Katerina
Papa’s expression hardens instantly. “No.” The speed of his answer almost makes me smile.
“Yes.”
I shrug. “I’m not angry.” That’s not entirely true, but it’s not the main emotion I’m feeling right now. I look between my parents. “I’m humiliated.”
Mama’s eyes fill with tears.
I hate that it hurts her, but I do not soften it.
“And I refuse to sit in this house tomorrow while everyone whispers about how gracefully I accepted being replaced.”
Papa’s voice lowers. “This is not about pride.”
“It’s exactly about pride.”
“No. It’s about safety.”
“Then you should have kept me safe from the people in this family first.”
That silences him.
I push back from the table, stand to my feet, and turn toward the doorway before either of them can stop me.
“Katerina,” Papa says.
I pause.
“If you go, you go with my men.”
I look back at him. “No.”
His eyes narrow.
I feel the old fear. The instinct to obey. The daughter in me, trained by wealth and danger and his rare affection, wants to lower her gaze.
I do not.
“I’m going to Russia,” I say. “Not for Lev. Not for the Morozovs. Not for your alliance.”
My voice shakes once, then steadies. “I’m going because I wanted to.”
Mama covers her mouth.
Papa says nothing.
So I leave them there and climb the stairs with my heart pounding so hard it hurts.
In my room, the suitcase waits on the bed. I wipe my face, fold the last dress, and place my passport on top.
Tomorrow morning, I’m getting on that plane.
However, I quickly realize my mistake twenty minutes after I leave the dining room. Not because Papa comes upstairs—that would be too easy.
No, I see headlights. I peer out the window, taking it in.
One car outside the front gate. Another across the street. A third idling near the corner beneath the trees.
All are black cars with dark windows. All probably have men inside them who pretend not to look at the house while looking at nothing else.
My father’s men.
My stomach drops.
I stand at my bedroom window with my passport in my hand and understand exactly what I have done.
I told Sergei Markov where I was going.
The suitcase on my bed suddenly looks too big. Too obvious. And way too easy to stop.
I have to fix this.
I open the suitcase and start taking things out. The red dress stays. The heels go. Jewelry goes. Half the clothes go. I shove the passport into my handbag, pull on a sweater, then a long coat, and transfer what I can into a soft overnight bag that does not look like escape.
My hands shake so badly I drop my phone once.
When I pick it up, there are three missed calls from Papa.
One message.
Papa: Do not do anything foolish.
I almost laugh.
Too late for that.
Downstairs, the house is quiet. Mama’s door is closed. For one awful second, I think about waking her, but if I see her face, I might not leave. She’ll beg me to be careful. She’ll cry. She’ll ask me to wait until morning.
I cannot wait.
Morning belongs to my father.
Tonight is still mine.
I know the house better than his men do. They watch the front door, the driveway, the wide iron gate. They do not watch the side passage beside the old pantry because no one important uses it.
No one except a girl who used to sneak out at seventeen with lipstick in her pocket and rebellion in her blood.
The back door sticks.
I freeze.
Outside, one of the men coughs. I hold my breath and ease the door open slowly, until the gap is wide enough for me to slip through.
The cold, wet night air hits my face, and I breathe it in as my heart continues to race.
I move along the side wall, past the kitchen garden, through the narrow service gate hidden behind the bougainvillea. One thorn catches my coat. I pull it free too hard and hear fabric tear.
But I don’t stop.
Two streets away, I grab a taxi, my paranoia in full swing. I glance back over my shoulder while I wait, begging for it to hurry up.
By the time I slide into the back seat, I’m so anxious, I feel sick.
“Airport,” I tell the driver.
He glances at me in the mirror. “Domestic or international?”
“International.”
I sit low in the seat as we pull into traffic, clutching my handbag against my stomach.
For a while, the city passes in bright, blurred pieces. Shops are closing. Street dogs hang out near shuttered cafés. Men smoke beside parked bikes. Couples laugh beneath yellow light.
Normal people. Normal lives.
Not a father who posts guards outside his daughter’s house. Not a fiancé who leaves her for her stepsister. Not a woman running toward a country that no longer has any reason to welcome her.
By the time the taxi reaches the airport, I’ve stopped crying.
That feels like progress until I step inside.
The terminal is all glass and glare, too vibrant for grief. Families cluster around luggage carts. Businessmen move briskly past with phone chargers and expensive watches. A child cries somewhere near the entrance. Announcements echo overhead, calm and indifferent.
