“And marrying Maxim?”
Most girls in my position would love to be set up with Maxim. An attractive, wealthy husband with connections and power… but they can have him.
“His family is well-connected as well. His great-grandfather saw this coming even years before I did. He moved his son into politics, and now his grandson. They understand our kind, and with a marriage between the two families, we can move into a new era. A world much easier for you than I had it.”
I let out a small, humorless snort at the idea that any of this has to do with making my life easier or safer. This is about my father and my grandfather’s legacy not dying. I’m just a pawn.
"What if I refuse?" I ask quietly.
His expression doesn't change. "You won't."
"And if I do?"
He steps closer, and I hate that I flinch. My father is a man of power and uses fear as a tactic in his “business” process, but he’s never laid a finger on me. I’m his princess. Or at least, I used to be. Though I know that Luka didn’t have the same upbringing as I did. Raised to be the next head of the family, my father wantedto make him “tough”. And he is. I’ve seen him skate at the Olympics with a broken arm before. I’ve never seen him flinch before a blow from another player on the ice.
He was built to take pain. Unlike me, who’s been coddled most of my life.
I wanted to dance like my mother, so my father agreed to let me move to New York, train with the best of the best, as my mother did. He put me through Juilliard and gave me a monthly allowance to live comfortably. And then, three years ago, my father told me that my life was never my own and that I would return to Moscow and give up dancing when he decided. So I stopped taking his money and used the very little I had to get an apartment with a few Juilliard alumni trying to break out in the field. Dancing made me enough to live and eat… not well––not in the luxury I grew up in, but enough to be free of my father’s grip.
Or so I unwisely thought.
"Then you'll learn what happens to Popovich’s daughters who forget where they come from. You’ll be cut off and excommunicated like your brother. The family has afforded a comfortable life for you, Katerina. Now it’s time to pay it back, or you’ll have no inheritance left to salvage."
The threat hangs in the air, heavy and cold.
He adjusts his cufflinks, straightens his tie. "I've booked your flight. You leave in two weeks to start the wedding arrangements. Maxim’s campaign manager wants a spring wedding before the next election cycle. It will help to boost his rankings if he’s married, and I’ve offered a sizable amount to his campaign if he marries you. Don't make this more difficult than it needs to be."
And then he's gone, the door clicking shut behind him with a finality that makes my knees buckle.
I sink into the chair, pressing my hands to my face, willing myself not to cry.
I won't give him that.
By the time I get back to my apartment, it's nearly midnight.
The place is small—a fourth-floor walkup in Brooklyn that I share with one other dancer and an actress. It's cluttered and cramped and nothing like the estate I grew up in, but it's mine and, for the last three years, it hasn’t come with expectations.
Or at least, it was mine.
I drop my bag by the door and collapse onto the couch, staring at the ceiling.
My phone buzzes.
Luka:How was the show?
I close my eyes.
Luka. My older brother. The one who got out. The one who still offers to pay for my apartment, for my grocery bills… for everything. I tell him I’ve got it, every time. I would never allow him to do that.
He was supposed to take over the family business—the name, the money, the power, all the things our father inherited from his father. But Luka wanted nothing to do with it. He played hockey in the Olympics, got drafted by the NHL, and never looked back.
Our father disowned him.
Our grandmother—Babushka, the true head of our family—allowed it. But what choice did she have? The head of the family's only son walked out on his duties. It made our family look weak, divided, and vulnerable to dismantling, which is what the government wants to do, if you ask my father.
Luka doesn't talk about it. Doesn't talk about them. But I know he still watches over me.
I type back slowly.
