Chapter 2: Cracks in the Foundation

The first red flag had appeared three weeks before the engagement party, but Anya had not known to look for it.

She had been sitting in one of their regular cafés, a small neutral-zone hole-in-the-wall of exposed brick and lopsided tables, staring down at her lukewarm coffee as the minutes slipped and slipped until nearly an hour had passed. Thursday lunches with Marcus had been a tradition. But he had been forty-five minutes late, and his phone had sent her directly to voicemail.

When he finally slid into the booth, he was rumpled – his manicured hair askew, his designer suit wrinkled and rumpled as if he had slept in it. Dark shadows hung under his eyes. He did not even kiss her hello.

“Sorry,” he grumbled, fish-mouthed on his phone as if it were oxygen. “Crazy day at the office.”

Anya stared. Marcus Webb was not late. He was the man who set his clocks ten minutes fast so that he would be early, the man her parents admired for his punctuality, his attention to detail, his rock-solid reliability. A man who had, with every step he took, given her a sense of safety.

Today he looked like a stranger.

“Are you okay?” She reached for his hand, and it was clammy in her fingers. He snatched it back before she could process the movement. “You’re not well. Is something wrong?”

“Fine,” he said too brightly. “Work. Crazy case. You know, the usual.”

She did not know. Marcus never talked about work. He always excused himself with confidentiality, always with that patience-soaked smile that said she was too simple to understand. But the twitch at the corner of his mouth, the way he continued to check his phone as if something might break from inactivity, made her concerned.

“Let me help,” she said impulsively, stumbling over her words and his name, the apology forming on her lips before she could stop it.

“No.” He shook his head sharply, then smiled ruefully. “You don’t have to, sweetheart. I’ll be fine. I’ll be home late, but I’m okay, I promise.” He pushed himself away, and they fell into the litany of engagement planning — flowers, champagne, guest lists. Small talk that allowed her lips to smile while her stomach twisted. He glanced at his phone every few seconds as if waiting for a sign from God. When it finally buzzed, the relief that rippled across his face was primal, almost joyful. He read quickly, his lips tightening, brows crinkling with guilt then eagerness.

“I have to go,” he said, already gathering his things. “Emergency at the office. Sorry, hon, I’ll call you tomorrow. I love you.”

And he was gone.

Anya stared at the half-finished coffee, at the empty seat, at the echo of her voiceless breathing.

Something had changed. Something fundamental.

The pattern continued. Dinner dates canceled, phone calls missed. Text messages, dutiful and written for third-party consumption.

When she finally mustered the courage to voice her concerns, Elena waved her off with the contempt of an adult swatting a child’s hand from a flame.

They were in Elena’s living room, pristine and as white as Alexei’s clean-shaven head, so white that the black of Anya’s clothing seemed to bleed into the space. The furniture was a perfect reflection of Alexei’s ascension – white leather couches, chrome coffee tables, not a speck of dust in sight. Not even the air was allowed to breathe, thick with chill and roses.

“You’re being paranoid,” Elena said without looking up from her glossy magazine.

“I’m not paranoid.” Anya cleared her throat. “He’s changed. He barely looks at me. He’s distant. He barely even speaks.”

Elena exhaled dramatically, creasing the magazine with military precision. “Men go a little crazy before big engagements. Alexei was like that before our wedding. It’s perfectly normal.”

“But what if—”

“What if what?” Elena’s voice was velvet, edged with impatience. “What if he thinks he’s marrying beneath him? What if he’s nervous about making a commitment to our family? What if he’s smart enough to see what the rest of us already know?”

The words rang like gunshots in her ears. Marrying beneath him. Nervous about her. The rest of us already knows.

“That’s not—” she began, but her sister’s eyes, cold as ice shards, stilled her.

“Of course it is what you were thinking.” Elena’s tone was artificially soft, the way she talked to children or waiters. “Poor little Anya. So fragile. Always second-guessing, always waiting for the other shoe to drop. You undermine yourself more than anyone ever could.”

Heat flooded Anya’s face. “I’m just—worried,” she spluttered.

“Then be a good girl and stop.” Elena’s smile was blinding, a glorious victory. “Marcus loves you. He chose you. After everything our family has done to make this engagement possible, it would be selfish of you to ruin it with petty insecurities.”

After everything our family has done. As though marrying Marcus was something owed, an account paid in equal balance.

“I know.” Anya murmured, voice small and almost inaudible. “I’ll try harder.”

“Good girl.” Elena patted her hand patronizingly. “Why don’t I talk to Marcus? I’ll smooth him out, make sure he knows you’ll be no trouble. Men need to hear this kind of thing from someone they trust.”

Something cold slid down Anya’s spine. Elena was offering to help. Too much help. Elena was the one with the perfect marriage, the one who had learned to be the perfect Bratva wife. If anyone could calm Marcus’s fears—

“That would be great,” Anya said, voice a whisper.

Elena’s smile stretched predator-like. “That’s what big sisters are for.”

What Anya did not know was that Elena made a phone call as soon as the door shut behind her.

The hushed conversation, the faint chuckle with another, was all knowing.

The text Marcus received twenty minutes later: She’s suspicious. We need to be careful.

All Anya knew was the smothering relief of being dismissed and the tight certainty that she could not trust herself.

She had spent the rest of the day in the narrow bed of her childhood bedroom, staring up at the ceiling. The house was eerily quiet, the kind of quiet that smothered. She had tried to believe Elena, to push her doubts down beneath loyalty and gratitude and fear of being wrong.

But she knew. Knew in her bones that this was not the way things should be. Knew, past trusting and beyond reason, that something vital had slipped between them, little by little, and that she was the only one too stupid to notice.

The foundations of her world were shifting.

Soon, they would break.