Chapter 1
NATALIA
Are you trying to trick me, beautiful?
The very first glance tells me this is not a forgery, but I pore over every last detail to be sure.
The dappled light and shade on the duck’s feathers, the silver gleam of the candle-stick holder, the unnatural angling of the duck’s corpse.
The painting is a still life of something dead. Breathtaking in its awkward way.
And “missing” for decades.
I’ve never set foot in an art gallery, but I’ve seen some of the world’s greatest lost works of art. Some art forgers are good, but I’m better.
I don’t know what it is.
Maybe I have particularly strong eyesight, or pattern recognition. Maybe it’s because I’ve been around paintings and sculptures my whole life.
Our household is a revolving door of priceless artwork — the Bratva’s insurance policy.
Art goes missing, art gets stolen, but art rarely gets destroyed. There’s something about it that compels us to treasure it. The final resting place for every missing or stolen piece of art is the black market.
The same paintings are traded, again and again, as collateral for deals. The Bratva doesn’t trust the Mafia, the Mafia doesn’t trust the Bratva, but neither of them wants to burn a Rembrandt. So someone like my father looks after a Rembrandt for as long as the deal with the Mafia lasts.
And in between, the paintings are all mine to look at.
I wasn’t allowed to go to college, no matter how much I begged, but I’ve been around these priceless artworks my whole life. They come in and out of the household every week.
Each time we let one go — and they always do go, eventually — it breaks off another piece of my heart. The artworks are my friends.
People, I’ve always struggled to read. But paintings? Sculptures? I could spend a lifetime teasing out their secrets.
My cat, Dasha, is lounging in a patch of sunlight on a chair next to me. I stroke the soft fur of her belly absentmindedly, still not dragging my eyes away from the painting.
Tell me your secrets.
I scan every inch for a flaw that might clue me in to something wrong.
There’s nothing.
I smile and note my verdict in the notebook.
I’m good at this. I would be happy to stare at paintings for the rest of my life.
Unfortunately, my parents are constantly scheming to drag me away from this and marry me off to some man who will want me to stay away from Bratva business, including the artworks. Art is not women’s business, apparently.
I’m so absorbed in the crisp beauty of the Cholmondeley painting that it takes me a while to notice that Mama and Papa have lowered their voices, like they don’t want me to hear.
I tune into the rapid rhythm of their Russian. They often speak in Russian when they’re talking without me, forgetting that they’ve paid for years of private tutors to come to the house and make sure I know the language inside and out.
“…they were supposed to be on alert for him as soon as we heard what had happened to the Ivanov Center. It’s sickening that they let him in.”
“I know, I know. We thought we had it under control in Siberia. But the psikhushka…”
This word slips me by. Something to do with physical therapy?
“…couldn’t hold him forever. Not a man like that. He is a brute, but he is smart. He will have been planning this for years. They say that one of the female doctors was giving him favorable treatment.”
“Favorable treatment?”
I don’t catch what my father says next, but it outrages my mother.
“Disgusting. How could someone be tempted by a monster like that? Knowing what he’s done to our family? To the Bratva?”
I hear the thud of Mama hitting Papa with a rolled-up magazine, the way she always does when she’s angry.
“I know, lyubov moya. It is shocking, given how many rubles she was paid.”
“The real problem, Maksim, is on our end. The ports. Our ports! Didn’t you tell your guards to turn him away? What use is our influence and control if we can’t keep scum like him out of the city?”
My father heaves a sigh. I can imagine the way he’ll be pushing his glasses up his nose in distress without looking up from my painting.
“He overpowered them, Milusia. It is hard to control a man like that.”
I’ve never heard my father’s voice drip with such venom. He’s normally so mild and controlled.
“And are we safe here?”
The rising tone of Mama’s voice, nearing a panic, is what makes me look up. Mama loves to worry, but she’s not melodramatic. The only time she sounds distressed like this is when we talk about my brothers…which is why we’re rarely allowed to mention them.
“Calm down, calm down,” Papa snaps. “There are issues with some loyalists at the port, of course, but it’s not like he has any real influence.”
Mama lowers her voice back to a hiss. “We are talking about a killer, Maksim. An insane murderer. He was supposed to rot in Siberia. He is exiled from all Bratva territory.”
