Viktor didn't choose a seat; he claimed territory. He took the chair farthest from the head of the table, placing himself opposite Dmitri, a deliberate buffer of empty space and polished mahogany separating him from the core of the Mikhailov constellation. He sat rigid, spine straight, not leaning against the opulent brocade. His expression was a neutral mask, eyes like chips of flint reflecting the room's gilded light without warmth. The message was unequivocal: he was present, but he was not *among* them. He was an opposing force.
"Yuri," Viktor called, his voice low, a whip-crack of command that severed the thick silence.
Yuri, a shadow given substance, vanished through a service door. He returned moments later, maneuvering Misha's custom high chair – a sleek construct of matte black leather and brushed steel, more miniature throne than child's seat – with surprising grace. He positioned it flush beside Viktor's chair. With practiced efficiency, he unbuckled Misha from Viktor's arms and secured her in the chair, adjusting the safety harness with a tenderness belying his bulk. The black velvet of her dress pooled around her.
"Sit, Yuri," Viktor murmured, his attention seemingly absorbed in smoothing a minuscule ruffle on Misha's sleeve. His gaze didn't lift.
A ripple of indrawn breaths and stifled murmurs swept the table. Tradition, as unyielding as Dmitri's stare, dictated that only blood Mikhailovs sat at this table. Servants, bodyguards, help – they stood.
Yuri exhaled, a sound almost like suppressed laughter. A smirk ghosted across his lips as he pulled out the chair on Viktor's other side and settled into it, the heavy wood groaning faintly. Viktor was now flanked: his fierce, velvet-clad daughter on one side, his immovable, granite-faced lieutenant on the other. A fortress within a fortress.
Anastasia's knuckles, gripping her champagne flute, turned white. Her meticulously painted nails dug into the pristine damask tablecloth.
Unperturbed, Yuri reached into the Gucci caddy bag at his feet. He retrieved Misha's favorite chew toy – a surprisingly realistic, bright green rubber grenade (because Yuri found it poetic). Misha seized it with both hands, immediately clamping down with her toothless gums, a low, contented hum vibrating in her tiny chest. Her storm-grey eyes, sharp and curious, darted between the unfamiliar, glittering faces around the immense table, pausing occasionally on Dmitri's glacial visage.
Anastasia's gaze, however, never wavered from Viktor. Her smile remained fixed, a rictus of saccharine hospitality, but her eyes… her eyes burned with a venom distilled over decades. They spoke a name that hung unspoken in the heavy air, a ghost haunting the gilded room: Elena Mikhailova.
Viktor's mother had been a force of nature – tall, regal, with a cascade of raven hair like spilled ink and eyes the deep, mysterious grey of a winter twilight. Her laugh, rare and precious, had been known to momentarily thaw the permafrost around Dmitri's heart. A renowned food consultant with connections spanning continents, she possessed an effortless grace and warmth that had been the only counterpoint to the family's inherent cruelty. A beacon.
Then, when Viktor was six years old, she was found in her private study. Cold. Still. An empty prescription bottle nearby.
"Suicide," the pronouncement had been swift, clinical. Case closed.
Viktor, even at six, knew. A woman forged of Elena's fierce spirit, her boundless dreams, her ferocious, all-consuming love for her son… such a woman doesn't choose silence. She doesn't choose absence.
Anastasia, then merely the ambitious "second wife," had ascended to the coveted "first" position before Elena's body had even grown cold in the morgue. Anastasia had despised Elena. Loathed her effortless beauty, envied her innate grace, seethed at the way Dmitri's gaze, even in Elena's absence, held a flicker of something resembling… respect. Something Anastasia could never command, only demand.
And now, Anastasia hated Viktor. Because he was Elena, reincarnated in male form. The same sharp, aristocratic cheekbones that refused to soften. The same piercing, intelligent gaze that seemed to see through pretense. The same unnerving, unshakeable poise that drew attention without seeking it. Anastasia had spent a fortune and decades trying to sculpt herself into an image of elegance. But true grace, like true power, cannot be purchased. It's inherited. Or it's not.
The first course arrived with silent ceremony: delicate blini topped with glistening mounds of Beluga caviar, pearls of the Caspian Sea. A dish Elena had adored.
Viktor didn't touch his plate. His cutlery remained pristine beside it. Instead, he picked up Misha's discarded rubber grenade from her tray. He dipped it deliberately into the small cup of chilled mineral water beside her plate. He offered it back to her, glistening wet.
Misha seized it with a delighted squeal, immediately resuming her vigorous gumming, water droplets sparkling on her chin.
Anastasia watched, her perfectly sculpted lip curling in undisguised disgust. Her voice, when it came, was honey poured over broken glass: "How… quaint. Viktor, darling. I didn't realize we were permitting animals at the table this evening. How terribly… progressive of you."
Viktor didn't look up. He didn't react to the insult aimed at his daughter. His focus remained on Misha, using a crisp linen napkin to dab gently at the water on her chin. When he spoke, his voice was calm, detached, conversational, yet it cut through the room like a scalpel.
"If you're referring to yourself, Anastasia," he said, finally lifting his gaze to meet hers, his grey eyes utterly devoid of warmth, "then yes. I quite agree."
A strangled, hastily smothered sound – half gasp, half laugh – erupted from one of the younger cousins down the table.
The sharp, discordant clink of Dmitri's silver knife hitting his Limoges plate was like a gunshot.
"Dovol'no." Enough. Dmitri's voice was arctic, final.
But the silence that followed was heavier than before. The war hadn't been averted. Anastasia's mask of civility had slipped, revealing the fangs beneath. Viktor had drawn first blood, coldly, precisely. And Dmitri's command hadn't stopped the battle; it had merely marked the end of the opening salvo. The feast of shadows had truly begun. The air crackled, thick with unsheathed claws and the scent of poisoned caviar.
Though Viktor didn't feel like giving one or two fucks.
Think of Misha, think of Misha, think of Misha.
Viktor tried to calm his thoughts.