She felt like the shades had finally been taken off her eyes.
She was seeing everything differently now.
Like her own fiancé, Maxim Oleksei. He was standing next to her at this very moment, with his arm around her shoulders. And yet, she felt like she was looking at a complete stranger.
She could vaguely remember how proud she’d been when he’d singled her out at a gala three years earlier. She’d already known who he was—the handsome playboy who was heir to the Oleksei vineyards. The firstborn son of the Bratva family second in standing only to the Turgenevs themselves, at least in the city of Paris.
Samara had been proud, too.
“It’s a good match,” she’d said to Nadia.
That was high praise, coming from her mother.
Maxim looked as dashing as ever today: chestnut brown hair combed smoothly back from his forehead, chiseled jaw firmly set in deference to the solemnity of the occasion. Hand patting Nadia’s shoulder at intervals.
However, Nadia noticed that he was wearing his Armani suit, which was not quite as nice as the custom Loro Piana suit he’d had made the previous month. She supposed that he didn’t want to get the trouser cuffs dusty, walking the unpaved pathways in this remote part of the cemetery.
She might have forgiven him that, but when she glanced up at his face, she could see that his eyes were completely dry, not even slightly red or swollen, as her own had been for a week now.
Though he was physically supporting her, the picture of the attentive fiancé, he was looking keenly around at the otherVors, ensuring that the heads of the families from London and Berlin were present as well, not only those from Paris.
Maxim cared very much about appearances and status. He wanted to make sure that Nadia’s mother was receiving the respect she deserved. But not for Nadia’s sake—because of how it reflected on Maxim himself.
Nadia shook her head, guilty at her own thoughts.
Why was she being so hard on Maxim? He was all she had left now.
He had tried his best to take care of her over the last week. It wasn’t his fault that her emotions were so raw, so overwhelming. That had never been their way, to be histrionic with each other. They were used to having fun together.
Looking across the casket once more, she saw Anton Vasilev pull Violet closer against his side. He was a beast of a man—immense, hulking, barely fitting into his suit. Ink-black hair and deeply shadowed eyes. Nadia had always been slightly afraid of him when he was Viktor Turgenev’s lieutenant.
Anton, too, was looking around, but in that systematic, professional manner that showed he was scanning the crowd, watching for any further threats toward Violet. He clenched one massive fist, as if he were imagining how he would rip an assailant apart with his bare hands if they dared to threaten his beloved.
It gave Nadia a pang of envy, seeing how Anton’s every thought, every movement was to support and protect Violet. She saw the way he gently wiped a tear from Violet’s cheek with the pad of his heavy thumb.
Maxim had been frustrated with all Nadia’s tears. He hadn’t wiped any away for her.
You’re just finding reasons to be angry with him because there’s no one else left alive to blame,Nadia thought.
She tried to take a deep breath, tried to steady herself.
But Maxim’s arm around her shoulders was not comforting her at all. In her black dress, she was too hot under that relentless sun. The smell of the roses was cloying, overpowering. She shook Maxim off.
The Orthodox priest sang Psalm 118 in his droning voice.
Samara had not been religious. She would have sneered at the readings from the Bible, the cross that had been placed in her hands within the casket.
But she would have been glad that she’d be forever interred in the Turgenev mausoleum. Family mattered to her—the larger family, if not, specifically, Nadia herself.
At last the priest finished his readings, and the chosen pallbearers shouldered the casket to carry it inside the dark, cool mausoleum. Hundreds of pale blooms cascaded off the casket, falling to the ground to be trodden underfoot. The smell of crushed roses filled the air.
Nadia watched her mother disappear into the yawning mouth of the tomb.
At least it’s not hot in there,Nadia thought morbidly.
Soon they’d drive back to the InterContinental Hotel, where everyone would want to kiss her, hold her hands, and tell her stories about her mother that wouldn’t sound anything like the Samara Nadia had known.
There would be more flowers, endless wreaths and bouquets. And they’d eat traditional funeral food, includingbliny,which were similar to the Parisian crepes, except that they used a yeasted batter and were generally served with a berry compote. Nadia had looked forward to funerals as a child, and any other event where she could stuff her chubby little face full of Russian treats.
