Chapter Nine
Alexei
Katya thinks rebellion is drinking a frozen pina colada in a public park at three-thirty in the afternoon.
Purchased with her own money, at her insistence.
Minnehaha Falls is crowded—Saturday brings out families and small children—and there are at least two dozen people in our vicinity also with drinks in their hands, and other treats as well.
But Katya’s shoulders hunch as she cradles her drink in both hands, frosty fingers concealing it from prying eyes, as if she is doing something she knows she ought not.
Her eyes dart between sips, with some blend of guilt and suspicion.
Afraid she might be caught doing something wrong, not just by some onlooker, but perhaps by one of her father’s men.
Her head comes only to my shoulder. Her blonde hair in its messy ponytail is mussed by the wind.
The day is warm, the sun still heavy in the sky.
Summer in this city is not so oppressive as it is elsewhere, but still it is hot enough that Katya has sucked down half of her drink within a few minutes.
“Careful,” I warn, and I let my shoulder nudge hers as we walk down the steps that lead to the falls. “Is stronger than it tastes.”
She scrunches up her nose and slants a chiding glance in my direction. “I’ve had rum before,” she says in an exasperated drawl. “Just…not often.”
I chuckle, and my hand finds the small of her back, guiding her away from a group of children that dart past us on the stairs.
“Your controlling papa lets you drink?” I found no evidence of it in her apartment the night she fled.
Not even so much as one of those fruity seltzer drinks in her refrigerator.
“Well…” She hesitates, ducking her head as her shoulders sink into a slouch. “Not really. Except maybe a glass of wine with dinner.”
The Italians do like their wine.
“Red wines,” she clarifies, with a dismissive wrinkle of her nose. “I don’t really like them. I like—”
“Sweet wines,” I say, because I have already learned that Katya likes her sugary garden drinks and her toasted marshmallow latte abominations. She will prefer moscatos, perhaps, or Rieslings.
“Yeah,” she says, “but Papa prefers red. So I drink red. When I’m allowed.”
“So you don’t drink,” I say.
“I don’t not drink,” she says in a faintly sulky voice, and she chews on her straw after another sip. Like a rare treat she thinks might be snatched away from her, still she is drinking quickly. “It just…wasn’t worth the fight. You know?”
I do not. There is nobody who would dare to challenge me in such a way.
But Katya—she has been ruled by her loud, brash Papa for so many years, smothered beneath the pad of his thumb.
Living on only the crumbs of his attention, the scraps of whatever he had left from that which he devoted to the rest of his family.
His bastard daughter, always made aware that she would forever be less than.
Less worthy, less important. Less deserving.
The stupid motherfucker wasted his love on his worthless son and his sniveling wife instead.
As we reach the bottom of the steps and come across the bridge before the waterfall, Katya leans over the railing with a sigh.
The breeze wafts a mist of water over our faces, and for a moment, she closes her eyes.
She thinks herself weak, like she has admitted something shameful to me.
When the truth is only that she has been shackled by the chains of choices made for her.
I lower my voice in deference to the crowd of people around us, posing before the waterfall for pictures. “What else was not worth the fight, koshechka?”
“Parties,” she says as her head dips again. “Short skirts. Swearing. Dating. Friends. Being out past nine. Having any sort of privacy.” A last sip, and her drink is gone. The plastic cup crumples in her hand as she squeezes it absently. “What’s koshechka?” she asks.
Her pronunciation is terrible. “This is a small name,” I say.
“Nickname,” she corrects. “Like Katya?”
“Katya is nickname for Ekaterina. Like Cat is nickname for Catherine.” Of course I know this is not her name.
But I also know that if she thinks I believe this to be so, this will put her at ease.
“In Russian, cat is koshka or kot. Koshechka—this is a sweet name often used for something small and cute. Like kitten.”
Her cheeks have turned pink again. She lifts one hand to tug on the end of her ponytail. “You’re from Russia, then?”
“Da,” I say. “Moscow.” I don’t mind telling her this. If her Papa had told her anything about me, she would already have fled. But Giulio Russo is not the sort of man who explains himself to a woman, for any reason.
“How did you end up in Minneapolis?” she asks, and tilts her head inquisitively.
“Business,” I say. This is not entirely a lie.
Catalina has been my business since first I saw her in that picture, wearing the sweet smile that I imagine she must have gotten from her mother.
Probably the whole of her face is her mother’s, since Giulio is not a handsome man.
Charming, maybe, but not handsome. But Katya is pretty, so it must come from somewhere.
“What do you do?” A sheepish smile pulls at her lips. “I’d tell you what I do, but you already know.”
“Shipping.” Of a sort. Guns. Drugs. Even artwork, for the purposes of laundering money. Whatever needs to be moved swiftly and with discretion. It is not the most lucrative of my business interests, but it is an easy one to explain. “It is family business, you could say.”
“Oh. Does it keep you very busy?”
I shrug. “Some business is unavoidable. But I have many employees.” Enforcers and underlings who follow my commands without question. “It means I am not often busy.” I do not want her to wonder at the openness of my schedule, or to be suspicious of me if I should visit her at work during the day.
She pushes away from the railing. We’ve crowded the area long enough; there are still swarms of people gathering around us, waiting for their chance to take their little pictures for social media. “Will you have to go back soon? To Moscow, I mean?”
“Nyet,” I say as I place my hand under her elbow and steer her back toward the stairs, where she discards her empty cup properly, in a recycling bin.
