Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Mikhail ’s Real Life
Practice runs late on Thursdays. Coach is in a mood, barking orders like someone pissed in his coffee, and by the time we hit the showers half the team is limping.
Volkov is humming. He does that sometimes. Soft. Under his breath. Like pain is a background noise he enjoys.
We finish up, head into the hallway in our winter coats, steam still clinging to our skin. I am planning to grab the metro back to the apartment my brother and I are renting when I hear Mikhail call out.
“Kilovac.” I turn. He is leaning against the wall like a scene from an ad campaign. Hair damp. Hands in pockets. Eyes bright with something between mischief and intention. “You walking?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Come with me.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Where?”
“My place.”
I snort. “No.”
He blinks slowly, like no one has ever told him no in his entire life. “Why not?”
“Why would I?”
He shrugs. “We have a history assignment. I am not doing it alone.”
“We do not work well together.”
“That is why it will be interesting.”
I shake my head. “I have things to do.”
He steps closer, eyes narrowing in challenge, like inviting me is a game now. “Afraid?”
I laugh. “Do not confuse disinterest with fear.”
He smiles like that is exactly the answer he wanted. “Come on.”
Before I can argue again, he is already walking, expecting me to follow because of course he does. People like him are raised to believe the world moves with them.
I do not follow at first. Then I do. Not because he asked. Because I want to see what his perfect life looks like up close.
We walk through the city, snow drifting lightly.
Mikhail talks half the way about hockey strategy, about the next game, about the winger who keeps missing open nets.
He talks as if he's filling a space no one else knows how to fill.
He talks to me like he expects me to understand.
I do. Then the neighborhood changes. The buildings get taller.
Cleaner. More glass. More security cameras.
Mikhail nods to the doorman at the entrance of a high-rise that looks like it should have a red carpet rolled out front.
“Evening, Mr. Volkov,” the doorman says immediately.
Mr. Volkov. He is fourteen. What the hell.
We step into a marble lobby where everything gleams. Elevators with gold trim. Water feature running along the wall. The kind of space were silence costs money. I feel out of place instantly. Mikhail doesn’t.
In the elevator, he leans against the mirrored wall and watches me instead of the numbers. “You look uncomfortable."
“Should I pretend not to be?”
He grins. “No. I like honesty.”
I raise a brow. “Since when?”
He shrugs. “Since I met someone who doesn’t lie to impress me.”
The elevator opens into a penthouse lobby.
An actual lobby. Not a hallway. Not a shared floor.
A lobby that belongs entirely to his family.
He enters a code. The door unlocks with a soft chime.
The moment we step inside, I know I was wrong to assume anything about privilege.
This is not luxury. This is a cage made of glass and gold.
The space is massive. White walls. Cold lighting.
Art that probably costs more than my brother and I will make in the next five years combined.
But it is silent. Too silent. The kind of silence where emotions are not allowed.
“I hate this place,” Mikhail says like he is commenting on the weather.
“Looks expensive,” I say.
“Expensive doesn’t mean good.”
He tosses his bag onto a couch that looks like it’s never been sat on. I remain standing.
He glances back, irritation flickering. “Sit, Kilovac.”
“I’m fine.”
“Sit,” he repeats, not as an order but as a request threaded with something he doesn’t know how to name.
I sit.
He grabs two waters from the fridge and tosses one to me. Then he drops onto the floor instead of the couch, stretching his legs out like a kid who never learned how to relax properly.
“We can work here,” he says, spreading out textbooks. “No one will bother us.”
“No parents?”
He scoffs. “My father’s in Geneva. My mother’s in Dubai. Or maybe Milan. Depends on which friends she’s pretending to care about this week.”
I pause. “You live alone?”
He smirks. “Not alone. Staff.”
“Staff?”
“Yes,” he deadpans. “People who raise me, so my parents do not have to.”
He says it like a joke. It is not a joke.
I watch him for a long moment. “You okay?”
He looks up sharply, not expecting that question from me.
“No one asks me that,” he says.
“That is not an answer.”
He exhales. Slow. Controlled. Too controlled for fourteen.
“This life is not what people think,” he says quietly. “You think privilege means freedom. It doesn’t. It means expectation. It means never being allowed to be weak. It means being molded into a product.”
Something twists in my chest. Recognition. Not the same kind of suffering. But suffering all the same.
I sit next to him on the floor. Not close. Not far. He gives me a hesitant sideways glance.
“You do not fit here,” he says.
“I know.”
“And you do not want to.”
“No.”
He nods. “I envy you.”
I laugh once. “You envy the scholarship boy?”
“I envy someone who doesn’t belong to anyone.”
The silence that follows is different. Not cold. Not empty. Shared. We start the assignment, but we don’t talk about history. We talk about hockey. We talk about coaches. We talk about expectations.
He talks about the military tradition in his family, how his father is already planning where he will serve at eighteen.
I talk about my brother, though not everything. Not the bruises. Not the reasons we left St. Petersburg.
By the time we finish, it is dark outside.
Mikhail walks me to the door.
“Kilovac?”
I turn.
“Do not tell anyone,” he says softly, “that I do not like my life.”
“I won’t,” I say.
He nods once. “Thank you.”
As I step into the elevator, he stops me one more time.
“And Aleks?”
It is the first time he uses my name.
“Next practice?”
“Yeah?” I ask.
“Hit me harder.”
I grin. “Gladly.”
The elevator doors close between us.
But something settled in that penthouse. Something I did not expect. Something I will not name. Not yet.