ROMAN #2
“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “My father wants me at the table, so I’m at the table. He wants the children seen, so they’re seen. He wants Arkady entertained, so here we are.”
There is a bitterness in it that feels old.
I look at her son. He’s still standing close to her side, pretending not to listen and listening to every word. The little girl is staring at a gull like she wants to challenge it personally.
“How long has he been doing this?” I ask.
Katerina knows what I mean. “With Nikolai? Long enough.”
I nod once. That’s all I trust myself to do.
Because now I understand what I’m looking at.
Sergei brought the boy into the council room to let people see him.
Today he puts Katerina beside Arkady in daylight, in public, in a place where anyone passing can read the scene and repeat it later.
He’s building something. Respectability. An alliance. A fence around a problem.
Her. Maybe the children too.
Sofia looks up at me. “Are you angry?”
I look down at her. “Why?”
“Because grown-ups get very still when they’re angry, and you got very still.”
Katerina mutters, “Please stop being observant for five minutes.”
Sofia ignores her. “Well?”
I answer her because children deserve answers when they ask clean questions. “Yes.”
“With Mama?”
That almost makes me laugh. “No.”
“With the birds?”
“Not yet.”
She seems satisfied with that.
Nikolai finally speaks. “Arkady smells bad.”
Katerina closes her eyes for one second.
I say, “That’s because he’s a piece of shit.”
Katerina looks at me sharply. “Don’t tell him things like that.”
“Why? It’s accurate.”
“He’s four,” she says, shaking her head.
“He noticed on his own,” I say, before turning to Nikolai. “But you’re right. I’m sorry. We don’t use language around here.”
Katerina still looks pissed off. She hates that because she knows I’m right.
A couple passes behind us, glances at the children, at Katerina, at me, and the man smiles.
“What a lovely family,” he says to no one in particular.
Then they keep walking.
None of us says anything for a second.
Sofia looks pleased. Nikolai goes quiet.
Katerina goes still beside me, and I can feel the tension in her without touching her.
I look at her profile. She’s staring straight ahead like if she moves too fast, the whole moment will crack open.
Then she says, brisk and controlled, “We should go back.”
She gathers the children at once, one hand finding Sofia’s shoulder, the other reaching for Nikolai.
The spell breaks.
As we start back toward the table, I say quietly, “You don’t have to marry him.”
She gives me a look that’s tired, sharp, and much too honest all at once.
“No,” she says. “I’ll just tell my father a dangerous man I used to sleep with advised against it. I’m sure that will solve everything.”
I take the hit because I earned it.
But I say, “I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
That ends it.
We walk the last few steps in silence.
At the table, Vika is still smiling too brightly, and Elena looks like she would rather set the restaurant on fire than sit down again. Arkady rises halfway when Katerina returns, eager and unpleasant.
I look at him once, and he sits back down.
Katerina notices that.
Her eyes flick from Arkady’s face to mine and back again. She doesn’t smile, but I can see the recognition in her expression. The old man was halfway up, full of oily manners and borrowed confidence, and now he’s sitting down like his knees remembered their age all at once.
I take my place at the table without asking permission from anyone, which is apparently enough to ruin the seating plan Vika had imagined for herself.
Elena sits to my right before Vika can recover.
Katerina ends up across from me with Sofia beside her and Nikolai between her and his grandmother.
Arkady is on Katerina’s other side, which means he now has to speak to her over the edge of my patience.
She hands Sofia back toward her chair, settles Nikolai with a quiet word, then looks at me and says, in the driest tone I’ve heard from her all day, “So. You’re just joining us for lunch?”
“Yes, me and Elena both,” I say glancing at her. To Elena’s credit, she keeps her face neutral.
Vika turns to her slowly. “Do you always travel with him?”
Elena folds her hands. “Occupational hazard.”
Arkady lets out a strained little laugh, the kind men make when they realize the women at the table are now more dangerous than the men.
Katerina gives me a look over the rim of her water glass. “You weren’t invited, you know,” she says.
Roman doesn’t even look at her. “And yet here I am.”
Vika scowls at Katerina. “Don’t be rude, Katya.”
Arkady clears his throat. “Well… The more the merrier.”
Sofia looks at Roman. “Are you rich?”
Katerina closes her eyes. “Sofia.”
“What? I’m asking.”
Roman says, “Yes.”
Sofia nods, satisfied. “I thought so.”
Nikolai, who has been staring at Roman in that quiet way of his, asks, “How rich?”
