Chapter 3 - Darya
It always takes a couple of days to shake him off.
I credit the win of going forty-eight hours without him—with his husky, imperious voice and his regal, pompous face—being in my head to my work.
The atelier requires a level of patience and attention to detail that leaves little to no leftover.
What does the incensing existence of a single man compare to the trying task of stabilizing a hairline fracture in a sixteenth-century panel painting? Easy: it doesn’t.
That man isn’t welcome in this space. Few are, in fact. I prefer to work by myself. My small team has an innate understanding of my process. They fade into the periphery, as does all else, and I get to hone in on the details of the day’s project. It’s meditative.
There’s nothing but me and this sixteen-by-twelve-inch oak panel, delineating a woman next to a window. She stares out of it with such deep melancholy in her opal eyes. It takes a moment, but once you see the level of dimension to the work, one can’t stop noticing it.
The style is obviously Flemish oil. A direct attribution isn’t known for sure.
My client believes it’s an unknown Mor. That’s an optimistic belief, one I couldn’t chide her for, because her enthusiasm is so charming.
Besides, the painting itself is in a sorry state for now.
Some hope is probably a good thing. It needs it.
Previous attempts at restoration—several, from the looks of it—have left a palimpsest overpainting across the lower third dimension.
Someone has varnished over dirt. The sight of it makes my blood boil.
I lose myself in the work.
It isn’t until my primary assistant, Filip, sets a matte black teacup of espresso beside me and I reach for it with desperation that I notice the light outside the windows.
Or, rather, the lack thereof. Beneath the alternating light of the UV lamp and raking light source, daylight is inconsequential.
Once I snap out of my haze, not so much.
“Thank you,” I exhale and roll back my shoulders. The knobs of my spine creak like the floorboards of a haunted house. I take a scalding sip of espresso, rising to my feet. I could use a little movement.
I pull my phone out of my purse, laying it on the antique writing desk I always discard it atop as soon as I walk into my office. Thumbing through a slew of notifications, my mind wanders back to the Yuri estate—to the study—like a dog returning to a door to a room he knows is locked to him.
My brothers are so tense. All signs point to the mole situation being more dire than they’d initially assumed.
I could tell that morning that they were dubious about the weight Anton was putting on his words.
Being on top led to many enemies; they were used to those attacks, but never from within our own camp.
They were initially defensive, inquisitive, vexed.
The past few days, it’s been closer to panic. There’s fury.
What there isn’t is an open-door conversation.
I suspect it’s a slap on the wrist for taunting the Zakharov Pakhan.
With a sigh, I purge the resentment from my system. It isn’t a productive emotion. And besides, it isn’t like I’m not aware that it’s beneath me to antagonize a man my family is in business with. I just can’t seem to help it when I see his stupid face.
Just thinking about him is aggravating enough.
Fortunately, combing through unread texts gives me the perfect distraction. I hit Call instead of Reply. Two rings later, my sister answers the phone with an unceremonious and uncouth, “‘Sup, bitch?”
“That is not how adults answer the phone,” I laugh down the line, polishing off the rest of my espresso like a shot of mezcal.
“This one does,” Nadya counters cheerfully.
And, to think, a part of me had been afraid that distance from our family and a marriage that dragged her to another city would change her. But Nadya is still Nadya—maybe even more so than she was before.
A pang hits me. My chest aches with missing my baby sister.
“What are you doing with your day today?” I ask her, hungry to be able to envision her life; a life that is so grievously separate from mine these days.
Picturing my wild sister’s life has never been easy.
She never has the same day twice. And she’s rarely, if ever, spent a day of it as I choose to spend most of mine.
But now, the distance makes the fact itch worse.
Even if we’re so different, we may as well be opposites.
Still, what is closer than two sides of the same coin? It is, after all, the same coin.
“Dealing with a super-stressed husband,” Nadya shares openly.
It’s just as well. Our brothers ensure we’re always in possession of a secure line, impossible to tap. Therefore, I don’t bother pretending I don’t know what she’s talking about.
“Mole?” I ask and confirm in the span of a single word.
