“Yes, I did.”
“And how is Alina Solokov doing these days?” He asks.
I push the pen back and forth across the paper.
“She thinks they are still alive,” I say quietly. “She spends every day scared of a dead man’s wrath.” I shake my head softly, the events of this morning filtering through once more. It is such an incredible absurdity that one slain man can leave so many scars on the living. Everywhere I look, I seem to find another.
Ivan steps closer, then bends to sit in the chair across from my desk.
“Do you ever hate me?” I suddenly ask, airing out the question that has bothered me for years.
“What?” Surprise dances across his pale face.
“I share blood with the man who ruined your life. The one who ended your parents’ lives. And yet here you are, forced to serve his disappointment of an heir,” I mutter in earnest.
I know full well I was never in a lifetime expected to take up this role in the family empire. And though I knew I was merely the spare, I never once resented Nikolai for the respect he was shown as the heir apparent. I was able to leave on assignments throughout my early twenties, train the way I wanted to train. I was able to get away fromhim. My brother wasn’t so lucky.
“No, Mikhail. You cannot take responsibility for the actions of your father. You have enough weight on your chest. Please do not add my grief to that load. It is not yours to bear.”
I shake my head slightly, stretching my jaw. He is wrong. My role as Pakhan is to be the martyr of all our past failures. But after coming face to face with one of my biggest ones this morning, I find myself unusually speculative on the subject.
I promised Cassandra I’d open up to her, but how can I, knowing what this world does to outsiders? My mother’s vacant stare fills my memory once again, a woman beaten into submission by the very organization I’m trying to lead. I won’t let that be Cassandra.
“And, no, Mikhail.”
“What?” I ask, distracted.
“No,” he repeats, locking eyes with mine. “I could never hate you, brother.”
An unusual emotional intensity overwhelms my senses, heating the cavity of my chest. I meet his eyes and nod, expressing all the gratitude and loyalty I feel with the depth of my gaze.
Cassandra
Ilove that feeling when you finally figure something out. When the same problem you’ve tried over and over again, abandoned for hours, only to return and fail again, finally snaps together in your head with the same gratification of undoing a knot with a single tug.
Don’t get me wrong, I hate math. It never comes easily to me. But in my Freshman year accounting class, I finally figured out how to defeat failure with consistency. Conquer ignorance with practice. I’ve decided it utilizes the same mentality as the gym: train to failure. Then go home, sleep, cry, and get back in there the next day to do just one more rep than the last.
As I analyze the financial data for my final accounting class in the four-year-long series, I enjoy the small pinches of gratification I feel every time I figure something out on my own or surprise myself by recognizing a trend. Each calculation feels like another weapon in my arsenal—another tool to ensure I’ll never be powerless again.
I didn’t go into business because I thought I would be good at it. I didn’t even go into it thinking I’d absolutely love it and find mypassion in life. The truth is, I had this undeniable burn to understand the financial system that always seemed to hold my mom and me captive by shitty men who told us they knew better. I craved financial fluency the way other teenagers craved adulthood, like it would unleash this world of freedom from our constricted lives. Money is power, and I refuse to be powerless ever again.
Though many of my peers have no idea what they want to do after college, I’ve always had the same clear-cut plan: Get a decent job, work all the hours I can, send mom enough money so that she can extract herself from my pig of a stepfather, and then re-pay all the debt I racked up in my teens by trying to help cover our bills.
I finish the final write-up and send in the file, closing my computer with a satisfying click. Maybe one day, I’ll run a business of my own. I’d love to point to something I created from the ground up and say,fuck yeah, that was all me.Something no one could take away from me.
Checking the time on my phone, I realize it’s already 4:30 PM. Only an hour and a half until Mikhail picks me up for dinner. The thought alone causes quite the crash of conflicting emotions, the desperate drum of anxiety battling against my preening excitement and anticipation.
The way I feel towards him is so strangely unfamiliar. I don’t usually like spending time with anyone, besides Sophia and my mom. Especially when it comes to men. I’ve gone on a few dates throughout my time at college, slept with a guy from my writing class my sophomore year, but I never felt a thing towards the other person. I always have to remind myself to close my eyes when someone kisses me, to initiate physical contact with the other person. It always feels so unnatural and alien, like I have to pretend that I feel anything but the cool, awkward indifference that hits my senses.
For some reason, though, Mikhail doesn’t feel like a stranger to me. I’m not scared of the idea of touching him or being vulnerable in his hands. He feels like someone I’ve known for years, an intimate protector who’s always been lingering in the background, waiting to be tapped in. And I know that natural urge to trust is a dangerous thing.
Sure, I’m still mad that he was tracking my location behind my back, and even more mad that he thought he could call me out on not being home like a helicopter parent. But I’ve had some time to process his apology and the context of our second meeting. I can understand why he’d be worried about something happening to me after I was publicly drugged, not even a week before.
Still, understanding doesn’t equal trusting. And I’m not sure I can trust someone who thinks monitoring me is acceptable—even if part of me finds his protectiveness intoxicating.
It’s been a long time since someone was worried about me like that. Yeah, my mom worries, but I think some part of her knows that any trouble I could get into out here will probably pale in comparison to the shit I’d be dealing with if I stayed in that house with her, absorbing bad moods and the occasional beating at the whim of the man whose name lines the lease.
Sophia, on the other hand, practically cheers when I do something adventurous and new, knowing how hard it is for me to come out of my shell and have new experiences.