“Not soon.” But eventually. My position is secure, but there are always those who believe absence means inattention. There is always risk in such things.
“It must be nice to travel for work.”
“Sometimes,” I tell her as we crest the stairs, and I guide her to the right, toward the walking trails. “You have not traveled much?”
She shakes her head, sidling closer as we pass a large family that crowds the sidewalk.
I take the opportunity to slip my arm around her waist and hook my fingers through the belt loop on the waistband of her faded blue jeans, anchoring her to my side.
She stammers, “I—I went to a boarding school in Washington. That’s the farthest I’ve ever been from home. ”
“Boarding school?” I know this already, but I like to hear her talk. And it is convenient to let her tell me these things I already know to avert the risk of revealing that I know something I should not. Even though I do not often make such mistakes.
“A school for girls,” she says. “A private school with a dormitory. I only got to come home for the summer break. Papa said it was one of the best schools in the country, but really I think he just didn’t want me to be around boys.”
Probably that is true, to a point. Probably the whole truth is something like Giulio did not want to spare the time for his daughter when he could outsource that task to someone else. So he instead sent her away to somewhere like a jail, so he will not be bothered.
“Even at this school for girls, you were not allowed short skirts?” I ask.
“No,” she laughs, and relaxes a little, her shoulder brushing my side. “The dress code was really strict. Uniforms, with blazers and ties. And your skirt always had to reach past your fingertips.” She demonstrates by letting her arms fall to her sides, wiggling her fingertips against her thighs.
“Then, Katya, tonight you will wear short skirt and we will drink your sweet wine on this date you are not allowed to have.” These tiny things she thinks are rebellion—they are nothing.
Less than nothing. Only Giulio Russo’s desperate efforts to squash any hint of defiance or dissent so Catalina’s opinions are only the echo of his own, the thoughts in her head only the ones he places there.
“I don’t actually own a short skirt,” she says with an awkward little shrug. “I, uh—I left home in kind of a hurry. Most of what I brought is just…comfortable clothes. Jeans and t-shirts.”
“This is not problem; this we can buy.” I make a mental note to text Anatoli, ask him about the stores where Katya was window-shopping. Probably they are close to her work.
She issues a small, regretful sigh as we walk beneath the overhanging bows of the trees that offer the sidewalk respite from the relentless summer sun. “I really can’t afford it,” she admits sheepishly.
“This is also not problem.”
“It is for me.” And there, the first flash of her claws. A kitten’s claws; dainty but razor sharp. “You drive a two hundred thousand dollar car, and I work for just above minimum wage.”
“And tips.”
Katya averts her gaze. “Gifts come with strings,” she says, with the intonation of a woman who has long learned what it means to be dangled by those strings, forced to dance to someone else’s tune.
Of course she will be sensitive to this; she has only recently unmoored herself from those strings.
Now she has nothing and no one—only a job which pays her just enough to live.
Only the pitiful comfort of texting her dead half-brother who can never respond, not even to tell her to fuck off, as he so often did before.
A tug on her belt loop draws her closer, near the edge of the path and away from the scant few passersby who have wandered so far down the trail as we have done. Her side is pressed against me; those blue eyes shear to my face, wide and wary.
My hand curls around her hip. A familiar touch, because Katya badly needs to be touched. To feel affection she has lacked. “If I thought it possible to buy you,” I tell her, “this price I would already have paid.”
Her back stiffens in offense, her cheeks puffing up, her lips pursing. Like the kitten she is, with a mouthful of hisses. An inch away from swiping out those claws.
“You don’t have money,” I say. “This is not problem. I do. What good is it if not to use as I please? It would please me to see you in this short skirt you want to wear.” But I don’t have to buy her.
She has been bought already. Bartered by her father who is too weak to hold onto his possessions, even those he should most treasure.
She deflates from her pique, her shoulders sinking as she blows out a breath—without a hiss. “You should knock it off with the massive tips, at least,” she says with an abashed shrug. “It’s weird. And unnecessary.”
“I don’t like to carry change.”
“Then at least use a credit card!”
“Is my money, Katya. Why do you think you get to tell me how to spend?” As she fumbles for an answer, I squeeze her hip.
“Maybe when you have more money, also you have more time. You don’t feel guilty for leaving work early.
Maybe you have time for another date. Maybe you say yes again, when I ask. ”
She lifts her head again, startled. “Are you going to?” The words are surprised, skeptical. Like she cannot imagine why I would want to.
“That depends, Katya,” I tell her, and let my hand fall away from her hip. “Will you still argue over such foolish things?”
“It’s not foolish—”
“Da, it is.” There’s a vendor with a cart nearby beneath the shade of a tree, selling ice cream and other cold treats.
I pause a moment, turning away from Katya to purchase a bottle of water and to make a point of shoving the remainder of the change from the hundred dollar bill into the plastic tip jar on top of the cart.
Like this is not personal. Like this is something I do everywhere, for my own convenience, because I do not carry change.
I shove the bottle of water into Katya’s hands.
Her brows draw together. “What is this for?”
“To drink. Is hot.” This is practicality. She has no idea how quickly that pina colada will go to her head. If she makes herself sick in this way, then I don’t get dinner. I don’t get Katya in this short skirt she wants to wear.
She eyes the water bottle in her hand. Then the tip jar, stuffed full of my discarded change. “Okay,” she says. “Thank you.” And she cracks the lid of the bottle and takes a sip. No fight this time, over my money or hers.
Good.
“I will ask again,” I tell her, to reassure her. “But only if I get to see this short skirt.”