late into the evening
His eyes were boring into the back of her skull as he approached, ice-cold and unblinking. He had spotted her just after the speeches, perched in the middle of the crowd as though she belonged there, watching her for hours — Seraphina fucking Ashcroft. The woman who had run from their arrangement almost twenty years ago.
He hadn’t seen her since but he knew that face. He could recognize it anywhere, even after all this time; it had burned itself into the fabric of his memory when she’d first betrayed both their families. Him, more than anyone.
It had been an embarrassment, a dishonour and insult, and Oleg had never forgotten. Neither had the family. The rift that had opened between the Ashcroft and the Zdravkova had been immense, ground-shaking, rattling the foundation of years of partnership and shared trust. An act of disrespect like that wasn’t easily forgotten and things had never quite mended, always shadowed by a selfish girl’s actions and a lingering sense of distrust.
Even to this day, the relationship remained strained at best.
Quite curious then that she had been sent here now, and to this event no less. It wasn’t a secret the Zdravkova were expanding into Britain, slowly gaining a foothold among the wealthy and important as their business and reputation began to grow. There was bound to be those that tried to manipulate their efforts; the Zdravkova had enemies plenty enough. The Ashcroft had never truly belonged there but Oleg wasn’t as foolish as to assume they might not have changed their mind after all this time.
Opportunity, after all, wasn’t something the Ashcroft had ever shied away from. Whatever had brought her here, Oleg was set on finding out.
His hands were clasped behind his back as he stepped beside Seraphina, eyes trained on the banners ahead.
“Tradition, dignity, service,” he said, tone almost casual, weren’t it for the thin layer of stone wrapped around every word. “I like their choice in words. Principles a wizarding society should honour at all times, no matter what blood. It is how the world works best — when everyone acts within the roles assigned to them. It is like an infinitely big machine, all cogs meshing into a perfectly aligned system.”
Eyes hard, Oleg at last turned to look at Seraphina. “It is ironic, seeing you stand beneath those words.”
Sera hadn’t seen him more so than she had felt his eyes bore into her all night. She’d arrived at the gala unsure if he’d make an appearance, but once it was obvious he was there… well, she wasn’t surprised in the least.
She could see him approaching her in her peripheral vision long before he reached her. His attention had weight to it, one that she specifically hadn’t been looking forward to. As he approached, she downed the second glass of wine of the night; she wasn’t a big drinker but thought the courage may make him a bit easier to handle.
Sera kept her brown eyes on the banner above her, almost as if she were memorizing every detail on the fabric and the way it moved in the air.
“Tradition, dignity, service. I like their choice in words. Principles a wizarding society should honour at all times, no matter what blood. It is how the world works best — when everyone acts within the roles assigned to them. It is like an infinitely big machine, all cogs meshing into a perfectly aligned system.”
His voice, strangely familiar but from a distantly different time, almost causing her stomach to churn.
“It is ironic, seeing you stand beneath those words.”
“Oleg,” Sera said, not as a greeting exactly, just as an acknowledgment that he existed and she was aware of his presence. The irony comment caused a smirk. She knew it was true.
Then she looked at him evenly, unflinching despite how badly she didn’t want to be anywhere near him.
“I’ve always believed in those principles. I simply disagreed about which role had been assigned to me.” An apology was not something he would be receiving. Humiliation to the degree that she had given him, that was why he cared.
“I was sorry to hear about your wife,” she added after a moment. “I considered whether you might not attend tonight.”
A pause. Just for effect.
“I should have known better.”
The wife that died hadn’t been his first. She had been his second. The first had also died. These things she had kept up with, mostly out of curiosity. If she’d stuck around, would she have died too? Perhaps the man was cursed.
His name spoken as a mere acknowledgment came as cool and collected as he’d expected it to. Seraphina hadn’t ever been one to shy away and cower, not as far as he remembered, and the fact was unlikely to have changed. Reckless and impulsive, the childlike belief to know how to fool the world — yes. But never intimidated as the others had been. It was almost admirable. Almost. If only she hadn’t run. It tainted every ounce of appreciation he could muster holding for her.
Her eyes turned to meet his, a little smirk on her lips and that hardened his gaze further. “I’ve always believed in those principles. I simply disagreed about which role had been assigned to me.”
Oleg remained quiet for a moment, unblinkingly boring his eyes into hers.
Smug, too. Still thinking she was cleverer. A subtle tug on his lips and he eased the stillness of his posture, humming dangerously low. “No,” he agreed, the fingers of one hand tapping against the other behind his back. “No, you didn’t.” A selfish thing, to disrupt the order of a system far bigger than herself, but he wasn’t here to discuss the consequences of her egoism. She knew them well enough on her own.
The humiliation she had caused might still sit deeply anchored, but Oleg wasn’t a petulant child in need of apology. No. He hadn't approached her for that. All this was but a game of deception and unmasking and Seraphina had just re-entered the board. Whatever the reason, he’d find out and he’d find his uses in it, as he always did.
