Page 9

“I've written conditions into the will,” he said. “Each of my girls inherits her share of the organization only if she marries. A man I've chosen. Within thirty days of my funeral.”

I put the glass down. “That's insane,” I snort. “They'll never agree to it.”

“No, no. Not at first.”

“Yaroslav.” I leaned forward. “Arina will set fire to your will. Then she'll set fire to Viktor. Then she'll set fire to your grave.”

“Probably.” He looked almost proud. “That's why she needs a man she can't burn.”

Something cold and sharp turned over in my chest.

There were names I could think of. Men with good families and better connections and fathers Yaroslav owed favors to. Kirov's son, with his soft hands and his Swiss watches. Rusakov's nephew, who I'd once watched slap a waitress for bringing him the wrong wine.

If he'd promised her to either of them, I was going to have a problem.

I was going to have several problems, and most of them would end up in the river.

“Who?” I asked. My voice came out very even.

Yaroslav looked at me for a long time.

“You,” he finally said.

I didn't move. I'm not sure I breathed.

“Don't look so surprised,” he said, and reached for the bottle. “Six years you've been watching my daughter. At my table. At my parties. In my own house, under my own roof, like I'm a blind old fool who wouldn't notice.”

“I've never touched her,” I say through gritted teeth, because I don’t like the feeling of being accused of something I haven’t done.

“I know you haven't. That's part of the point.” He refilled my glass without asking. “You stopped going to the range on Thursdays when she stopped going on Thursdays. You know she takes her coffee black and pretends to hate sugar while she steals Galana's pastries. And at my sixtieth, when Anatoly Ruzin called her a spoiled little bitch behind her back, he left with a broken jaw.”

“He slipped.” It came out like a growl.

“On what?”

“My fist.”

Yaroslav laughed. It turned into a cough halfway through, deep and ugly, and he pressed a white handkerchief to his mouth until it passed.

I watched him.

“Are you sick?” I asked.

“We're all dying, Garick. I'm just organized about it.” He set his glass down and folded his big scarred hands on the desk.

“Every man on that list will marry a Maximova. I chose them for different reasons, and some of those reasons are better than others. But you are the only one I'm sure of.” His eyes were steady on mine. “The others would marry my name. You'd marry Arina if she walked in wearing nothing but the clothes on her back and didn't bring a single cent.”

I didn't argue. There didn't seem much point in lying to a dying man.

The first time I saw her, she was twenty-one. Yaroslav had a room full of men around his dining table arguing over the terms of a shipping deal, and Arina walked in to tell her father dinner was getting cold. She stopped behind his chair, glanced at the papers in front of him, and pointed out that the men across the table had quietly moved the decimal point on the insurance figure.

Then she stared at them while they stammered.

Yaroslav sent her out.

She went. She also took the good cognac with her, the bottle he'd been saving, and winked at me on the way out of the room. I don't think she even knew my name.

I was done. Just like that. One wink over a stolen bottle, and I've been done ever since.