The Devil I Married

They call me the perfect Bratva wife. None of them know what perfect cost me.
Five years ago I married Vadim Morozov to settle a debt that was never mine. I learned to run his house, charm his enemies, and smile through every dinner while his brotherhood carved up the frozen edge of Brooklyn. I was flawless. I was furniture.
Then I found him in the dark with the one girl I had trusted — the girl I trained myself — and the part of me that used to weep simply… stopped.
A good wife cries. I started counting.
Because I am the one who reads the money. I keep a second ledger no man in this family knows exists, and lately the numbers have been whispering something far worse than betrayal. My husband is hiding a secret that could bury every made man in this city — or hand them all to the federal agents already circling the boardwalk, waiting for me to turn the page.
I was ready to burn the whole empire down.
Then his brother came home.
Nikolai Morozov walked into a Russian prison four years ago and was never meant to walk back out. They told me he abandoned this family. They told me a great many things. Now he is standing in my husband’s house, wearing my husband’s name and a colder kind of claim — and the way he looks at me is the first warm thing I have felt in five long winters.
They think they can pass me from one brother to the next like a deed. A prize. A loose end.
They have forgotten that I know where every dollar is hidden, every body is buried, and every lie was told.
I married the wrong devil. Now I am going to decide which one walks out of this winter alive.