Chapter 267: I want her father

Across the hall, near the service doors, Aliya had been watching. She had seen it all. She had seen the Don stand, and the toast, and the girl come down the stairs. She had watched Sienna walk. She finally took her place.

The thought was cold and clear. It did not feel like jealousy. It felt like a door closing.

Sienna had finally taken what was hers. And Aliya, who stole that life, was standing at the edge of the room in a gray apron, serving wine at her table. Her father was dead. She had not seen his body. And tonight, when the guests had gone, she would be called to the Don’s room.

She would be made to warm his bed. Tears stung her eyes. Her hands began to shake. The tray in her grip trembled, and the glass on it rattled against the silver, a small, thin sound.

She had only one glass left. It slid.

She caught the tray, but not the glass. It tipped off the edge and hit the marble with a crack that rang off the walls. Red wine ran across the white floor like a wound.

The sound was small. In that great hall, with the music and the voices, it hardly reached anyone. Only a few turned their heads. But it was enough.

"You stupid girl!"

The butler appeared at her side, as pale and furious as a ghost. It was the old man with the dark coat. He gripped her arm above the elbow, and his whisper was a hiss.

"Can you not even do this right? Do you know what that glass cost? More than you." His fingers dug in. "I will tell the Don. I will tell him tonight."

"I am sorry," Aliya whispered. "I will clean it. I will clean it right now." He let go with a hard shove.

She dropped to her knees at once. She picked up the larger pieces with her bare hands and laid them on the tray, and a sliver cut her thumb. She did not stop.

And as she knelt there, her mind went somewhere else.

She remembered a different night, in a different hall. A night when she had pushed Sienna and watched her stumble into a table of glasses. They had gone down in a bright, noisy crash. Everyone had stared. And Viktor had come running, through the whole crowd, to shield Sienna.

He had looked at Aliya with eyes like knives. Look at me now, she thought. On my knees, in front of her table. Karma. It had come for her, and it had come hard.

"I am sorry," she said again, to no one. She blinked fast, holding the tears back with all her strength. "I will clean up."

She lifted her head, just to breathe. A few steps away, by the pillar, stood a woman in a gray maid’s uniform with a mop in her hands. Aliya’s breath caught. It was Elena.

Her hair had been cut short. Her back was bent. The uniform hung loose on her thin frame, and she held the mop like something she had forgotten how to use. She had stopped when the glass broke, and now she was looking down at Aliya, across the wet floor and the broken pieces.

They stared at each other.

Neither of them said a word. There was nothing to say. Once, in another life, they had sat at the same table and laughed at the same cruel jokes. Now they were two servants in a house of white, with spilled wine between them.

Aliya looked away first.

She stood, very slowly, with the tray in her hands. She kept her head bowed, and she turned and walked toward the kitchen, her shoes silent on the marble. She did not look back.

It felt as if the waltz ended, and the hall did not go back to normal.

The music played on, and the candles burned, but something had broken in the room. It was not loud. It was small and quick, like a crack running across glass. Conversations changed. Voices dropped. Men who had been laughing at the long table now leaned their heads close together and spoke behind their hands.

Did you see her? The Don gave her everything. Everything. Even the ports.

A woman in red fanned herself slowly and watched Sienna’s white gown move through the crowd. Two bosses at the far end of the table spoke without moving their lips. A young man in a black suit picked up his glass, and his eyes followed Sienna across the floor as if she were a coin rolling away.

The dinner had turned into a market. Everyone in it was counting. Kalisto did not stay at the table.

He rose slowly, leaning on his cane, and said a few polite words to the man beside him. He walked along the wall with his usual easy steps. He stopped to kiss a lady’s hand and to pat an old friend’s shoulder. Nobody would have guessed he was going anywhere at all.

But he was.

One by one, the men in dark suits slipped away from the hall. A boss with a gold ring. The heavy man with the scarred cheek. Two more who had stood in the ring around Viktor. They went in twos and threes, through different doors, at different times, as if they had each just remembered a call to make.

Behind a tall door at the end of a side corridor, there was a small room with leather chairs and a cold fireplace. Kalisto walked in last and closed the door. He did not sit.

He stood in front of the dead fire with both hands on his cane and looked at the faces that had gathered around him. They were quiet. They were waiting for him to speak.

She is a weapon. The thought turned over slowly in his mind.

Konstantin had taken the whole Ivanou empire, the ports, the accounts, the men, and he had put it in the hands of a girl who did not even want it. She was young, and she was angry. She did not know their names or their rules. She could be pushed, or bought, or broken. And whoever held her would hold everything.

Why would he do it?

That was the question that bothered him. Konstantin was not a fool. He did not give things away. Kalisto had known him for thirty years, and in all that time the man had never once handed over a single coin without a reason.

So what was this? A show of strength? A trap? Or something simpler. He wants her to stay.

The idea settled in his chest like a stone. If Katalia owned everything, she could not leave it. She could not run away with her husband and vanish. She would be tied to this house by every rope the Don could throw. She would stay. And if she stayed, then the project could start without trouble, smoothly and quietly, with the girl right where he wanted her.

Clever, Kalisto thought. Clever, you old wolf. His grip tightened on the cane.

But clever men made mistakes. And Konstantin had made one tonight. In trying to hold his daughter, he had given everyone in that hall a reason to want her more than they already did.

The door opened again. Shemmel came in limping.

He was trying to hide it. He kept his back straight and his chin up, and he stepped carefully, setting his injured foot down as if it were made of glass. His beard was perfect. His hair was still tied. But his face was gray around the mouth, and a small vein jumped in his forehead.

A servant followed him in with a bag of ice and a chair. Shemmel waved the servant away. The man backed out and shut the door.

The room went quiet. No one dared to look at the foot. Shemmel crossed to his father and stopped. His hands hung at his sides, closed into fists.

"Father."

"Are you hurt?"

"I am fine."

"I saw her step on you," Kalisto said mildly. "It looked very hard." A muscle moved in Shemmel’s jaw. "She will pay for it." "Of course she will."

Shemmel took a breath. He lowered his voice, and the other men in the room leaned in without meaning to. "I want her, Father." Kalisto raised one eyebrow.

"Not for the money." Shemmel’s eyes were dark and bright and entirely serious. "I do not care about the money. We have money. I want her. She is fierce." He said the word slowly, as if he were tasting it. "I have never seen a woman look at me like that. Like I was nothing. Like I was a bug on her shoe." His mouth twisted. "And her face. It does something to me. I cannot stop seeing it."

He stopped. He did not say anything else. He did not have to. His hands were shaking. Someone coughed softly by the wall. No one else moved.