Page 168 of Arrow

Arrow grinned like a man with a buried lead. “If by ‘do it’ you mean walk up the aisle before someone shoots at us, then yeah.”

Atlas whistled. “Smart. You put on a public show, and it slows everyone’s trigger finger. Plus, no one wants to get blood on a Vera Wang sample sale.”

“What’s the dress code for this bash?” Luna asked, and her eyes flashed in a way that suggested she had lived every kind of life but still took the time to color-code her trauma for social occasions. “Should I wear black, or palette-match the blood feud?”

I couldn’t help but laugh at her joke. She fit well in this world we were all born into. I stretched my leg until my heel grazed Arrow’s shin. “Black. Always black. Anything lighter and the city might mistake us for optimists.”

Luna’s laugh was full and bright, sucking the gravity from the air. Atlas, meanwhile, eyed Arrow with a quick, appraising glance before turning to me. “I saw the video,” he said, voice neutral but eyes sharp.

My spine stiffened. I kept my smile in place, though it felt brittle around the edges. “Which one? I’m all over social media these days.”

Luna shot Atlas a warning look, but he continued. “The one from Isadora’s club. With the blonde.”

Arrow‘s hand tightened on my thigh beneath the table, a silent command to tread carefully. But I’d never been good at following commands, even unspoken ones.

“What can I say?” I shrugged, taking a deliberate sip of wine. “I know how to put on a show.”

Atlas’s mouth twitched. “That you do. It’s causing quite the stir with the Kovenskis.”

“Atlas,” Luna admonished softly. “We said no business talk tonight.”

He raised his hands in mock surrender. “Just making conversation.”

The waiter arrived with our appetizers. Carpaccio for the men, and burrata for Luna and me. I was grateful for the interruption, the tension momentarily diffused by the ritualistic presentation of food.

“How are the wedding preparations coming along?” Luna asked, deftly changing the subject. “I remember being a nervous wreck the week before ours.”

I glanced at Arrow, who was watching me with that infuriating half-smile. “The wedding planner’s on her third nervous breakdown. Apparently, having Romanovs and Virellis in the same room requires more security than the Secret Service can provide.”

Luna laughed, her hand unconsciously moving to her belly. “I remember. Atlas had snipers on every rooftop when we got married.”

“Necessary precaution,” Atlas muttered, not looking remotely apologetic.

“I had to convince him not to make everyone go through metal detectors,” Luna added, rolling her eyes affectionately.

“You’ll understand once you’re married,” Atlas told me, his eyes flicking to Arrow. “When you have something worth protecting, you don’t take any chances.”

The way he looked at Luna—like she was the beginning and end of his entire world—made something twist uncomfortably in my chest. I couldn’t imagine Arrow ever looking at me that way. We were fire and gasoline, destruction incarnate. Not . . . whatever this was.

We ate. Osso buco, perfectly stewed, so fragile I could puncture the shank with my tongue. Luna told stories about sampling cake batter at three a.m. when insomnia bent her spine like a coat hanger; Arrow snickered at Atlas for his insistence on perfectly chilled vodka, like he couldn’t drink anything room temperature without risking his debutante reputation.

I turned to Luna. “How long before the baby’s due?”

“Nine weeks,” she beamed, then let her smile wilt a bit. “Don’t worry, I won’t go into labor at your wedding. Unless you want the headline.”

“Only if the rivalry’s bloody enough to trend.”

All sense of formality dissolved in a low swing of Arrow, reverting to his more natural state: brooding, gorgeous, and slightly apart, his hand wrapped around the knife handle of a steak, always scanning the room for ghosts and hostiles. The second round of food came—burrata, and potatoes fried in duck fat—and Arrow forked off half of mine before I even blinked, as the rules of ownership had always applied to my food as well as my body.

Arrow held a forkful of burrata under my nose, suspended like a bribe. “Try it,” he said, and even though I wanted to ignore him, the lilt in his voice—half command, half dare—pried my mouth open.

He flicked the cheese inside, watched me chew, and I saw in his eyes the open secret: he liked feeding me. Like a pet or a wild animal, or maybe an offering to whatever savage god kept us alive in a city that wanted us dead.

I chewed slowly, savoring the richness, watching Luna’s eyes chase Atlas’ every move while pretending not to. Arrow’s attention was a wire braced across the table; he never let the conversation slack, even when Atlas pivoted to a story about the last time they’d been summoned to Brighton Beach for a funeral that turned into a gunfight before the appetizers even landed.

“God, I hated my father’s friends,” Arrow said, and the way he spat the word “friends” made me understand how little love there’d ever been in the entire Romanov bloodline.

Atlas grinned, crimping the edge of his napkin. “Thought you loved the old fucker?”