1
Kira Baranov looked out the limousine’s tinted back windows at the church’s simple facade. She would have preferred to be married — if at all — at one of the churches downtown.
St. Clement, modeled after the Hagia Sofia in the Byzantine style. Or even Fourth Presbyterian, which had the honor of being the second oldest building north of the Chicago River.
Both had exteriors more imposing than Holy Trinity, the small church in West Town where she had agreed to marry Lyonya Antonov.
“You should have insisted on St. Clement.”
Kira glanced at the slender woman with gray hair who sat across from her and her father. Zoya had been hired as a nanny after the death of Kira’s mother, but she’d become a friend and confidante in the ensuing years, and Kira had been relieved when Lyonya agreed to let Zoya live with Kira in her new home.
At least she would have one friend in the lion’s den.
“This is for the best.” Kira patted Zoya’s stocking-encased knee, visible below the hem of the black dress she’d worn for the occasion, as if she were in mourning.
Holy Trinity was an important fixture for the Russian community. It was only fitting that her business arrangement with Lyonya would begin here.
Zoya wiped at her eyes with a handkerchief, clearly distraught over the recent turn of events.
“Are you certain you wish to do this,moya zolotaya?” Kira’s father asked.
She turned to find him staring at her and smiled at the term of endearment, which meant, more or less, “my golden one.” He’d been using it for as long as she remembered. She didn’t expect it to change now, in spite of her twenty-nine years and impending marriage.
She touched his shoulder, clad in a new suit. She didn’t like the concern in his eyes, didn’t want him to worry about her. “I’m sure, Papa.”
The agreement with Lyonya Antonov held advantages for all parties. Her father could relinquish his hold on the bratva, a position that held increasing danger as he grew old with no male heir. Lyonya Antonov would have the respect of the Baranov name to ease his passage to the bratva throne.
And she, a bratva princess with no power, would stand beside the man who would be king — not in the background, but with power of her own.
If they all lived long enough to see him coronated.
“If he doesn’t honor his agreement, I will kill him,” her father said simply.
Kira had no doubt it was true, but she hoped it wouldn’t be necessary, not because she had any affection for the man they called the Lion, but because the alternatives to marrying Lyonya Antonov were far worse.
Her father, murdered by one of the men who wanted his power.
Kira, alone in the world, or worse, taken by one of the other men, not as a partner but as a spoil of war.
No, she would honor the arrangement. She would play a quiet, careful game, accumulating her own power like a bird storing seeds for winter.
“We should go in,” she said.
No one had entered the church while the limo had been parked at the curb, which meant Lyonya was already inside.
Kira reached into the gold-encrusted clutch in her lap, removed a compact mirror, and flipped it open. Her blond hair was swept into a simple chignon at the nape of her neck, the elaborate pearl and diamond earrings that had been her mother’s dangling nearly to her shoulders.
Her skin was pale and smooth, her eye makeup dark enough to highlight her green eyes. She’d chosen pale pink lipstick and hoped Lyonya’s kiss would be chaste enough not to smear it.
After all, theirs wasn’t a marriage of love but of convenience.
Her stomach tightened at the thought. She would have to sleep with him. An heir was the best way to ensure that her name, the blood in her veins, continued to be a force in the bratva. Her lack of siblings had proven that.
Still, she hoped to find a way around it, to claim power enough that her entire life wouldn’t be forfeit to the man they called the Lion. And anyway, it was another problem for another time. Surely not something she had to think about just yet.
She hoped.
The terms of their physical relationship hadn’t been negotiated with her father, thank god. The only thing worse than having to discuss the matter with Lyonya was imagining him discussing it with her father.