She ignores me and leans against the hood, which creaks ominously under her weight. “You know, I’ve seen abandoned shopping carts that look sturdier than this thing.”
I sigh, yanking the driver’s side door open with more force than necessary. “It gets me where I need to go. Usually.”
Elena smirks, holding up the black box containing the green monstrosity. “Speaking of which, where does the monster ride? Front seat or trunk?”
I grab the box from her, shaking my head as I open the passenger door. “The back seat, obviously. I’m not letting it stare at me while I drive.”
Carefully, I place the box in the back, next to a pile of reusable grocery bags and an old hoodie I keep for emergencies. Then I toss the joint Elena gave me into the glove compartment, next to some spare change and a tube of lip balm that’s probably older than Lila.
Elena, now peeking into the car, raises an eyebrow. “No air freshener? Not even one of those little pine trees?”
“Funny,” I deadpan, leaning over to unlock the door manually because, of course, Betsy doesn’t believe in power locks. “Get in. I’ll drop you at your office. You can roast me all the way there.”
She slides into the passenger seat, her purse bumping against the dented door as she struggles to fit it between her legs. Wrinkling her nose, she takes a long, deliberate look around the car. Her eyes land on the duct tape patching a tear in the seat and the crumpled fast-food bags lurking near the floor mat.
“You know,” she says, clasping her hands over her knees with exaggerated primness, “if the judge saw this car, he might award custody to Mike and Peggy just out of pity. ‘Poor kids,’ he’d say. ‘We can’t let them grow up in… this.’”
“Ha. Ha.” I shoot her a look as I shift into gear, and the car lurches forward like it’s being woken up against its will. “It works, doesn’t it?”
“For now,” she mutters, buckling her seatbelt. “But if this thing dies on us mid-drive, I’m calling a tow truck and a priest.”
I shake my head, fighting back a laugh as I pull out of the parking lot. “You’re lucky I tolerate you.”
“And you’re lucky I make your life interesting,” she fires back, leaning back in her seat with a satisfied smirk.
3
Konstantin
Beep. Beep.
The heart monitor pulses in the background, slow and steady, like a countdown to a storm. My father lies motionless in the massive bed that once seemed indestructible—just like him. Anatoly Belov, thePakhan, the man who groomed me to lead, now reduced to a shell of himself. Tubes and wires snake out from under the sheets, tying him to the machines keeping him alive.
The irony of a man who refused to believe death could touch him.
Six months ago, it wasn’t death that came for him—it was his own arrogance. A stroke brought on by decades of unchecked rage, vodka, and a refusal to follow anything resembling doctor’s orders. He thought himself invincible. Untouchable. But his body betrayed him, collapsing in his office during one of hisinfamous tirades. By the time anyone reached him, the damage was done.
And now here he is. The great Anatoly Belov, rendered silent for the first time in his life.
I lean against the doorway, arms crossed, letting my gaze sweep over the scene.
The walls are covered in deep mahogany paneling, dark and oppressive, lit only by the warm glow of a brass chandelier and the flicker of the bedside lamp. His chair—the one he used to sit in, dictating orders like a king on his throne—is pushed haphazardly into a corner, the rich leather cracked with age. The room is a monument to power and wealth, but now it feels like a mausoleum.
My mother, Yelena, sits near the window, her back ramrod straight in one of the antique wingback chairs. She’s a picture of cold elegance, her black dress sharp and understated, her hands clasped in her lap. The dim lighting glints off her wedding band, the only sign she’s tethered to the man in the bed—a man who has done nothing but dictate, demand, and dismantle our family piece by piece.
When he fell, it wasn’t grief that swept through the Belov household. It was silence. The kind that weighs heavy, pressing into every corner of the room. The kind that tells you no one’s brave enough—or foolish enough—to say what they’re really thinking.
No one wept for him.
Why would they?
Anatoly Belov was feared,not loved.Except for Alya. She cried, of course. She’s 8—too young to know better. To her,Dedushkais still the man who sneaks her chocolate during dinners and tells her stories about wolves and warriors. She doesn’t see the monster lurking behind the charm.
I clench my jaw, the tension radiating up to my temples. My hand drags through my hair, but it does nothing to ease the knot in my chest. The monster Alya can’t see is the same man who destroyed my family before I was even old enough to understand what family should look like.
Two wives. Not one divorce. Just one of Anatoly’s many rules for the world: when you’re powerful enough, laws don’t apply to you. My mother sits here out of obligation. A legal marriage cemented by alliances and sealed with the kind of loyalty only a woman like her could endure.
And then there’s Tatiana—technically a “mistress,” and nine years older than me—but given the Belov stamp of approval. He married her, too, of course. Quietly. A second union that’s somehow just as binding as the first.