“The fucking mole,” Nadya agrees.
If I’m surprised Anton shared the situation with Viktor, I don’t plan to be overt about it. I can’t help but dig a little, however. “Anton Zakharov came to the estate at the beginning of the week with the news. I didn’t get the impression he trusted that Viktor had nothing to do with it.”
I’m definitely shocked when Nadya laughs in response, but that’s mostly due to how harsh and mirthless that laughter is. It isn’t like her to sound so bitter. “That man doesn’t trust anyone.”
I don’t share that he’s probably wise for that. Just look at what Viktor pulled. Whatever way my brother-in-law wanted to slice it, betrayal is betrayal. I’m not stupid enough to say any of this to my sister. Instead, I question, “Then how does Viktor know about it?”
“Anton told him. The bare bones of it, at least. Getting him to say more was like pulling fucking teeth. Maxim helped, though.”
I stall. “That’s—?”
“His cousin.”
“Anastasia’s brother?”
“Yeah, he and Vik are besties. Anton and Stasi are besties. There’s probably a weird line-in-the-sand thing going on there. I don’t know, D. Zakharovs are fucking weird.”
“You’re a Zakharov now,” I tease.
Nadya scoffs, unbothered. “Yuri blood in my veins forever, baby.”
I sink into the velvet-upholstered chair tucked by the desk. Tucking the phone between my ear and shoulder, I busy my hands cleaning up some brushes. “Always and forever,” I agree.
In my mind, I can see her broadly sprawling, impish grin. “Tell you mine if you tell me yours.”
“That’s a bad deal, Nadya. I promise your husband discloses more to you than our brothers share with me.
You know how they are.” I ignore her inconducive muttering of, Do I fuckin’ ever.
“All I know is that they’re tense. They’ve been behind closed doors a lot.
I think I’ll ditch Sunday brunch. Sleeping in sounds more fruitful than witnessing a black mood no one’ll explain.
I swear, I could never be married to a Bratva man. ”
Once upon a time, Nadya would’ve agreed with me. It was one of the few things we’d always been on the same page about. And now, she’s the wife of one anyway. Funny how life works sometimes, isn’t it? She’s happier than I’ve ever seen her.
I often see evidence of why. It’s present in the fact that she’s privy to how “Anton’s told Viktor to plant some false information in New York and see how deep the treachery runs or whatever.”
It sounds like Nadya is directly quoting Anton. I can hear his voice shaping those words. He has a theatrical way with words; I’ll give him that.
It’s a smart strategy, I can admit. I’d rather leap into a vat of acid and let it eat away at my flesh than pay Anton Zakharov the compliment out loud.
“He’s doing something similar on this side,” I inform Nadya. “Trif and Val seemed on board with that plan. But I don’t know how I feel about that man’s primary goal feeling like one of ours fucked up.”
“Knowing our brothers, they’ll handle Anton just fine.”
But how? I hate that I don’t know. It bothers me that I don’t—that they won’t talk to me.
“Of course they will. We probably just won’t know how until after the fact.” I try to push the words off as wry, but even I can hear the note of annoyance that chases them like a shadow.
I know I’ve got to get over it. I’m not Nadya.
I’ve no desire to act out because I’m not thrilled about the unexplained ramping up of security that follows me around.
I can be displeased, but there’s nothing to be achieved from throwing that displeasure in anyone’s face. I can control myself better than that.
Well... with one unfortunate, obvious exception.
With Anton Zakharov, my displeasure drips from every thought, kept inside or spewed aloud. He coaxes the pettiness tamped down inside me. I’d mind it if how ill-equipped he is to handle someone handing his ass back to him weren’t so genuinely hilarious.
It stays hilarious, so long as I don’t think too deeply about it. Because then, I’d actually have to contemplate whether it was me getting beneath Anton’s skin that got him to reach out to his brother.
I’d have to think about the look on his face when I threw the words in it, when I called him lonely.
I’d have to confront that I know he is, because I recognize the feeling these days.
But I don’t have to think about it because I have a sister who loves me enough to change the subject. “Whatever. Fuck men. What painting are you geeking out over today, by the way?”