“I was sorry to hear about your wife. I considered whether you might not attend tonight.” His smile stretched imperceptibly wider. “I should have known better.”
Ruslana’s death had been announced both in British and Russian papers through obituaries, something the Zdravkova did for every family member they lost. It was tradition, it was honour and above all it was influence. Everything could be used, even the loss of a wife.
Better used yet in public than in private.
Oleg had no qualms about that.
“Indeed you should have,” he said, never taking his eyes off Seraphina. “Politics never stop, elections take place, business keeps moving. Death does not interfere with these things. The world adheres to its own rules of undeviating continuation, indifferent to one person’s ceasing existence.”
His gaze sharpened again.
“Or another’s conviction to be above the rules of life.” Every angle of his face edged he finally looked away, eyes sweeping the crowd. “We do not miss opportunity, we don not lament. You know that.”
His attentions swerved back to her, heavy and pervasive, the tone of his voice dipping into something quietly incisive. “It appears, neither do you, Ms. Ashcroft. How curious to encounter you here out of all places — on British soil, alone at the country's most important event of the year. Quite the coincidence, isn't it?”
“No. No, you didn’t.”
Humor bubbled behind the surface of her eyes, her smirk. Honestly Seraphina didn’t agree with the principles but she didn’t have to admit that to him. He already expected to be correct in his assessment. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of an admission.
“Indeed you should have. Politics never stop, elections take place, business keeps moving. Death does not interfere with these things. The world adheres to its own rules of undeviating continuation, indifferent to one person’s ceasing existence.”
That was the cold, hard truth about the world they lived in. Nothing stopped just because someone died. She’d learned that the hard way when her own mother passed. She’d been torn up, but couldn’t show it. So she swallowed the grief down and held it closely to her heart where no one else could see.
“Or another’s conviction to be above the rules of life.”
Oleg’s eyes finally left hers and Sera felt mild relief. She didn’t like the man at all, so she would take the break from the intensity of his stare, no matter how brief the moment was.
“We do not miss opportunity, we do not lament. You know that.”
Sera nodded only slightly, considering what may happen with the conversation she found herself in. He turned back to her, almost more intensely than before. Less dramatic is how she expected this to go. Thatcher was much more unhinged than the man before her.
“It appears, neither do you, Ms. Ashcroft. How curious to encounter you here out of all places — on British soil, alone at the country's most important event of the year. Quite the coincidence, isn't it?”
The brunette let the comment sit for a moment, long enough to make it clear she wasn’t rattled by it but not long enough to suggest she was avoiding it.
“Curious,” she agreed, her voice carrying the same pleasant neutrality it had all evening. “Though I would argue that the most useful things often are.”
She looked out on the crowd much like he had moments before, briefly. She always found it interesting the way powerful men looked away to demonstrate they didn’t need to continue watching. He’d always been good at that. She turned her attention back to him.
“You already know I wouldn’t be here without reason. And you already know that reason isn't a coincidence.” Sera tilted her head up at him slightly. “The question you’re actually asking is whether my reason aligns with yours. Whether I’m a problem to be managed, or something more useful than that.”
“The Ashcrofts did not send me.” She paused, then turned fully toward him. “Let’s just say my current interests and my family’s interests are no longer the same thing.”
“Curious. Though I would argue that the most useful things often are.”
Useful, she said.
Oleg didn’t react, keeping his gaze steady and unmoved. Whether she was claiming her presence here was in any way useful to her own self or to his was unclear. The woman had undeniably kept the poise with which most of their standing are imbued upon birth, honed over the course of childhood and teenage years, teaching a way with words that never revealed all information. Only ever enough.
She seemed to have done well for herself on that part during the two decades in which he hadn’t seen her. A truth that was both mildly noteworthy and quietly nettlesome, witnessing the woman who had acted so rashly and selfishly continue to move within these circles from which his own family would have expelled her, as though everything had the chance to be forgiven. Curious, indeed.
His attention had never left her, remaining when she returned hers.
“You already know I wouldn’t be here without reason. And you already know that reason isn't a coincidence. The question you’re actually asking is whether my reason aligns with yours. Whether I’m a problem to be managed, or something more useful than that.”
The subtle curl of a smile appeared around the edges of his lips once more, eyes gleaming. He could appreciate a person able to get to the point without ceremony, making precise incisions exactly where they belonged. It was an art he enjoyed pursuing himself. Encountering a woman able to do what many men couldn't was aggravating in its own special way however, the same feeling his own cousin Nadežda elicited oftentimes enough. Residing in positions meant for male relatives but given away nonetheless, out of sheer inability to procure a more talented and fitting candidate. Seraphina carried that same air and it nagged.
