“Otets,I need to run back to the car for something,” I whisper, and he pats my shoulder.
“Go ahead, I’ll have the groom brush your horse.”
I wouldn’t characterize my speedy exit as a run, it’s more of a half-trot, half-scamper that I’m sure is making my butt jiggle in my riding trousers. At least I don’t have to look at Alexi. I’ve kept my distance since that night when I found him carving that line into his arm. He’s ignored me, too. No reason to re-live that humiliation now.
Present day…
The mortician did his best to make my father look presentable. Open caskets are a Russian funeral tradition, our last chance to see our loved ones before they’re gone forever. I’d seen the ruin of my father’s body the night they carried him into the house. A group of men opened fire on him as he left his favorite restaurant. By the time they got him home, he was dead.
My handsome, strong father is gone, I know that, but I kiss his forehead and smooth his hair, black, like mine. They put something in it, it’s all stiff. He would hate that.
“Come,malen'kiy dorogoy,little dear.” Uncle Rurik pulls on my arm, “This is not good for you. Come eat, thepominkiis ready. Food always makes you feel better, eh?”
I want to rip my arm out of his grasp, scream that he knowsnothingabout what’s good for me. That he’s not my father and he has no right to tell me what to do. But I’m a coward.
“Da,uncle.”
The table is groaning under the weight of dozens of different dishes: blini, fish pie,kolyva.Our guests are eating and chatting with each other as my father lies cold and still in his casket.
Nausea surges through me and I barely make it to my bedroom suite in time, violently retching until there’s nothing left inside me. The cold tile feels good against my sweaty forehead and I sit there until the strength returns to my legs.
“There you are! Uncle Rurik sent me to look-” Inessa kneels, pulling a hand towel off the rack. “You poor thing.” She wipes my face like I’m a toddler, tossing the soiled cloth in a corner. “Did you catch something?”
“No.” I manage. “It was just seeing everyone eating like this is a party andOtetsis…”
Putting a clean towel under her Dior dress, Inessa sits next to me. “It still doesn’t seem real, does it?”
“Now Uncle Rurick is strutting around, giving orders, and doing business at his own brother’s funeral,” I say, “how could he?”
Inessa laughs sardonically, “Because the Bratva always comes first. Did you know he already moved intoOtet’soffice?”
“I hate him. I hate him, the bastard.” Tears spill down my cheeks but I’m too tired to wipe them away. “What if he was…?”
Her eyes widen, “Hush! Not a word.” We both look at the open door. “You can never say that out loud,” she whispers, “not ever. He’s going to be Pakhan of the Dubrovin Bratva and what you’re thinking would be considered an act of treason. Not a fucking word, do you hear me?”
We endure weeks of uncomfortable meetings after Uncle Rurik becomes Pakhan. Strange men come and go as he sits in state in our father’s study, a seat of power that isn’t his. He isn’t worthy of it.
One night, I find my mother standing outside the study, the door is open, just slightly, and the low rumble of men talking and laughing is barely audible. Her face is sheet white, and I know she’s heard something bad. Something horrible.
“Mat',”I barely whisper as I pull her away, around the corner to the sitting room she’s taken as her office. “What’s wrong? What did you hear?”
She pulls away from me and heads for her desk, opening her laptop and typing quickly. “Go pack. Just an overnight bag. You’ll be visiting your Aunt Polina for the weekend. Send Inessa in to see me, please.”
I still her frantic typing with my hands over hers. “Please. Tell me. What did you hear? You’re shaking.”
Her huge, dark eyes are wide with terror, then she blinks and her face smooths out into her usual serene expression.“YA tebya lyublyu, I love you my sweet one. Do as I say.”
We leave at midnight. Uncle Rurik and his guests are still in the study, the stench of cigar smoke drifting though the hallwaysas the maids run back and forth with food and more bottles of vodka. Inessa and I are hustled down the back stairs and out into the garage.
The Dubrovin mansion is in the middle of the most beautiful part of St. Petersburg; the Golden Triangle, filled with homes hundreds of years old with exquisite architecture, surrounded by some of the most elaborate gardens in Russia. The lights blaze from nearly every window in our three-story house and I see the silhouette of our mother standing in the window of the master bedroom and for a moment, I could swear I see our father’s shadow standing next to her.
Chapter Three
In which everyone who’s worked as a server will totally relate.
Lucya…
“Lucya, you have tables six and seven!”
