He sat at the long, polished table, bored out of his mind while the adults toasted to peace like they hadn’t been shooting at each other a year ago. His father was all smiles, clinking glasses with the Russian boss like old friends. It was disgusting. Fake peace, fake respect, fake everything.

And then there was her.

The bratva girl. His “fiancée.”

Their parents had decided the only way to stop the bloodshed between their families was to bind them together through marriage. Not now—thank God as they are only 7—but when they were older. Some big ceremony. A grand alliance. “A legacy,” they said. He didn’t care what they called it. It felt like a prison sentence.

She sat across from him in a fancy red dress, her legs swinging under the chair, eyes burning holes through his skull. She looked like a doll, but not the kind you played with. The kind you found in nightmares. She stuck her tongue out at him, and he smirked. Of course she hated this too. That almost made him feel better.

He leaned toward his cousin, not bothering to whisper. “She probably keeps a knife under her pillow.”

His cousin chuckled. Her glare sharpened. She definitely heard that.

He didn’t stop smirking. If he had to be tied to someone for the rest of his life, of course it would be the one girl in the room who looked like she’d rather burn the world than hold his hand.