20
Vega moonwalks to the couch and drops with a sigh.
"You got all of that?"
"Yeah."
"Big fat lie," I blurt. "Your brow’s twitching—dead giveaway you didn’t get any of it."
"No…" She huffs, flicks a strand of hair aside. "I’m freaking out. I keep falling flat on my face and bouncing back. And still, Alaska, the girl is dead serious. Like, serious serious. This isn’t some lame joke."
I nod, even though my brain is buzzing. Irina Popova: businesswoman, mobster, big sister who crawled out from under a loose floorboard, and if we swallow the family soap opera, maybe the fix for half the catalog of our messes.
The night dissolves into theories and straight-up gossip; we run through what little we know—zilch—and open tabs like maniacs. I don’t sleep a wink. Neither does Vega. Who sleeps with this hanging over us?
By five we’re sprawled on the floor, tablets everywhere, cables snarled, and the bag of chips promoted to household pet.
Reddit becomes our oracle, although according to Reddit, Irina was raised by ex-military wolves in Siberia.
One thread calls her “Businesswoman of the Year,” the next gives her three passports, two islands, and a private gym with a boxing ring in the living room.
The internet is on fire with blurry photos of some random lady in a massive coat.
Wikipedia gets edited and unedited, and a bot drops us into a Telegram channel selling courses on how to become a capo in thirty days, PDF diploma included.
"Dude, look at this," Vega says, handing me the tablet. "There’s a guy who says Irina cut some dude’s head off with a katana."
"Send me that link, but listen to this first." I toss her my phone. "Someone claims she’s Putin’s secret daughter, has caviar for breakfast, and recites insults in Old Russian when she’s pissed."
"Checks out. Better source than the guys at TMZ."
We laugh till we hiccup, stomachs cramping, ugly tears and all. Between fits of laughter, a weight drops in my chest. Nostalgia, anxiety, the urge to die for a minute and come back.
The bag of chips stares at us. The memes bless us. Keep this up and tomorrow we’ll take for granted that Irina lands in a rental-reindeer sled, officially adopts us, and hands over an apartment in Moscow with central heating that never fails. Doesn’t do a damn thing about the nerves.
"Vega…"
"Mmm."
"What if she’s lying to us?"
"Irina?"
"No. Nat. What if this is a slow-burn indie movie and I’m the loser whose name shows up misspelled in the credits?
Maybe that ‘Irina won’t allow it’ line is a bluff and she just doesn’t care about me, period.
Although, hey, Irina was super nice, right?
Did you see that smile? When someone is that friendly, my alarm goes off. That smile gives me hives."
Vega puts on her sensible face. Her eyebrow trembles—her way of agreeing even if it doesn’t sound like it. She lowers her voice, so low it buzzes through the floor.
"Nat’s not lying to you, Lasky. She might rip your heart out tomorrow and fry it up with onions, I don’t know, but she struck me as real. Genuine. She’s holding things back, sure, we weren’t born yesterday."
I breathe wrong. Life jams between my sternum and that black hole where I stash dramas and crumpled receipts I never toss. I straighten up, something cracks, and I couldn’t care less.
"We have to play our cards right, Vega. This changes everything. Or nothing. And if it changes things, let it catch us ready."
"Or nothing, sis. Maybe she meets us, decides we’re too much trouble, and bounces—family tradition."
Something in me splits. I slap on emotional duct tape.
"If she blows us off, screw her. We just met. You? I’m never letting go."
We go silent for ten seconds, the oven clock flashing a time that doesn’t exist. My brain clicks. I put on my inexperienced-operations-chief voice.
"Strategy. Research, observation, patience. See where the shots are coming from, literally and figuratively. No charging in headfirst. We want real info. We want to know if she’s actually a Russian mob boss or just well-connected and heavy on the posturing.
And we don’t ask for big favors until we understand what game she’s playing, Vega—you know us. Full caution."
"And if she turns out useful, we drop the thing she could help with," Vega finishes, eyes wide, kid-in-a-candy-store excited.
"Yeah, but without looking needy. We watch first, then fire off questions. I don’t want to end up in a windowless room signing papers I don’t understand."
"I want to believe. This gives me hope. Maybe something finally goes right."