Roman glances at him. “Rich enough not to answer that.”
Nikolai seems to respect that.
Arkady laughs too loudly, trying to make himself part of the moment. “Children are always so direct.”
But that’s not it. They’re much too mature for four-years-old. I don’t have much experience around children, but even I can tell something is wrong. The answer comes to me almost immediately.
Sergei Markova.
I saw the way my father raised Lev, even from afar. Was the same happening to Katerina’s children? The thought leaves a disturbing taste in my mouth.
Sofia points at Arkady. “He keeps smiling weird at Mama.”
Katerina nearly drops her fork.
Elena turns her head away, but Roman can see the corner of her mouth move.
Arkady goes red. “I beg your pardon?”
“You smile like you want something,” Sofia says.
“That’s enough,” Katerina says quickly, though her own face is turning pink now. “Eat your lunch.”
Roman leans back in his chair and says, “She’s observant.”
Katerina shoots him a look. “Please don’t encourage her.”
“She doesn’t seem to need encouragement.”
That earns me a brief glare, which I enjoy more than I should.
The waiter appears almost instantly, because expensive restaurants have a way of sensing disruption and translating it into service. He begins to ask if I’d like a menu.
“No,” I say.
Katerina mutters, “Of course not.”
I look at her. “Should I pretend I need one?”
“You could pretend to be normal for thirty seconds. It would broaden your range.”
Sofia brightens immediately. “Mama says that to me too.”
Nikolai says, very serious, “It doesn’t work on her either.”
The waiter is still standing there, trying not to visibly panic.
I order lunch for myself, then glance at the children. “What are they having?”
Katerina answers before anyone else can. “They already ordered.”
“Do I trust your choices?”
“No.”
“Good,” I say to the waiter. “Bring them fries.”
Katerina turns to me. “Absolutely not.”
Sofia gasps. “Absolutely yes.”
“See?” I tell Katerina. “I’m building trust.”
“You’re building rebellion.”
“Children need goals.”
Nikolai looks at me as if weighing whether that sentence is useful enough to keep.
Arkady decides this is his moment to recover his dignity.
“It’s good to see a man so comfortable around children,” he says.
I turn my head and look at him.
The table goes quiet.
He smiles, but the smile is working too hard.
I say, “Is it?”
“Yes, well.” He clears his throat. “Not everyone has the temperament.”
Katerina reaches for her glass too quickly and nearly knocks it over. I catch it before it spills.
Our fingers brush for half a second.
She pulls back as if I burned her.
Arkady tries again. “Katerina was just telling us how much she enjoys the pier.”
Katerina turns to him with a level stare. “Was I?”
Vika cuts in, smiling too brightly. “She meant the children enjoy it.”
“Did I?” Katerina says again.
This time even Sofia notices the strain and looks between the adults with the fascinated alertness of a child who knows a fight has started and hopes it becomes memorable.
I decide to help.
“Arkady,” I say, “how long have you known Sergei?”
He blinks at the change in direction. “Years.”
“How many?”
“Ten. More, perhaps.”
“Interesting.”
That one word is enough to make him uneasy. He reaches for his wine, then seems to remember It’s still the middle of the day and settles for water instead.
I ask, “And you often lunch with his daughter?”
Katerina’s head turns slightly toward me. There is warning in the movement.
I ignore it.
Arkady gives a small, practiced smile. “This is the first proper chance.”
“Proper,” I repeat.
He nods.
Vika jumps in quickly. “Papa thought it would be nice.”
“Did he?”
“Yes,” she says, with the confidence of a woman who is already overexplaining.
Katerina looks at the sky.
“I see,” I say.
“I just want to settle down,” Arkady says.
“A little too late for that,” Katerina mutters under her breath.
That thought settles in my head just as Arkady says, a little too casually, “The old families are all being very careful these days.”
I look at him.
He takes a sip of water and instantly regrets speaking.
Vika frowns. “What does that mean?”
Arkady gives a dismissive wave. “Nothing. Just business.”
But I hear it.
I say, very mildly, “Careful about what?”
Arkady laughs. It comes out thin. “Surely you know better than I do.”
“Try me.”
Katerina is watching me now. Not the performance, not the lunch, not Vika. Just me.
She feels it, too. The shift.
I keep my eyes on Arkady.
“Nothing, nothing,” he says.
But I know that look.
Men like Arkady don’t get spooked by ordinary business. Something is going on, and I intend to find out.