at a private club, I don’t say no.

I should. Obviously, I should.

My uncle would hate it. Dmitri would hate it more. The Sokolovs would probably consider it inappropriate for their future wife to be seen drinking champagne in a club two nights before the wedding.

Unfortunately for them, their future wife is currently considering setting herself on fire, so champagne in a club feels like a compromise.

“It has to be discreet,” I tell Anya while sitting cross-legged on my bed, watching two stylists argue softly over which veil makes me look more pure.

Anya snorts. “You’re marrying Dmitri Sokolov in a political blood treaty disguised as a sacrament. Nothing about this is discreet.”

“I mean my uncle can’t know.”

“Please. Your uncle knows when a pigeon lands on the wrong side of the city. The trick is making sure he hears about it too late to stop it.”