I say nothing.
I have nothing to offer this man who has everything.
“I will pay for your studies. But you will be mine. In every way.”
It’s then that I see the softly lit room, the beautiful man across from me, for what it is.
A trap.
1
ARTYOM
FIVE YEARS LATER…
The invite may have said birthday celebration, but we all know this is a coronation — and coronations cannot start without the king.
The jammed snake of traffic illuminates the dark car interior with red light.
My driver Karol is apologizing for the delay every five seconds, but I shrug him off. Not his fault that the fall weather has turned ice-cold sooner than expected, leading every asshole and his dog to jam up the roads.
Normally, I might be more tense. Not tonight.
I relax into the leather seat and run through my speech once again. It’s a big night. My turn to define the strategy for the Petrovs and our seat on the Bratva Council for the next decade. Or five decades, ifBabushka Vanya’s track record is anything to go by.
I sweep into the Estate, on the outskirts of the city, shrugging off my coat at the entrance.
My cousin Valentin is by my side as soon as I enter the ballroom, talking my ear off with excitement.
“Relax, cousin. We’ve got this. Tonight, it all comes together.” I clap him on the shoulder and take my seat next to him, right at the front of the venue.
All tables face the stage, which has been set up for Vanya’s big speech. She begins exactly how we knew she would: with family history.
Legacy, tradition, and honor are everything for our babushka.
When you’ve heard the same story for thirty-eight years, it gets a little tired.
“The Petrov name lies at the root of the tree that is the Bratva. Without us Petrovs, there is no money. Without the money, what is the empire?”
Vanya mimes a disappearing motion with her hand.
“It is nothing. Cut away the roots and the tree crumbles. We are stability, we are support, we nourish this empire. Take away the Petrovs, and the Bratva will vanish. When my father came to this city, after the war…”
Her voice trembles a little, but it’s the only sign of her diminishing strength. If not for that, and the way she was leaning more heavily on her cane these days, I could pretend it wasn’t her ninetieth birthday.
The Bratva’s future rests on my shoulders. Or, it will, in approximately five minutes, when Vanya gets done withher history lesson and makes the announcement everyone is waiting for.
The foundation. The crumbling empire. And I am the one who is going to bear that responsibility on my shoulders, to ensure that there are nutrients to feed this tree, to continue producing fruit for our entire community.
It’s controversial for the leadership to skip a generation, but I’m more than ready. Each year of my life has been spent preparing for this moment. Ever since I was a baby bouncing on my babushka’s knee, because my mother saw me as a rival the minute I could breathe alone.
Vanya has instilled this in me. The power, the spite, the satisfaction of watching my mother and my uncle have to grovel for favors, it’s what I’ve dedicated my life to.
I’m always at ease in a roomful of people. But tonight, there are so many eyes on me, that I can’t make a single movement without heads turning.
That’s power.
For a second, I toy with the idea of saying no. Of walking up to my babushka, where she stands on that stage, and causing an upset. My family’s backstabbing would reach world-war levels if there was a vacuum of power at the top. New York would be razed to the ground in months.
