Chapter 1 - Lilia
The clickety clack of my expensive mechanical keyboard was as satisfying as the steaming cup of herbal tea sitting by my elbow. I paused my work to take a sip, only to find it had gone cold. Looking up, I caught a glimpse of my grimace in the window’s reflection, realizing the sun was no longer blazing through the glass into my cozy little office.
Once again, I lost track of time, slipping into that wonderful zone where everything faded into the background, and it was just me and a screen full of words. I managed to edit eighteen pages since I last refilled my teacup, and my growling stomach was now alerting me that I missed my normal lunch time.
My grimace from the cold tea turned to a smile now that I was going to be able to hand in this project early. If my manager wasn’t only complimenting me to keep me working hard, I was one of her favorite editors, rising to the top of the bunch at her small publishing company since I took the job a little less than a year ago.
It might not ever pay as much as what my family was used to making, but it was the perfect job for me. I could stay in my office, with my giant corner desk that was more laden down with books I was reading for fun than books I was working on. There were also mementos of Moscow, including pictures of my older sister Masha and me as kids, playing in the snow or sitting dutifully behind one of our uncles’ bars, pretending to be bartenders.
Masha took to the family business, which branched out quite a bit from owning drinking establishments. Sure, those were beloved places for locals to gather, but what went on in theback rooms, and the kind of goods that got unloaded with the crates of vodka, ran much deeper than the hospitality business.
Ever since we moved to the States, Masha took off running, already a trusted member of our American cousins’ operations. There was a little snafu with her new husband, Anatoli—what with him being one of their top enemies and all, but that was settled now, thank goodness. I hated every minute of all that conflict. Needless to say, I was not cut out for life in the Bratva, despite being part of one of the most ruthless families in California and Russia.
Shoving back from my desk, I stretched my arms overhead, feeling the ache in my lower back from hunching over the keyboard for so long. It hardly felt like work when the current novel I was editing was so darn good. I couldn’t wait to find out how it ended and had to remind myself to slow down so I wouldn’t miss any mistakes or gloss over any sentences that might benefit from tweaking.
It was only two hours until dinner, where I usually joined my cousin Aleks’s family. A lot of the time, it was just his wife Katie and their daughter Alina, who could chatter anyone’s ears off. If Aleks was home, the meal usually devolved into a raucous affair, with laughter and teasing and Alina showing off something new that she learned that day.
I tried to keep up, but sometimes it was exhausting, even though I absolutely adored them. They were letting me stay with them, after all, refusing any payment from my meager earnings. It was the perfect setup, with an entire wing to myself now that Masha had moved out. I mostly stayed in my office or bedroom, dodging Katie’s constant invitations to work in the kitchen while she managed her catering company, thinking I was lonely all by myself.
Maybe it would sound bleak to someone like Katie or Masha, who thrived on being around others and loved frantic activity. But I was content reading books in my spare time, talking to my few very good friends back in Moscow, or doing research for my editing job. Going out bordered on a chore even when it was with someone I cared about and trusted. The idea of going out on my own or with someone I barely knew seemed like torture.
And I don’t take that word lightly. I had seen some things growing up the way I did. When I weighed the choice between going to one of my uncle’s nightclubs without my sister to shield me with her larger-than-life personality, I might have just taken a hammer to my kneecap.
My stomach rumbled again. There was no way I could make it to dinner, when I had only eaten some toast for breakfast, now hours ago. Heading downstairs, I overheard Katie mention my name and paused outside the kitchen door. Not to eavesdrop, not really. Just to make sure I didn’t interrupt something.
“She’s fine,” Aleks said, sounding slightly irritated, which was odd since he definitely put his wife on a pedestal.
He was much older than I was and the head of the family. Though most people were intimidated by him and with good reason, to me, he was just a big teddy bear, spoiling me with gifts and affection every time he visited Moscow when I was little. It was the highlight of my winter breaks when we got to visit Los Angeles and bask in the sunshine, so finally moving here permanently was a dream come true. I certainly didn’t want to do anything to screw it up.
“She hasn’t gone out since Masha lived here,” Katie continued. “And I don’t count when we were in Aspen, and she went caroling. She was with Rurik and Dan, then.”
“So?” Aleks asked.
I could hear Katie sigh, and I peeked around the doorway to see her brows furrowed as she stared at her much bigger husband in exasperation. “So she has no social life. She’s beautiful and smart and just about the sweetest thing on two feet. She should be dating.”
“She’s only twenty,” Aleks growled, as overprotective as ever to the females in his family. “Who says she should be dating?”
“Well then, taking classes, or going to concerts or the beach,” Katie said. “Normal things girls her age enjoy.”
I leaned against the wall, staying out of sight and holding in a sigh. Katie wasn’t being mean; it was clear she was honestly concerned about me.
“She’s perfectly normal,” Aleks said. “She is the way she is, and there’s nothing wrong with her.”
His loyalty warmed the cold pit that formed in my stomach as their argument turned up a notch. “Okay, maybe normal was the wrong word,” Katie said hurriedly. “But I think we should encourage her to start looking for her own place or try to get her to go out more. Do you think it’s healthy to sit in front of a computer screen all day? She’s as pale as a ghost and about as wispy as one, too.”
I looked down at my slender wrists with a frown. I may not be buff, but wispy? I guess I did have trouble lifting that bag of apples the other day when I was helping Katie bring in theingredients for her most recent catering job. But that was at least a twenty-pound sack.
There was a long silence, but I didn’t dare risk another peek around the door frame. “Are you saying you don’t want her here anymore?” Aleks asked, voice like rolling thunder.
“Oh my gosh, no,” Katie said, her own voice sounding more dangerous by the second. “I love having her here. I’m just concerned, especially since Masha lives so far away now. She seems to have retreated even further into a shell.”
It was true that Masha and I had been tossing around the idea of getting our own place together before her whirlwind love affair had her moving to Silicon Valley to live with her husband. I even toyed with following her up there, but despite not taking advantage of everything the area had to offer, I loved LA and didn’t want to leave.
They continued their back-and-forth about whether my chosen solitude was healthy for me, and I ignored my hunger to head back upstairs. I didn’t want to hear anymore. Nothing they said was new to me. I was used to people trying to get me out of my shell. The only problem was that I liked it in there.
What was so wrong with the way I lived? Nothing. Even Aleks said so, and he was as extroverted as they came. However, I didn’t like that I might be causing a rift between Aleks and Katie, because both of them clearly had my best interests at heart.
I found some crackers tucked away in my secret stash behind a pile of books and crunched on them to ease my hunger pains while I got back to work. This session, it was harder to concentrate, even though the pace of the story still moved at a hundred miles an hour. I finally gave up and snapped my laptop shut since I was ahead for the day anyway.
