“Are you ready?” her father asked.
Kira snapped the mirror closed and nodded.
“Pavel,” her father said to the driver.
He jumped out of the car and opened her father’s door, then came around to Kira’s side. By then, Tom, the guard sitting in the passenger seat, had also gotten out of the car. He scanned the pavement as Zoya emerged, followed by Kira.
She took her father’s arm.
“You look beautiful,” he said, gazing down at her with familiar adoration. “I wish your mother was here.”
She patted his arm. “Me too, Papa.”
A pang of loss pierced her heart, as it often did during important moments in her life. Her mother had died when Kira was twelve. The sting of it had lessened over the years, but it could still catch her by surprise.
Would her mother have approved of Kira’s decision to marry Lyonya Antonov? She had no idea. Her memories of her mother were of comfort and love. Kira had been too young to ask the bigger questions when she’d been alive. Had her mother loved her father when they’d married? Had she known he was part of the bratva? Was it acceptable to trade something as sacred as love for something as important — especially for a woman — as power?
They started up the stairs to the church. Kira was glad the wedding would be small, with only herself, her father, Zoya, Lyonya, and Alek Evanoff, a bratva soldier who would stand for Lyonya.
Typically, someone of her stature would marry in a showy ceremony with hundreds of people. But this was no typical wedding. It was a dangerous move in a game of dominance that could have devastating consequences. The danger would not pass once the ceremony was complete — in some ways it would be just beginning — but at least her wedding wouldn’t be a bloodbath.
Once she and Lyonya were married, the Antonovs and Baranovs bound, it would be more complicated for someone to come for them.
Someone would probably still come for them. But Lyonya and Kira would have some time. The marriage announcement would come as a surprise to everyone currently gathering at the Baranov mansion for an as-yet unnamed event. It would throw those seeking power off-balance, force them to recalibrate their next move. In the interim, she and Lyonya could develop a plan for taking control.
A thrum of nervousness beat through her chest. Would he honor the agreement to allow her a voice? She couldn’t know for sure, but this was her best chance at maintaining some semblance of control over her future.
Her father opened one of the church’s simple wood doors and they stepped into a small vestibule, separated from the rest of the church by another set of doors.
Her father patted her hand. “Wait here. I’ll make sure they’re ready.”
He left her side with Pavel at his back. Tom stayed with her and Zoya, as was often the case when she went anywhere without her father, which admittedly wasn’t often.
She took a deep breath and smoothed the skirt of the white silk dress she’d chosen for the occasion. It was simple in design, with a high collar and long sleeves, the silk draped with an intricate lace overlay that Kira had purchased from a lacemaker in Rostov Veliky, the town on Lake Nero where her mother had been born.
She wore her mother’s wedding headpiece, a fitted lace bonnet trimmed in pearls and cascading to a single layered veil.
She’d studied herself for a long time in the mirror of her bedroom, wondering what Lyonya would think when he saw her. She’d gone to the extreme to make sure her body was covered, not out of a sense of modesty, but as a small act of rebellion against the decision she’d felt forced to make.
After this day, he would have her body, but for now, it was still hers.
“Let me fix your train,” Zoya said, moving nervously behind Kira. She adjusted the layers of silk and lace and returned to stand in front of her. She took Kira’s face in her hands. “You look beautiful. Your mother would be proud.”
“Thank you,” Kira said, tears stinging her eyes.
Zoya held her gaze, her dark eyes burning bright. When she spoke, her English was laced with the accent of their shared Russian heritage, something that happened when Zoya got emotional. “Whatever comes, you are more than strong enough to meet it. Remember this.”
Kira swallowed around the fear rising in her throat.
Her father returned and took her arm, his eyes shining with uncertainty. “All is in order.”
She forced a smile and lifted her chin. “I’m ready.”
He nodded at Pavel, who opened a second set of doors leading to the nave. A heady whiff of incense hit her nose, and she blinked against the memory of her mother, head bowed in one of the pews, lips moving in silent prayer.
The strains of the traditional Russian marriage song echoed through the church, and Kira’s gaze was drawn up the long red carpet, stretched from entry to altar like a warning.
In contrast to the church’s simple exterior, the interior was garish in its ornamentation, a chaotic blend of white, gold, and red punctuated with melodramatic murals and life-size models of Christ.