I lift my chin and walk to the international departures board.
Moscow.
Still there. Still real. For one foolish second, hope touches me.
Then I see them.
Lev and Vika.
My heart sinks.
He’s taking her in my place? And they’re leaving early?
They stand near the premium check-in counters with matching black luggage and passports in hand, as if this was always the plan. As if my trip was simply transferred from one sister to another.
Vika is wearing cream.
I don’t know why but that’s the part that enrages me most. She’s always wanted what I wanted. She made beige her personality when I decided I like it. Lev is no different. Unfortunately, he’s too vain to see through that.
Lev says something to her, and she laughs, leaning into his shoulder.
The sound reaches me through the terminal noise and lands like a slap.
They are going to Russia. They are taking my place.
For a second, I can’t move. I just stand there with my overnight bag cutting into my palm, watching the life meant for me continue without me.
Then Lev turns his head.
I step behind a group of passengers before he can see me. My pulse pounds in my throat.
No.
No, I’m not giving them this too.
I go to the nearest counter, not the premium one. I keep my head down, hand over my passport, and force my voice to work.
“Moscow,” I say. “I’m checking in.”
The woman behind the counter types. Her polite smile flickers. She types again. Then she looks at me with the careful expression people use before ruining your day.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. This booking has been cancelled.”
The floor seems to move beneath me.
“What?”
“This ticket was cancelled earlier this evening.”
“No.” I grip the edge of the counter. “No, that’s not possible. Please check again.”
“I have checked, ma’am. The reservation is no longer active.”
“I need to be on that flight,” I say.
“I understand, ma’am, but the ticket was cancelled. You can purchase a new one, subject to availability. The flight you originally booked is full, but we can put you on an available flight leaving… in two hours.”
“Yes. Fine. I’ll buy one.”
She checks again. Her expression tightens. “There are no economy seats left.”
“Business?”
“Full.”
“First?”
She hesitates. “There is one first-class seat available.”
“How much?”
She tells me.
The number is absurd. Cruel. More than what is available on the card Mama gave me for emergencies, because in our family emergencies apparently do not include being abandoned and trapped in an airport.
I open my banking app anyway. My fingers are clumsy. The screen blurs.
Not now. Not here. Not in front of strangers.
“Can you hold it?” I ask, and my voice cracks on the last word.
The woman softens. “Only for a few minutes.”
I nod like that helps. Like I have a plan.
I lower my head, one hand pressed to the counter, and for one terrible second, I almost break. Not elegantly. Not quietly. I feel it coming up my throat, the sob, the whole ugly collapse.
Then a voice speaks behind me.
Deep. Calm.
“Here.”
A black card appears on the counter beside my hand.
“Take my card.”
I go still.
The woman behind the counter looks past me, and her entire posture changes.
I turn.
The man standing behind me is older than Lev.
Much older. Late thirties, maybe early forties.
Tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in a dark overcoat that looks softer than sin and more expensive than my pride.
Silver threads cut through his dark hair at the temples.
His beard is trimmed close, also touched with gray.
But it’s his eyes that hold me.
Stormy. They aren’t quite blue or gray. Something colder, deeper, like weather over steel.
He looks at me as if he has already understood too much.
“I can’t take your card,” I say.
“You can.”
“I don’t know you.”
“No,” he says. “You don’t.”
His gaze moves briefly to my bare left hand, then to my face. Not an ounce of pity in his expression. Thank God.
I could not survive pity from a man like him.
The airline attendant clears her throat softly. “Sir, should I process the seat?”
He does not look away from me. “Yes.”
My mouth opens. “Wait.”
He tilts his head. The movement is small, but it silences me somehow. There is power in him. Not loud. Not performed. Just there, settled into his bones.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
His mouth curves, barely. “Roman.”
Only that.
Roman.
I should refuse. I should step away. Call Mama. Admit defeat. Go home before my father’s men find me and turn my life into another locked room.
Instead, I look past him.
Across the terminal, Lev bends close to say something into Vika’s ear. She smiles like she’s won.
“Fine,” I say.
His eyes darken with something that might be approval. The attendant takes his card.
A minute later, she hands me a boarding pass.
First class. Moscow.
My fingers close around it.
Roman finally looks away, toward security.
“Come,” he says. “You look like someone who should not be left alone tonight.”
I should hate the command.
But I just pick up my bag and follow him.