Chapter 12
The Olympics are over, and Sasha returns to Moscow, expecting things to be more or less the same as they were before.
The national teams will get a vacation, of course, like they did after London, but then it’ll be back to Round Lake to rework their routines for the next quad, to start thinking about the Russian Championships in March. In other words, business as usual.
It turns out, though, that coming home with a team that won silver—and not just the men, but the women, too—is a far cry from coming home with your tail between your legs.
There’s a military escort waiting for them at the airport, which Sasha thinks is ridiculous right up until they’re walking through a mob at the gate, unable to look anywhere without a sign or a cellphone being shoved in their faces.
If it’s an exaggeration to say they barely make it out alive, it’s not by much.
Since nothing else gives their government more of a hard-on than beating other countries at the Olympics, they spend their first two weeks at home attending banquet after banquet, listening to speech after speech, until the circle-jerking finally climaxes in a ceremony at the Kremlin, where Kirill, Ilya, Oleg, Nikolai, and Felix—along with every other athlete who medaled at the Games—are handed the keys to a fleet of brand-new BMWs.
Sasha doesn’t get a car, obviously, but the inevitable twinge of envy fades away soon after the announcement is made.
The BMWs are too attention-grabbing for his taste, with flag designs and “Russian National Team 2016” emblazoned across the hood; besides, he already has a car, a hand-me-down from when his uncle Borya was promoted at the bank and could afford something better.
It’s not flashy, but it drives to and from Round Lake just fine, and that’s enough for him.
Kirill loves the BMW, though. He splashes it all over his Instagram account, leaning against the door with folded arms, crouched down and grinning next to the custom license plate, a hand on the steering wheel as his sunglasses glint at the camera.
Sasha’s not sure what’s more amusing, the pictures or the way Danny splutters on the phone after seeing them.
“Wait, you guys get BMWs? Dude, Matt got, like, ten grand. What the fuck.”
Sasha’s a little fuzzy on the dollar-ruble exchange rate, but he knows his teammates received a lot more than that.
Kirill’s richer now than Sasha and Alina have ever been, combined, over the course of Sasha’s entire life; and if there’s one thing Kirill loves more than his new car, it’s spending his new money.
The BMW’s backseat quickly fills up with shopping bags from luxury clothing brands, and when Sasha visits him at his parents’ apartment, there’s an entire electronics store’s worth of camera equipment in his bedroom—“Well, you know, for the vlog,” Kirill says, which doesn’t explain why he needs so much of it, not that Sasha asks.
Then there’s the silver watch that appears on his wrist less than a week after the Kremlin ceremony, Ilya and Oleg’s jaws dropping when they notice it at a team brunch.
Alina admires the watch, listens patiently as Kirill chatters to her about his new equipment.
She puts on her best dress when Kirill insists on taking her and Sasha out for dinner, and then she bursts into tears halfway through dessert, when he makes a speech about all the meals she’s cooked for him and how proud he is to finally provide one for her.
But after Sasha shows her Kirill’s latest vlog about yet another shopping spree, she starts to look a little worried.
“Kirill, dear,” she says the next time he’s over for dinner, the three of them tucked around the kitchen table, bowls of shchi steaming on cloth placemats. “Have you thought about getting a financial advisor?”
Kirill groans, slumping in his chair. “Sorry,” he apologizes a few seconds later, his voice muffled as he rubs at his face. “My mother keeps nagging me about seeing some friend of hers. She wants me to set up an investment account or something, I don’t know.”
“Well.” Alina’s expression is as smooth as glass, like it always is when they talk about Irina. “It’s a good idea to save some of your money for the future. And if you’re careful about what you invest in, you could do very well for yourself.”
“Yeah, I know,” Kirill mumbles, sighing into his shchi.
“I told her I’d look into it. But she said her friend—this bank manager, or someone—she said he’d figure it out, and I’d just need to sign the papers.
Then she made the appointment, even though I said I wanted to think about it, so now I have to meet with this person next week, as if I don’t have anything else to—”
“Don’t go.”
Kirill snorts, then stops when he looks up and realizes that Sasha’s dead serious.
“You know what she’s doing, right?” Sasha asks, dropping his spoon back into his bowl.
Somewhere around the time Kirill started talking about signing papers, his appetite had vanished, and now the only feeling in his stomach is dread.
