"I told you to wait outside," she snarls, setting her cell phone on the table beside her.
"I have it." I cross to her and open my hand between us. "Took it right off his fucking finger like you asked. Now… When do we tell the men that I'm finally in charge?"
Vera looks down at the ring in my palm, but she doesn't take it. Instead, her eyes move from the ring to my face and her expression morphs from anger to shock as the color slowly fades from her skin. Is it genuine fear I see on her? Or is this some sort of joke?
"Do you understand what you've started?" she says, leaning away from the ring like it's cursed or something.
"I did what you asked," I tell her, stepping forward to extend my hand closer. This is what she wanted, the ring, so why isn't she taking it? "I proved myself and now I am ready to be part of?—"
"I told you to be careful, you stupid child." Vera stands, pushing my hand away and huffing. The ring almost falls from my palm, but I catch it and clutch it in my fist. "You stole from Roman Kuzin in a room full of witnesses. Every family in Perm had someone there tonight and by morning, there won't be a person in this city who doesn't know exactly what happened and exactly who did it."
I don't understand the cold dread creeping in at the base of my neck. This was what she wanted. She sent me to do this to earn my keep and prove myself. Why is she acting like this? Did she think I would fail?
"You told me the ring belonged to my father," I mumble, finding my automatic reaction to her disgust too powerful to challenge. If she thought I would fail, then what did she expect to happen? Did she want him to kill me or something? Have me arrested for attempted theft? But the ring is here and she asked for it. I didn't fail at all, and if it rightfully belongs to my father, then we have nothing to fear.
"What I want doesn't matter now compared to what he'll want." Vera turns to the window and stands there until her breath fogs on the glass, and all I see is her calculating expression in the reflection. Her eyes are mousey, twitching around like she's trying to figure out what the hell she's going to do. "And what he'll want, without question, is to make an example of the stupid woman who was foolish enough to steal from him in front of half the city."
He was very upset, and the way he tried to snatch me immediately should've given me a clear picture of what sort of man he is. Of course, he's not going to take this lying down. My father would never have allowed anyone to steal from him,least of all a young woman. I look up at Vera's reflection in the window again, this time with the ring burning a hole in my hand.
She knew this would happen. I can see it in the stupid smirk on her face, and all of that angry reaction wasn't because she fears his response but because she’s already planning to twist this around to make herself look innocent and let me take the fall.
"What did you do?" I ask as the swell of dread makes my stomach roil.
But the doors open behind me and before they even announce themselves, I hear my nasty stepsisters.
"Mama," Sabine squeals gleefully, and I turn over my shoulder to see her holding her tablet. I can't see what's on the screen, but no doubt, it's some stupid reel or post on her social media feed. Sofi follows behind her, already reaching down to pull off her heels, already scanning the room for somewhere comfortable to sit.
Neither one of them even bothers to notice that I am already entertaining Vera or that we are deep in a conversation. They always treat me like I don't exist, and maybe it's because Vera allows them to do it.
"There's a gala in the fall," Sabine says, turning the tablet around to show her mother. "It's at one of the hospitals or whatever." She smacks her gum and scowls at me while Vera's attention is turned toward her oldest. She changes on a dime—the anger vanishes, her motherly charm shining through.
"We'll need new dresses," Sofi says from the settee with a whine in her tone. "Both of us. Nothing we have is right… Think Paris in the spring or something. We have to look amazing."
The coldness in Vera's face smooths away as cleanly as if it was never there, replaced by a warmth I have spent twenty-two years trying to earn, and she takes the tablet and reads it and her mouth curves.
"Yes," she says. "Absolutely. This is exactly where we should be seen." She glances at Sabine with real tenderness. "We'll find something beautiful for both of you. Or have it made. Yes, couture for my girls."
When Vera smiles, she really is beautiful. I can see what Papa noticed about her first. Sofi and Sabine are lucky women to have those genes. As for the hatred and venomous spirit being passed down, I pity them all. Charm is deceitful and beauty is fleeting, and both of them will age just as sourly and bitterly as their mother.
I clear my throat but Vera is neck deep in a discussion about tulle and silk, and Sofi's feet smell like she's been walking with wild hogs, her heels discarded next to my mother's old settee. Meanwhile, I'm still reeling about whether my stepmother tried to set me up to be killed tonight, and there is no point being here anymore. Now that my stepsisters have stolen the show, I'll not be getting her attention back. I'll just have to bring the ring to the next family meeting and see what my father's men say.
The disappointment is crushing, though I can't say I'm truly surprised. Part of me knew this would happen because Vera never keeps her word. There's always some other way I have to behave, some other task I have to perform in order to get into her good graces. I'm not hoping for a mother. I know I can' replace the one I had and lost. I was just hoping at some point, I'd be deemed good enough to not be treated like the dog shit on the bottom of her shoe anymore.
I sulk down the hallway and up the stairs to my bedroom, ready from all the exertion just to collapse in bed. I can't even say I'm going to cry or feel sorry for myself. I've moved beyond that, too, to a place where being kicked in the teeth so hard by the person who's supposed to love and protect me no longer stings as it should.
My head is cluttered with new fears now, of never having what I was promised, of being lost to a world my father tried so hard to protect me from. And what about this Kuzin character she made me steal from? Vera seems to think he'll be outraged, maybe enough that he'll come looking. Maybe he already is.
I gave him my real name, told him my father's name too. I did so hoping to clue him in as to why that ring is not on his finger, but without Vera's support, it may just look like I'm taking the revenge myself. Which would be even worse for me than just stealing his ring. I'll look like I’m starting a war.
God, I'm such an idiot for believing her and not thinking things through.
I sink to my knees at the foot of my bed and pull the box out to stow my father's ring away, just another trinket now with little meaning other than what a complete fool I am. And as I remove the lid, I see the last thing I looked at before I put this away the other day. The letter was written in my grandfather’s handwriting, signed by a name I can't read, and sealed with a signet and wax.
It makes me pause for a second as several reactions inside my brain click into place. The design pressed into this wax—it's the same design on this ring. I'd swear to it.
I take the letter, letting the box drop to the floor, and rush to my bedside table where I flick on the lamp. The curiosity has my heart beating a little faster as I hold the letter and the ring side by side and study the design—a clover, but not just any clover, a four-leaf clover, and there is a vine that weaves around them, the same vine in our family crest. It's clever yet unique, and it's shocking.
"Roman Kuzin?" I whisper as I sink to my mattress staring at the letter. It really can't be that simple, can it? But the letter is clear. Grandfather's message is that whoever owns the ring whose signet sealed this letter owed a great debt to the letter's holder.
