"I didn't expect the Bratva's tech queen to be quite so... captivating," Lorenzo's voice dripped with irony as he observed Galina, who was absorbed in deciphering a web of encrypted data.
Galina's gaze remained fixed on her screens, her expression a...
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The morning unfolded in hues of gold and indigo, the sky a painter's masterpiece still damp from the brushstrokes of dawn. The city was barely stirring, its heartbeat a slow, rhythmic hum beneath the whisper of my tires against the asphalt.
Eight sharp. Precision has always been my virtue. I steered my car through the skeletal remains of last night's fog, the weight of expectation settling onto my shoulders like a mantle of iron. A retro melody crooned from the speakers, its forlorn notes curling through the air like ghostly fingers, weaving into the cracks of my mind.
With each turn of the wheel, my thoughts tangled into knots of obligation. The contract. Galina. This fit of a marriage—a chess move played on a bloodstained board where love was a fool's gambit and power the only currency. I could already taste the acrid aftertaste of inevitability, thick like smoke in my throat.
I exhaled slowly, my fingers flexing against the leather steering wheel. The car's interior felt too confined, as though the very air recoiled from the weight of what lay ahead. Beyond the legalities and signatures, beyond the carefully curated alliances, something far more insidious loomed in my mind—the unfamiliar specter of domesticity.
The thought of her presence in my home, not as a fleeting guest but as an inhabitant of my space, gnawed at the edges of my control. Galina Federova—an enigma wrapped in razor wire, brilliant and brutal in equal measure. The mere thought of her existing within my walls, moving through my world with her calculated grace, left an odd sensation pressing against my ribs.
Awkwardness. Uncertainty. A home turned into a battlefield of unspoken words and barbed glances. Would silence stretch between us like a blade poised for the kill, or would our words clash like steel against steel?
I took a right turn, my jaw tightening as I pressed the accelerator. The road ahead was clear, but the path I walked had never been more uncertain. And yet, there was no turning back now. Destiny was already waiting at Igor's doorstep, and I would meet it head-on.
────୨ৎ────
At precisely 8:30, the iron gates of the Pakhan's estate part before me like the opening act of an opera—a silent acknowledgment of my arrival, a passage into a world where power hums beneath marble floors and bloodlines weigh heavier than gold. My Aston Martin prowls through the long driveway, its engine a low growl in the morning hush, before I ease it into the garage assigned to me. The watchguard barely spares me a glance; they know who I am. They know better than to question a Marchetti.