“Sometimes the past comes back to haunt us.”
“Maybe we need to leave the city.”
Leave the city?
I haven’t left New York since I was a child. I’ve barely been allowed out of the house since I was eleven. Since everything happened with my brothers…
My heart pounds in my chest. Whatever my parents are talking about, it’s something serious. Something out of our ordinary routine of visits from art dealers, hosting dances and high teas with the rest of the Bratva.
My father tuts his tongue. “We won’t be intimidated out of our own home by a lowly peasant like him.”
“We are not safe here, if people like that can walk the streets.”
Who are they talking about? As much as I’d like to stay in my quiet afternoon with my painting, my curiosity wins out. As soon as I catch my Mama’s attention, she won’t leave me alone until we’ve arranged every detail for the engagement party tonight.
“Mama, who are you talking about?”
Mama rearranges her face into a false smile. “Nothing to worry about, malyshka. You know how the Bratva loves to gossip.”
I know how my mother loves to gossip. And I know that her empty gossip with the other Bratva women doesn’t normally center on murderers. This is something different.
Papa frowns at Mama.
“Milusia, I think it is time we told her the truth.”
Mama hits him with her magazine again, but my father straightens his shirt and clears his throat, beckoning me to come over.
Mama shakes her head at me, but Papa shoots her a look.
“Natalia is old enough now that she can know this. She should know this, before she marries.”
Mama sighs and turns to me, opening her hands. I walk closer and she covers both my hands with her own.
“Malyshka, now, don’t be afraid.”
I roll my eyes. Mama loves to treat me like a child, but I’m twenty-one and we are a Bratva family. She should be able to trust that I can handle the darkness of the world.
Instead, her mission has always been to shelter me from it.
“I won’t be afraid, Mama.”
My father clears his throat nervously, wiping his hands down the front of his tweed suit.
“Your brothers…”
We never talk about what happened.
This is the first time in years my father has mentioned them.
“My brothers?”
My mother tightens her grip on my hands.
“Look what you’ve done, Maksim. You’re upsetting her, and before the important dinner tonight.”
My engagement dinner with the Chicago Romanovs is the last thing on my mind.
Pyotr and Fyodor were my older brothers and I loved them with all my heart.
They were twins, ten years older than me.
When I was eleven, they died in an accident on the docks.
Something went wrong with a ship’s engine while they were working.
They were so badly burned that the funerals were closed-casket.
There was no chance to see them one last time and say goodbye.
I was inconsolable. I’d never known that kind of grief where it squeezes your heart and doesn’t let go, not really, until the moment that I realized they were never coming back.
Every night that first year, I really expected they would burst in with a silly re-enactment of a fairytale that would entertain me past my bedtime until my nanny would drag me away to go to sleep.
With them gone, my life was transformed. Drained of color, with only Papa and Mama and me. I retreated into the paintings, obsessed over them, pushing people away.
It wasn’t just my life that changed, but my value within the Bratva.
With my brothers dead, I am now the heir to the Bryusov name. Whoever marries me will take the Bryusov seat on the Bratva Council and all the power that goes with it. My husband will inherit everything.
Suddenly, I went from being a spoiled child who was irrelevant to Bratva politics, to being the center of the Bratva for every family with aspirations to power.
To my friends, I was no longer Nat who they’d grown up with. I was now Natalia Bryusova, always carrying my family name with me. I hated it. I could no longer look my friends in the face without seeing what I was worth to them.
My father is fidgeting the way he does when he’s nervous, straightening his tie before he speaks.
“Your brothers didn’t die in an accident, malyshka.”
Well, that’s not correct. My father was the one who told me about the accident, who sat me down and explained it to me when I was eleven. I didn’t want to believe it, but now I know that it’s the truth.
“Yes, they did, Papa. The ship’s engine? The explosion? You told me.”
He gives a grimace. “We wanted to protect you. There was an explosion, but it was not an accidental one.”
I glance at my mother for confirmation and she nods, her eyes sparkling with tears.
“Oh, it was terrible. That monster…”
“What monster?”
“Aleksandr Zhukov.”
The name means nothing to me, but Mama says it like it’s a forbidden curse word I wasn’t supposed to know about. She’s grasping my hands painfully tight now, her knuckles white.
My father nods seriously.