Chapter 264: The heir

"It is a fine house, Konstantin," Kalisto said. "I always say it. A fine house."

"You are kind."

"I mean it. It is hard to build something so strong. It is harder to keep it." He swirled his wine. "Especially when the one who built it grows tired."

Konstantin smiled thinly. "I am not tired."

"Of course not. But a man must think ahead. We are not young." Kalisto set down his glass. "You have been away from your daughter for twenty years. She does not know our world. She does not know our friends. And there are many men at this table who have waited a long time to see how things will go."

The men nearby had gone quiet. They were listening now, pretending not to.

"I say this as a friend," Kalisto went on. His voice was low and warm. "If something should happen to you, if the wind should turn, who will hold it all together? A girl who has never held a gun?"

"Careful," Konstantin said softly.

"I am being careful. That is my whole point." Kalisto smiled and tilted his head toward his son. "My boy is young. He is strong. He is obedient. He knows how to handle things. What if the two families joined? Your daughter and my son. A marriage would stabilize everything. It would calm the nerves of every man here."

He let it hang in the air. "For the good of the syndicate," he added.

The son lifted his glass at the Don and gave a small bow. His eyes were already moving toward the stairs.

The Don did not answer.

He did not shout. He did not lean forward, or push back his chair, or do any of the things Kalisto expected. He sat very still with his fingers folded in front of him, and he looked at the old man for a long, quiet moment.

Then his eyes lifted.

They went past Kalisto, past the table, past the candles, to the far end of the hall where the great curved staircase came down from the second floor.

His face changed. Someone was coming down the stairs. Sienna came alone.

That was how the Don had planned it. He had told the maid and Carina and the guards, in a calm, pleasant voice, that there was to be no one beside her. No husband. No mother. He had made sure of it.

She was alone because he wanted every eye in the room to find her, and her only. She stood at the top for a breath.

Below her stretched the hall, bright and wide and crowded. A hundred faces turned up. Every voice dropped, one after another, like candles going out down a long row. The music faltered and stopped. In the sudden quiet she could hear her own pulse knocking in her ears, fast and uneven, as if it were trying to climb out of her chest.

Not now, she thought. Walk.

She put one hand on the rail. The crown sat heavy on her head. Her plain white gown fell straight to her feet, and her hair hung loose over her shoulders. She had no train and no beads. She looked like a woman who had come to a funeral by mistake and decided to stay.

She took the first step. Then the next.

Every step was slow, and every step was steady. She did not look down. She did not smile. She kept her eyes on the middle of the hall and moved as if she had done this all her life.

Halfway down, she felt dizzy.

It came and went in a second. The light blurred, the room tilted, and the edge of the rail seemed to sway under her fingers. She tightened her grip. She forced her breath in and out. Her feet did not stop.

Not here. Not in front of them. The world settled. And at the bottom of the stairs, at the edge of the crowd, she saw Viktor.

He stood among the guests with his hands at his sides. His white suit was perfect. His face was perfect, empty and calm. But she saw his eyes, fixed on her, wide open, and she saw the way his whole body leaned a fraction forward, as if he were holding himself back with chains.

He had kept his promise to wait. She looked at him for one second. It was enough. Then a chair scraped across the marble.

Don Konstantin stood at the head of the long table with a glass of red wine in his hand. He lifted it slowly, high, so the candlelight ran through it like blood.

"Ladies and gentlemen." His voice rang through the hall. It was deep and warm, and every head turned. "Tonight is a night I have waited twenty years to see."

He looked at the stairs. His eyes were bright. A tear shone on his cheek, and he let it stay there. "My princess, Katalia Ivanou. My heir."

A ripple went through the room. A sound like a hundred people drawing breath. Kalisto’s hand stopped on his glass.

"I have said I would find her, and I have found her." The Don turned and swept the glass across the whole table, across every man and woman. "And so tonight, before every one of you, I make it known. From this moment, I give my daughter all that I own. The houses. The ports, the companies, the names. All of it. Total, sole ownership of the Ivanou empire."

Silence fell like a stone. "And with it, my full authority. Every order given in this family will come from her mouth, and no other. From tonight, it is her word that stands."

He lifted the glass higher. "Her husband, Viktor, will take command of all my forces. He will be the sole commander of every man who carries my name. He answers to her. They answer to no one else."

No one moved. Sienna stood frozen on the stairs. He cannot be serious. She looked at her father’s face. He was not joking. He stood tall and proud in his white suit, with the tear on his cheek and the glass in the air, and he meant every word.

Everything. He gave me everything. For one wild moment, she almost laughed. She had come into this house with a plan to take the Don apart, and he had just handed her the whole house.

Then the second thought arrived, cold and clear, and the urge to laugh died. He has not protected me. He has painted a target on my chest.