The Serpent's Tea House

Lenka Rostova is known for two things: her uncanny skill at the ancient game of *Kameny* and the staggering medical debt she bears for her younger brother, Mikal. When the stone-cold heir to the Volkov industrial empire, Aleksei Volkov, offers her a marriage of convenience, she accepts without hesitation. The deal is simple: play the part of a docile, decorative wife to appease the family's traditionalist matriarch, and in return, Mikal's future is secured. But the Volkov estate is a viper's nest. Lenka, with her shameless wit and sharp intellect, finds herself the target of ceaseless schemes. Her only potential ally is her new husband, a man who watches her with calculating eyes, using her as a shield for his own secret investigation into his family’s corruption. As Lenka navigates assassination attempts disguised as accidents and plots to frame her for treason, she finds the true threat isn't the jealous siblings, but Valerius, the family’s devoted butler, a man whose loyalty is rooted in a tragic secret that could burn the entire empire to the ground. Can Lenka outplay a man who knows every family secret, and can she trust the husband who might just be her executioner?