7

The final forty-eight hours of Serena Moretti’s freedom were a feverish dream of desperate joy and suffocating sorrow. Time, once a steady river, had become a torrential flood, threatening to sweep away the only piece of her heart that still beat with genuine warmth.

She spent every waking second with Sarah. They became a single shadow drifting through the cold, echoing halls of the Moretti estate. Serena carved out a sanctuary for them, a world where the word "Volkov" didn't exist and the shadow of their father’s cruelty couldn't reach. They ordered mounds of food, Chinese takeout, cheesy burgers, piles of colorful donuts, spreading it all out like a feast for two queens about to lose their kingdom.

At night, they slipped out. The city was a sprawling tapestry of neon and shadow, but for the first time, Serena didn't look at the skyscrapers as monuments of power. She looked at the ice cream parlor on the corner. They sat in a red vinyl booth, surrounded by a wall of silent, armed guards whose presence Serena ignored with practiced ease. She watched Sarah struggle with a triple-scoop cone, the mint-green cream smearing across her freckled nose, and the sound of Sarah’s giggle was the only music Serena cared to hear.

The next day's shopping trip was the centerpiece of their stolen time. It was supposed to be about the bride, but Serena made it entirely about the flower girl. They went to a boutique where the air smelled of lavender and expensive silk.

"Try this one, Sarah," Serena whispered, holding up a gown that looked like it had been spun from moonlight.

Sarah twirled. She changed dresses until her cheeks were flushed pink with excitement. Finally, they found it, a flowy, ethereal masterpiece that moved like water when she walked. Serena stood behind her, looking at their twin reflections in the mirror. She bought Sarah beautiful shoes, a delicate gold baby ring that caught the light, and tiny pearl earrings that made the thirteen-year-old look so cute.

"You look perfect," Serena said, her voice a fragile thread. "Remember this feeling, Sarah. Remember that you are beautiful and loved."

Their final night was spent in the kitchen. They bypassed the chefs and the staff, taking over the vast space for themselves. They baked a cake from scratch, the air filling with the scent of vanilla and burnt sugar, a smell so wholesome it felt out of place in a house built on blood. They clicked hundreds of pictures, their faces smeared with flour, and recorded a video of them dancing clumsily to a pop song while the cake rose in the oven. In the video, Serena’s eyes were bright with unshed tears, but her smile was wide and fierce. It was a memory she was packing away, a weapon to use against the loneliness that awaited her.

They lay together watching the movie as Sarah clung to her side, and after a couple of minutes, Serena heard muffled sobs. She abruptly pulled Sarah back, only to find her crying. Her heart fell.

"What's wrong?"

"I...I don't want you to go, Rena. I want you here." Sarah said while crying, and Serena's heart rattled painfully as she tried not to cry.

"I have to, sweetheart. Tomorrow I'm getting married, and someday you'll get married too. To a nice man who'll love and cherish you. I'll make sure of it." Serena said as she wiped Sarah's tears.

"But Victor doesn't love you. He looks so cold all the time." Sarah said, sniffing.

"Love is of different types. Some love begins early, and some a little late. But once there's love. It never fades away." Serena said as Sraah blinked at her with big, misty emerald eyes.

"Promise me you'll make Victor love and cherish you," Sarah said, holding out her pinky finger as Serena stared at her finger, and then at her face, her heart pounding so fast.

For the peace of mind of her sister, she interwined her pinky finger with hers and smiled.

"I promise." She said as Sarah smiled and hugged her tightly. 

That night, Sarah slept in her arms, but Serena was wide awake. Not being able to sleep.

Then, the sun rose on the day of the wedding.

The venue was neither a church nor a ballroom. It was a hollowed-out industrial cathedral on the edge of the docks, a place where the concrete was stained with grease and the air tasted of salt and iron. There were no flowers, no ribbons, and certainly no guests.

The "audience" consisted entirely of men in black suits with bulging muscles beneath their jackets. Victor Volkov’s security detail stood on the left; Lorenzo Moretti’s staff stood on the right. It was a wedding arranged at the end of a gun barrel, a robotic union of two empires that hated each other.

Victor arrived like a cold front moving across a summer sky. He wore a black tuxedo that seemed to absorb the dim light of the hall, his features sharp and unforgiving. He hadn't brought his mother; she was still in Russia, oblivious to the fact that her son was about to chain himself to a Moretti. To Victor, this wasn't a family milestone. It was a transaction.

He stood near the makeshift altar, his right hand, Alexei, standing a pace behind him.

Lorenzo Moretti walked up to them, his gait confident, a smug, sinister smile plastered on his face. He looked at Victor with the eyes of a man who had successfully sold a cursed object for a king’s ransom.