Vega laughs, high-fives me, hands me another chip. We open a crappy Word doc with columns: leads, sources, suspicions, bad jokes. We save screenshots, lean on Russian translation. Vega draws a relationship map on a napkin. I snap a photo. Very neighborhood CSI.
"And if she ghosts us in the end," she murmurs, "we go to Plan B."
"Chips, Netflix, blanket. Then start over. And always together."
D-day, zero hour: there it is, the gleaming black beast. And heads up, it’s not Nat’s usual ride—no, it’s a Mercedes, the kind that makes it clear your fate today is either the trunk or adoption by the mob, nothing in between.
Vega’s in ecstasy: she’s been performing for half an hour, trying impossible angles, puckering, and using those filters that give you a fairy face but the soul of a Jersey Shore extra. All to post a story that says “wish me luck #MeetingMySister #IrinaPopovaIOfferYouMySoul.”
Me, I just touch up that fire-engine red that’s basically my whole personality now. I don’t know if it’s for the official portrait of the illegitimate heir or in case there’s a funeral today and I want to look decent in the pictures.
We head down and Nat’s already in the driver’s seat, serious face, tight jaw, huge eyes that, depending on the light, either blow me a kiss or dig a trench.
Not even a hello. No bullshit. Both hands on the wheel, short nails, a thin ring she didn’t have yesterday.
Vega dives into the front seat and her backpack lands with a thud.
I drop into the back, knees against the seatback, phone in hand, stomach on strike.
She pulls out. Tension slides in with us and squeezes my chest.
“Are you okay?” I ask in my nice-girl voice, the one I use when I pretend my heart isn’t jammed in my windpipe, see if it lands and she remembers I used to be her favorite toy.
“Yes,” she says, flat, no bow on it.
I stage a whole movie in my head: black-and-white shot, me crumpling in slow motion, her tearing her blouse at the Fontana di Trevi for me, finale at the aqueduct in Segovia with a scream that reaches Guadalajara.
In real life, all I manage is to keep pestering—grandma at Sunday lunch, retelling the same anecdote.
“Did you sleep?”
“Not much.”
Internal translation: don’t even look at me. I go full nosy-aunt investigator, crank up my internal Law it scrapes. “Yesterday you looked at me.”
“I look at you all the time.”
“Then it doesn’t add up. Why not? Why can’t we see each other? Irina seemed nice, Nat. She won’t meddle if she wants to stay on my good side. And if we have to hide, we hide. Spy-hour meetups, weird-emoji texts, the car parked far away—I adapt.”
“You have no idea who Irina is yet,” she says, flat. “And it’s not just her. It’s everything. There’s a system. A network. Something that gets inside you and you never shake it.”
“And you? Aren’t you part of it?”
“Yeah.”
“So what am I, then? A bug? A virus? That blue screen that ruins your morning?”
“No.” She breathes. “You’re a mistake… but one I like. One I want to erase and save at the same time.”
I claw my palm with my nails. Don’t cry. Don’t you dare.
“Don’t take me for stupid. I’m dead serious. Don’t pull the intense-looks, ‘I love you, but I can’t’ move. I’m not buying it.”
“I can’t be with you and be loyal to her, Alaska.”
Bam. Dead center in my chest.
“Then choose.”
My voice comes out calm and cold, hand icy and face burning. Say you choose me. Say it. Say it now. She blinks, changes lanes, wets her lips. Everything slow, real.
“I already did,” she whispers.
I swallow the scream. Fine. Message received, Alaska.
Time to fuck off with elegance. Instant fantasy so I don’t break: she looks at me and adds “I choose you, Pikachu,” we take off in a blue Panda to Benidorm, neon sign, a grimy churro joint; instead of sugar, orgasms on a napkin; cortado and a quickie in the storeroom between sacks of flour.
Laughter with echo. Happy ending. Cut. Back to the misery booth: no Panda, no Pikachu, no churros.
We turn onto a dirt road. The car shudders and rearranges my guts.
To the right, rows of olive trees; to the left, sky-high cypresses; above, a drone watches us for a second and peels off.
At the guard booth, the guard raises a hand.
The dogs bark half-heartedly. I laugh on the inside out of pure rage.
We go in. The gate clacks shut behind us, the sound rattling my skull. Nat parks by the main door, sets her fingers on the wheel. She doesn’t turn. She doesn’t ask. She doesn’t touch me.