“What?”
“Nothing.” But it’s a lie. I pick up the towel from the floor and wipe the sweat from my forehead to hide my worry.
The change in Aleksei over the last year is noticeable, even more so lately. There’s a darkness there that never existed before. He’s harder, less empathetic. The light behind his eyes is dimmer. He gets into fights constantly. He enjoys hurting people. And it makes me wonder if evil can be hardwired into DNA and genetically passed down from parent to child. I never told Aleksei that Francesco Amato was our father. Maybe it’s time I should. Or maybe telling him will do more harm than good.
After the gala last year, I confronted Mama about Francesco. I wasn’t prepared for the gruesome truth of what he did to her. Despite the horror he inflicted, Mama never once thought of terminating the pregnancy. How can she look at us every day and not seehim? How can she love us knowing what we are?
Mama told me it didn’t matter how we came to exist. She loved us, full stop. We were hers, and that was all that mattered. That’s how fucking big my mother’s heart is. She deserves so much better than the shitty life she’s been given.
Out of habit, I walk over to the chessboard sitting on the game table and move the black onyx rook to capture a gold pawn. It’s the same game I’ve been playing for three years. I’m allowed one move a day. Father says that men who conquer the world do so through strategy and patience. He tells me that people are the pawns maneuvering across a chessboard, easily manipulated. That life is merely a game, where whomever has the power has the control, moving each chess piece in a carefully crafted stratagem to get what they want.
In our world, the Society is the chessboard, the men on the Council the players, and the world outside their pawns. One day, I’ll be the opponent sitting on the other side of the board from them, playing the game. But I’ll play it my way, not father’s and not theirs.
Pyotr glides a finger over the ornately carved king. “You haven’t said anything about Switzerland.”
Once they turn twelve and pass their initiation, it’s customary for male children of the Council to attend an exclusive boarding school in Geneva. Aleksei and I fit one of the two of those criteria, but that hasn’t stopped Father from trying to get us enrolled.
“Because it’s not happening.” Thank God. At least I won’t have to see Tristan and his two sidekicks every day anymore since they’ll be in Geneva for the next six years.
Pyotr looks relieved. “Cool.”
“I want to go to Stanton Prep.”
Similarly to the boys, once they turn twelve, female children of the Council are expected to go to a private all-girls’ school in Connecticut. Why they do it that way, split the boys from the girls, who the hell knows? But since those stupid, antiquated rules don’t apply to me, I hope I can convince Father to let me go to Stanton Preparatory, so I can be near Aoife—but he doesn’t need to know my reasoning.
Pyotr’s green eyes flare. “Thanks for the head’s up, jackass.”
He and I have been joined at the hip since we were four. Pyotr is the only genuine friend I have. He’s also not Society but given our Russian roots and our families’ blood ties, he’s as much my brother as Aleksei is.
Sometimes I’m envious of Pyotr. He may be the son of the head of the Petrov bratva, but he gets to live a normal life. Well, not exactly normal, but Drako Petrov doesn’t compel his son to do anything. Pyotr has a voice in his family. He gets a say about what he wants or doesn’t want, a privilege I will never know. People who have free will and the power to choose will never understand the despair of what it feels like to not have either.
“Do you think Nikolai will even let you go to a regular school?” Pyotr asks, his question denoting the doom and gloom of my idea.
Mama had homeschooled Aleksei and me for kindergarten and first grade, but after months of begging on our behalf, she somehow convinced Father to let us attend private school for second grade. We got to experience one fleeting week of normalcy before Father pulled us out. After that, he took over our schooling. It was another way for him to control us. Authoritarian governments do it all the time. Control the flow of information and knowledge and teach the things you choosein order to manipulate the masses and brainwash them into believing only what you say.
But that single week, those five amazing days, changed my life forever because I met Aoife.
“I’ll just have to find a way to sway him that it would benefit him and our family status in some way.”
“Does Aleksei know you want to?—?”
“No. And you’re not going to say anything to him about it.”
I get a contemplative perusal. Pyotr could always read me like a book. “You want to leave because of her.”
I’m not going to lie to him, so I don’t. “Yes.”
He knows how I feel about Aoife Fitzpatrick, about my obsession with her, and he doesn’t judge me for it. Besides, my feelings for her don’t give a shit about how young we are. When you meet your soulmate, you just know. It’s an internal instinct that surpasses logic or reasoning because it just is.
Pyotr follows me out into the hallway. “You know he’s going to shit a brick if you leave and don’t take him with you.”
That’s what I’m struggling with. I love my brother. He’s the other half of my soul. And I’m terrified that if I go, I’ll lose him to the darkness that’s trying to consume him. I feel stuck between my obligation to Aleksei and my desire to have…more. I want more than the preordained path Father has paved for me. I want revenge.
Index. Middle. Ring. Pinkie.
“You’re doing it again.”
My fingers cease their rhythm, and I let my hand hang loosely at my side as we walk down the hallway toward the grand staircase in the foyer.