"Victor," Lorenzo greeted, his voice echoing in the vast space. "A historic day. My daughter... well, you should have seen her these last two days. She could barely contain herself. She’s so happy to be joining your household, she’s practically glowing."

Victor’s jaw tightened. He thought of Serena at the arena, her eyes full of hidden fire. He thought of her in his study, trying to ruin him. Happy? No. She wasn't happy. But as he looked at Lorenzo’s grinning face, a dark suspicion flickered in his mind. Power. Was she happy because she was gaining the Volkov name? Was the "innocent" act just a mask for a woman who craved the Pakhan’s throne? He didn't believe Lorenzo, but he didn't trust Serena either.

"Take good care of her," Lorenzo said, patting Victor’s shoulder, a gesture Victor barely resisted leaning away from. "Don't go breaking her heart now. She’s a delicate thing."

Victor turned his head slowly, his blue eyes as cold as a Siberian winter. "Let’s drop the act, Lorenzo," he rasped, his voice cutting through the air like a blade. "I am not marrying her for love. I am not marrying her to make her my wife in anything but name. This is a freaking treaty. A deal. I will not treat her as a partner. She will be a piece of furniture in my mansion, an article of business to be kept and ignored. Nothing more."

Lorenzo didn't flinch. He didn't grow angry or protective. Instead, he let out a dry, rattling laugh. "Fair enough, Victor. Fair enough."

Victor’s brow furrowed. What the fuck is wrong with him? He expected Lorenzo to defend his daughter’s honor, or at least pretend to. The fact that Lorenzo didn't care, that he laughed at the idea of his daughter being treated like an object, made a strange, hot knot of rage tighten in Victor’s chest. Or perhaps Lorenzo wasn't sending her to be his wife in the first place. Maybe he was so happy about all this because he just wanted to implant his daughter as a spy in Volkove's estate.

The heavy iron doors at the back of the hall groaned open, and the ceremony began.

There was no music, only the rhythmic click of heels on concrete. Victor barely noticed the girl.

The flower girl walked in first. Sarah looked like a breath of fresh air in a tomb. Her flowy dress stood out against the sea of black suits, her small hands shaking as she tossed petals onto the oil-stained floor. She gave a nervous, high-pitched giggle as she reached the front, but then her gaze landed on Victor.

The giggle died. Her small face transformed, her chin lifting as she glared at the Pakhan with a look of such pure, concentrated loathing that even Victor was taken aback. He frowned, wondering what Serena had told the child to make her look at him like he was the devil himself.

Then, Serena appeared.

Even in the dim, industrial lighting, she was breathtaking. She had been polished and painted by the best stylists in the city, her white gown clinging to her curves like a second skin. She walked down the aisle with Lorenzo at her side, her head held high, looking every bit the queen.

Victor’s breath caught in his throat for a heartbeat. He looked at her, really looked at her, before forcing himself to avert his gaze. He wouldn't give her the satisfaction of seeing him affected.

As they reached the stage, Victor remained motionless. He didn't reach out his hand to help her up the steps. He didn't offer a smile. He stood like a statue of ice, his hands clasped behind his back. It was Lorenzo who helped Serena onto the platform, a final act of the father "giving away" the daughter he had already betrayed.

Serena stood in front of Victor. She was a vision of ivory and defiance. She looked at the floor, at the priest, at the armed guards; she looked everywhere, but at the man she was about to marry.

The priest, a man who looked like he had been dragged there against his will, began the vows. The words felt hollow, bouncing off the cold walls without meaning.

"Victor Volkov," the priest said, his voice echoing. "Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife? To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, for as long as you both shall live?"

Victor stared at a point just above Serena’s head. His voice was a flat, iron chime. "Yes."

The priest turned to Serena. The air in the room felt like it had been sucked out, leaving a vacuum of suffocating tension. Sarah stood to the side, her small hands white as she gripped her flower basket, her eyes boring into her sister.

"Serena Moretti," the priest whispered, "do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband? To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, for as long as you both shall live?"

Silence stretched. It was heavy, dark, and absolute. She could hear her heart pounding in her ears.

Lorenzo leaned forward, a vein pulsing in his temple. Alexei narrowed his eyes. Victor waited for the "Yes" that would conclude the deal, his face a mask of boredom.

Finally, Serena moved.

She lifted her chin, her movements slow and deliberate, until her ocean-blue eyes locked onto Victor’s for the first time that day. There was no fear in them. There was no submission. There was only the cold, hard clarity of a woman who had found her limit.

"No," she said.

The word wasn't a scream; it was a gunshot. It rang through the industrial hall, shattering the robotic rhythm of the day.

Serena didn't look away. She kept her eyes on Victor’s widening ones, her voice steady and clear as the silence returned, heavier than before as she repeated.

"No."