Page 61 of Marrying the Savage

We discuss the church first. The injured. The fallout. The witnesses. The statements already moving through the city like smoke after a fire. No deaths, which is useful. Injuries, yes. Pride destroyed, certainly. Dmitri’s wound is not fatal, unfortunately, but it’s ugly enough to keep him limping for a while and humiliating enough to keep him angry for much longer.

Angry men make mistakes.

Then we discuss Sergei. He has not called.

That is more interesting than if he had.

A man calls when he wants to threaten, bargain, plead, or perform. Silence means he is thinking. Sergei Antonov thinking is more dangerous than Dmitri Sokolov screaming.

By the time the others leave the study, the entire day has already been organized into bloodless lines of strategy.

Increase men at the gates.

Move Anton to the private doctor.

Watch the Sokolov estate.

Track Sergei’s movements.

Then the door closes, and Mikhail says, “You gave her the ring.”

I stand near the window, looking out at the cliff and the black water below. The morning is pale, cold, and clear. Waves strike the rocks with steady violence. Far beneath the house, the sea drags itself back and returns again, patient as revenge.

“I know what I gave her,” I say.

Mikhail is quiet behind me. I don’t turn around.

“That was your father’s ring.”

“Yes.”

“The Volodin ring.”

“Yes.”

“The ring we pulled out of the east wing after the fire.”

“I remember.”

“Do you?”

That makes me look at him. He stands near the conference table with his hands loose at his sides, expression controlled, but his eyes are sharper than usual. Mikhail has been with me for years. Long enough to know when caution is required. Long enough to know that some things in this house are not touched lightly.

The ring is one of them.

For twenty-one years, it remained either on my hand or locked in the drawer beside my bed. It survived the fire that killed my father, my mother, my sisters, my youngest brother, and more cousins than I care to count. It was found in the ruins three days later, blackened from smoke, still on what remained of my father’s hand.

No one says that part aloud. Not in this house.

Not unless they want to see what is left of my patience.

I look back toward the sea. “If you have a point, make it.”

“My point is that you didn’t give her a ring. You gave her that ring.”

“She said she didn’t have one.”

Mikhail stares at me. I feel it without needing to look.