He pauses.
“I didn’t want it.”
He doesn’t need to elaborate. I already know every part of this story. Every wound.
“I chose hockey,” Luka says. “I chose a different life. At first, he didn’t cause too many waves since I was bringing honor to Russia on the Olympic team, but with so much changing, he wanted me to use my two-time Olympic run to help put a new face on the organization. When I told him I had no plans to stop playing in order to be his puppet, he called me a traitor. Cut me off completely.”
“He let you go?” Scottie asks Luka.
“Babushka,” I say softly. “Our grandmother did. She’s the one my father answers to.”
“And she approved?” Scottie asks.
“She allowed it,” Luka corrects. “On the condition I leave everything behind.”
He glances at me in the mirror. “But there’s one thing they can’t make me leave behind. Our mother made me promise to protect Katerina at all costs, and I will.”
Scottie absorbs that with a solemn nod. “Where is your mother now?”
“She passed away when I was fourteen,” I mutter.
I hear Luka let out a sigh and his hands tighten around the steering wheel. Losing her was a blow for both of us. He had to play in the Olympics the night she passed. I can’t imagine how hard it was to get out on the ice when my brother’s heart was broken. He’s the strongest man I know.
Scottie shifts in his seat. “If your dad is as dangerous as you’re saying… why hasn’t he tried to force you back already?”
“He’s trying to. My father made a deal with me that I could train where my mother learned to dance, at Juilliard. And then, when it was time for me to fulfill my duties, I would return.”
“Your mother was an American?” Scottie asks.
I nod. “Our father came to the States when he was younger, before he took over the family. He saw her at a theater. She was performing as a prima ballerina. He stayed in the States two more weeks longer than he planned just to work up the courage to talk to her. He fell in love instantly. My grandfather was the head of the family back then. I don’t think our mother quite understood the gravity of who my father would become. But she loved him until the day she died.”
“Why do you think my English is so good?” Luka teases.
“So why can’t you just turn away from the family like Luka did?” Scottie asks.
“I’m more useful now with how everything is changing for the kind of 'family business' our father runs.”
Scottie frowns. “Useful how?”
“Women in my family are assets,” I say flatly. “Married for alliances. Traded for connections. I’m leverage.”
“That’s insane,” he mutters.
“That’s our reality,” Luka says simply.
“So if he’s so controlling, how does marrying me stop him from taking you back home?” Scottie asks, glancing between the two of us.
“Babushka for the save again,” Luka says, his eyes finding me in the rearview mirror. “Our grandmother believes in optics, and my father is being watched right now. If you two are married, our father can’t make her marry Maxim. Our grandmother won’t stand for it. It’s our only hope. It should buy Kat enough time to find a company in Seattle, out of our father’s influence, to renew her visa that is set to expire in six weeks.”
Luka pulls into the underground garage of a tall sky-rise apartment building, with a sign that says, The Commons. The concrete swallows the sound of the engine, leaving the moment quiet and suspended.
We all file out of the truck. Scottie and Luka grab all the bags, not allowing me to carry anything else. If they only understood that I’ve been living in New York for the last eight years without a car, they would understand that I’m fully capable of carrying things long distances, like bags of groceries and my ballet duffel bag.
I’m not as helpless as Luka makes me out to be.
I shouldn’t care that Scottie might think that too… but I do.
The elevator ride is worse.