“The Ashcroft did not send me. Let’s just say my current interests and my family’s interests are no longer the same thing.”
Oleg’s smile snaked a fraction wider. He had no reason to believe her but for the sake of their game, he pretended nonetheless.
“Bold,” he mused idly, humour sitting just beneath the hum of his tone, but not the shared kind. “Another tie broken. Tell me, are the Ashcroft aware their daughter has run a second time?" A pause, heavy with implication. "What is it that is so important it outranks loyalty once more?”
"Bold. Another tie broken. Tell me, are the Ashcroft aware their daughter has run a second time? What is it that is so important it outranks loyalty once more?"
The world bold landed with the weight of a man who had decided in advance how he felt about her and was now simply confirming it. She couldn’t help the amusement from crossing her face when he mentioned that she’d broken another tie. He had no idea.
“Another tie broken,” she repeated, quietly, as if she enjoyed it. “Is that what this is.”
Worded like a question, but not phrased like one. She mulled it over a bit, then looked evenly at Oleg with the patience of someone who had spent the better part of twenty years being underestimated by people considerably more frightening than him and had survived them all.
“They are not,” she said, a bit louder now. “As far as the Ashcrofts are concerned, I am here on assignment. Which I am.”
A pause. Hesitation, but not because of uneasiness.
“Among other things.”
Sera held his gaze steadily, letting her comment sit without elaboration. She wasn’t going to hand him the full picture; he hadn’t earned it and she wasn’t desperate enough to offer it. But she also wasn’t going to pretend there was nothing worth discussing, because they both knew better than that and performing ignorance in front of Oleg Zdravkova struck her as a waste of everyone’s time, not just his.
“You asked what outranks loyalty. The honest answer is that it depends entirely on what loyalty has cost you.”
After everything she had given, and everything that had been taken, the answer was self-evident.
Amusement continued to dance over her features like self-righteous arrogance, the confidence of a woman who hadn’t been taken down a peg in time to slow a self-destructive path, allowed to think herself equal or superior.
Oleg watched it with the quiet intensity he catalogued everyone with, storing away information and impressions to piece together like a puzzle, slowly completing at the back of his mind the more she gave away. Her words remained uncommented, the expression on his face unchanged. Let her believe she was the one with the upper hand, and perhaps for now she was. Nothing to be concerned about. Oleg knew how to bide his time.
And as it turned out, Seraphina began to fill gaps all on her own, providing a curious amount of information.
“They are not. As far as the Ashcroft are concerned, I am here on assignment. Which I am. Among other things.”
Now that was interesting — she was playing a double game. That of the pretentious businesswoman secretly pursuing her self-interests, doing her work under the guise of loyalty while driven by personal reasons alone. It shouldn’t surprise him. Some things simply never changed.
Oleg didn’t enquire any further; he had no need to beg for crumbs. Whether her showing here would be of any concern to his family or if her presence might prove useful instead was going to crystallize itself soon enough. She could keep her secrets for now. They both knew this was unlikely to be their last encounter — if she had no reason to entertain this conversation, she wouldn't.
Their gazes held for a prolonged moment, neither voicing the things they knew. There was no need. After all, they did both understood the game.
“You asked what outranks loyalty. The honest answer is that it depends entirely on what loyalty has cost you.”
One brow lifted into an almost imperceptible arch. “What loyalty has cost,” he repeated slowly, almost reverently, as though mulling over her philosophy. His gaze swept out over the crowd as he thought. After a brief moment, he hummed, bringing his attention back to her.
“That must have been a deep loss, Ms. Ashcroft, if it justifies such blatant criticism." He paused a beat longer than necessary, smiling down at her with predatory stillness. A weakness is what it was, the cost of her loyalty, whatever private business had brought her here. He didn't need to ask, there weren't many things that made a person so foolish. And it was all he needed to know.
"I hope it will be worth it for you.”
“What loyalty has cost.”
Sera watched Oleg carefully as he considered what she’d said. She wondered what he thought she may have lost, if he had any idea just how great it was. Or if he’d even see it as a loss. She was sure that a man like him didn’t consider anything to be a loss.
“That must have been a deep loss, Ms. Ashcroft, if it justifies such blatant criticism."
She looked at him, noting the predatory stillness of his smile, the way he held the word ‘loss’ like something he had just won and coveted. He thought he’d found something, perhaps he had. But it didn’t matter.
“It already cost everything it was going to,” she said quietly, though not sadly. “What’s left is mine.”
Seraphina held his gaze for another beat, then looked away. He hadn’t won, she wasn’t giving up, but she was finished. There was nothing left worth giving him tonight and she had learned, long ago, that knowing when to stop was its own kind of power.
“Enjoy the rest of your evening, Oleg.”
She didn’t hesitate as she turned and made her way back into the crowd toward the exit. She was done with the evening, had made her presence known, and was ready to leave.
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