Matvey remained calm—almost too calm. “You forget yourself, Uncle.”
Yakov’s face turned pale as the alcoholic flush vanished from his face in an instant.
Matvey inclined forward in his chair, blood dripping quietly onto the spotless white tablecloth.
“Mention my wife once more,” he warned. “And the next drink you have will be a glass of your own blood.”
The tension in the room grew sharp enough to cut bone.
Yakov stiffly nodded. “I was only joking.”
Matvey smiled, a vacant and slow smile. “So was the last man to try me.”
He used his uninjured hand to retrieve his napkin, cleaning the blood off his knuckles as if it was just a stain of ink, as if he hadn’t just shattered a glass between his palms.
Every man in that room now knew precisely where the line had been drawn, and what happened when it was crossed.
I didn’t know if I was meant to be safe. I didn’t feel safe, not when I was surrounded by blood-thirsty men, and even my husband was one of them.
I hardly ate anything all evening despite the mouth-watering banquet on the table—roasted deer, stuffed peppers, and homemade bread. Despite how good every meal looked,every bite tasted like cardboard. I just wanted to go home and bury myself under the duvet for a couple of hours or days. Maybe even weeks.
The tablecloth on the table was still damp with Matvey’s blood, yet the other men still managed to feast on the food like the blood on the table was merely a spill of wine to them.
I tried to ignore it too, but my nervous system was a mess. Anxiety burned in my throat. I was hyperaware of everything, especially him.
Matvey.
I managed to steal glances at him whenever I felt he wasn’t looking. At first, only to keep an eye on him. It was a survival instinct, not curiosity or interest.
But then…it became a habit throughout the night.
It surprised me how little he said yet how much command his voice carried. Men listened to him, perhaps not out of respect, but out of fear.
He wasn’t proud or arrogant, and he didn’t demand attention.
He simply was the center of it.
That frightened me more than I cared to admit. I’d thought I understood the man I’d been made to marry. I’d assumed he would be cold, arrogant, and ruthless, but this was something different.
Matvey was more like a mystery than an open book, and I needed to decode him little by little if I stood a chance of getting out of here alive.
The voice beside me brought me back to reality. I shifted in my seat as a man I had not noticed before took the empty seat beside me.
He was perhaps in his mid-thirties, dressed in a dark gray suit with a tie that was a fraction too narrow, and a charisma that fell just short of reaching the eyes.
“Don’t be afraid. Dinner nights are usually like this,” he said, a wry smile curling his lips. “In fact, I think this is one of the most peaceful dinners we’ve had in a while.”
I did not smile back. “Should I know you?”
He inclined his head. “Isaak Yezhov. Underboss of the Bratva. Logistics and international strategy, depending on which side of the table you’re asking from.”
His tone was casual, almost playful.
“Oh. Nice to meet you,” I replied.
It wasn’t nice to meet anyone on this table, but this one didn’t carry as much darkness with him as the others. He seemed a little more normal than the rest.
“The pleasure’s all mine.” He inclined his head in Matvey’s direction. “Hard to say no to him, eh?”