Despite everything, I have someone who can still make me smile to myself. That isn’t everything, but it comes pretty damn close.
***
One by one, all three of my employees bid me a goodnight.
By now, they know better than to play savior and try to outlast me at work.
I run a tight ship, it’s true, but it’s an exceptionally well-oiled one.
It’s why, despite being a private, word-of-mouth operation, the atelier is a wildly successful venture in its own right.
I stay later than intended. Then again, that’s not unusual.
There’s always more work to do at the atelier. Spending the better part of two hours on the phone with my sister renders time liminal, and we chatter as I run through a series of tasks. I can only assume she misses me, too, if she can keep herself from getting antsy for that long.
Eventually, though, she runs out of steam. At least that’s what I’m going with, since I’ve got less than no interest in interpreting the sounds after I heard her husband return home from his day.
I’m not bothered by the silence after we hang up. I treasure it after a bout of its absence.
Honestly, sometimes, I question whether I show up back at the family estate so often because I’m getting too used to the quiet cocoon of this life I’ve fashioned for myself.
It’s a life I enjoy. I like it. I like the work I do, and I like that I’m spectacular at it.
I like the trappings of the atelier itself that I chose, every detail of it, painstakingly particular, with no one around to call it overkill.
I even enjoy that, of all three of the security guards who’ve been tasked with following me around, one always steps forward to carry my purse, and then all of them fall in line, matching my gait step for step, all the way to the Cadillac Escalade parked at the curb.
And I enjoy every second of the drive back to my pre-war townhouse in Beacon Hill, which I purchased with my own dime.
Not being let into the grim intricacies of Bratva business has its perks. I can tell myself that, and have it be the truth.
Yes, it bothers me that my brothers are all in on it. That most of them have partners to go to bed with, and I wonder sometimes if they share as much with them as Viktor Zakharov does with Nadya.
Yet, in the absence of answers, I still can’t wait to walk through the door and let my housekeeper, Vera, take my coat for me.
Waiting for me is a stew to warm my belly with, because that is what I asked for before I left in the morning.
I may not be privy to clandestine words around a breach in security, but neither are there any words for how forward I look to taking a wineglass of scrumptious red to the hot bath I’ll soak my body in tonight. That isn’t nothing to me.
Life is a game of odds that way, I find.
Every step up the stairs to my stoop, I remind myself of it.
I’m a little too entranced by my own train of thought, apparently, to do anything but half-listen as I enter my home. I’m caught up in the tirade in my head, which trips over something Vera says, registering with a delay.
“—your visitor in the sitting room. I offered tea, but he—”
I balk.
“My what?”
Vera blinks at me, color high in her cheeks. She’s worked for me for the past four years, and I know her not to get easily flustered. Yet that’s exactly how she looks. “Miss, he—” she clears her throat, soothing her somewhat high-pitched words. “He arrived twenty minutes ago. I did try to call—”
I snatch my phone out of the pocket of my coat, where I’d tucked it before leaving work. There are no missed calls from anyone but, yes, Vera. My family always calls before showing up. They know better than to surprise me. I stare at the clock on the screen.
There’s no good reason anyone would show up here past 10 PM. I find nothing delightful after 9.
Vera squeaks, “I can—”
I shake my head. Absolutely not. “It’s okay. I’ve got it, Vera, thank you,” I say curtly, not happy that she’s just allowed someone in.
I cut a sharp, irate path towards the sitting room to find out just who that someone is. It’s a path that falters when he steps out into the foyer to meet me halfway.
Oh, I think. My breath stalls in my lungs, leaving them to burn from the lack of air. Still: Oh, my brain says. Stupidly. That’s all I can think of at the sight of him, taking up space in a doorway, his broad-chested body making me feel narrower than I know I am.
It happens so swiftly, my nervous system seems to glitch. One moment, I am mired in indignation. In the next, only shock reverberates through me. The only small comfort at my disposal is the certainty that ire isn’t likely to be far behind.
It never is when I’m confronted by Anton Zakharov.