“She’s going to tie up your money, and then whenever you want it, you’re going to have to go through her. ”
“Sasha,” Alina says, a warning note in her voice, but he presses on anyway.
“I thought you wanted to get an apartment.”
“Yeah, well.” Kirill listlessly stirs his soup, avoiding Sasha’s gaze. “It doesn’t make sense. We’re at Round Lake three weeks every month, so I’d be paying all that rent for just a week. I might as well wait until I can buy something.”
Sasha stares at him, because that’s not how Kirill had sounded when he was talking about it on the plane ride back from Rio, before the money was even in his account. “Is that what Irina said?”
Kirill doesn’t answer, which tells Sasha everything he needs to know. It’s Irina’s method through and through, making something seem perfectly reasonable (live at home, save your money) while conveniently glossing over the drawbacks (your father’s fists).
“Sasha,” Alina says again, but he ignores her. They don’t have time for dancing around what Irina’s capable of.
“Why don’t you talk to my uncle Borya? He can help you.”
Kirill frowns. “The one who works for the MID?”
“No, that’s Uncle Senya. Uncle Borya—well, you met him a couple years ago, at New Year’s. He’s the one who made Uncle Dima leave when he got drunk and started ranting about the Chechens. But he’s a financial advisor, right?” Sasha turns to Alina for confirmation, all but crossing his fingers.
Alina opens her mouth, quite possibly to scold him—she’s giving him that look, as in, I’ve already told you twice to stop it—but then she glances at Kirill, who’s watching them hopefully, and her expression softens.
“Yes, that’s his job,” she allows. “And of course he’d be happy to help you, Kirill.
But I don’t want to cause any problems with you and your mother. Or your—”
“It’s his money, not hers!” Sasha retorts, fuming. Jesus, does she want Kirill to be at Irina’s mercy?
“And it’s your decision what you want to do with it,” Alina tells Kirill, her words very much pointed in Sasha’s direction.
“Right…” But Kirill looks like he has no idea what he wants anymore, which is exactly how Irina will swoop in and convince him to do what she wants instead.
Sasha tries to keep arguing, but Alina says “Finish your soup” in a way that means “Shut up,” so he bites his tongue until they’re getting ready for bed, Kirill collapsing onto the spare mattress they’ve set up in Sasha’s room.
“Kirill,” Sasha says, lowering his voice so it won’t travel through the wall he shares with Alina. “Please don’t go to that appointment.”
Kirill exhales, the sound muffled by his pillow. “She already made it.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to go.”
A line of tension spreads across Kirill’s shoulders, until finally he turns over on his back, staring up at the ceiling. “Then she’ll just get my father involved,” he mutters. “It’s not worth it.”
Normally, Sasha would have stopped there.
He knows what happens when Vladimir gets pissed off; he’s seen the results all over Kirill’s body.
But this is different—if Irina convinces Kirill to sign away his money, she’ll be pulling the strings for the rest of his life.
And Sasha’s not going to let that happen.
“So get your money,” he says, “and then come stay with us while you’re looking for an apartment.”
Kirill’s chest goes still, and several seconds pass before he sits up and stares at Sasha, surprise and a flicker of hope in his expression. “Really? But—would your mom mind—”
“Are you joking?” Sasha asks incredulously. “She’d probably adopt you if she could.”
As soon as the words leave his mouth, he wishes he hadn’t said them, even though they’re true. Kirill swallows and looks away, but not before Sasha sees something glimmering in his eyes.
“I’ll think about it.”
“Okay.” Sensing he’s pushed as far as he should tonight, Sasha gets up to turn off the light; yet once he’s back in bed, he can’t resist adding, “We just want to help.”
Kirill doesn’t answer, and the room goes quiet for several minutes. Sasha stares up at the ceiling, wondering if there was something else he could have said instead; what the magic words were, if they even existed, to convince Kirill not to go to that appointment.
“Your uncle,” Kirill finally says, and Sasha holds his breath. “Would he… Would he be able to see me before next week?”
“Yeah.” Sasha doesn’t actually know how busy Uncle Borya is, but if Alina asks him for a favor, he’ll make room in his schedule.
There’s a long pause, Kirill exhaling in the dark. Then—
“Okay. Let’s do it.”
*