25
“See? I knew it. And you with your head full of stupid doubts, thinking he didn’t love you,” Grace scoffs.
I haven’t told her anything about our marriage.
That’s something that will remain between the two of us for now.
“That look on your face tells me something else happened.” I shake my head quickly.
“Don’t lie. I know you better than you know yourself,” she says in a demanding tone. “Did you have sex? God, finally!”
“No, we didn’t.” She makes a disgusted face. “I don’t think he wants to yet,” I add with a grimace, hearing her snort on the other side of the call.
Last night was the perfect moment to do it. I even sent him some very direct hints, but nothing. He dodged them all. It seems he loves the idea of penetrating me with everything except his penis.
“Then seduce him until his balls are about to burst.” I burst out laughing. Tears welling up in my eyes. “That’s a good plan.”
“It is,” I agree with a smile. Maybe I should start looking for some birth control pills. Just in case.
“Then we have to buy some very sexy lingerie,” she says.
As I am about to answer, I notice an unfamiliar car entering the garden. When I see my brother getting out of the car with a huge smile on his face, my lips part in confusion. Where did he get that car?
“Lena?”
“Sorry. I’ll call you back.” I end the call and in the blink of an eye I’m already running down the stairs to the main floor. “Not so fast,” I tell my brother. “I’ve already seen your new acquisition.”
“Do you like it?” I nod.
“It’s very nice. It must be quite expensive too,” I say.
“It is. I’ve been doing some business with dad.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? I need to earn some money too,” I mutter with a pout on my lips.
“What for?”
“That’s none of your business,” I say with an amused smile, crossing my arms.
“Fine, then don’t come asking for a ride in my car later.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Yeah, right,” he says sarcastically before turning around and climbing the steps past me.
When I see Lance and my father walking toward the exit, I head there too. I greet them with a smile, but that doesn’t make my father look any happier to see me.
“I’m really sorry,” I say, pouting. “Will you forgive me? Pretty please?”
“This will be the last time you disappear like that, you know we don’t like it when you do that.” I nod quickly, hanging on his arms and planting loud kisses on his cheeks.
“I promise,” I say with a smile from ear to ear, pulling away from him. “And where are you going? Aren’t you supposed to be resting?” I ask as he is about to get into the car.
“I’ll be fine, we’re just running some errands,” he says with a broad smile. I know what that smile means. Before he can close the door, I get in the car too.
“I’m coming with you.”
“You’re not going anywhere. Get out of the car,” he demands, signaling whoever is in the driver’s seat not to start the engine.
“Please. Nothing happened the last time I went with you.”
“I said no. What’s gotten into you now?”
“I just want to help you. Your leg still hasn’t recovered.” I bite my lower lip, lowering my tone. “And well, I need money too.”
“Isn’t the weekly allowance I give you enough?” he asks, raising his eyebrows.
“Yes, but I need a little more.”
“More? What for?”
“I need to buy some things, update my wardrobe, makeup. You know, girl stuff.” He sighs. “And this way I’m doing something productive, like a summer job.”
“All right, but not a word of this to your mother. If she finds out, she’ll kill us both.”
“Thanks, you won’t regret it,” I say, throwing myself into his arms.
As I walk down the steps, a man stops a few feet away and bows his head, speaking in an almost hesitant voice.
“Mr. Novikov is asking for you.”
I turn on my heel and head for the main room, preparing myself mentally for the bullshit he will put me through. My father’s reproachful voice greets me as soon as he sees me.
“If I don’t come to see you, I don’t know shit about you. Not a call, not a message. Nothing.”
“What the fuck do you want now?” I ask.
“Let’s go somewhere else, somewhere we can be alone,” he murmurs, glancing at the guards around us as if he’s about to tell me some kind of secret.
“Speak fast. I want you out of my house.” My blood is already running fast and heated.
I tap my pockets, searching for a cigarette and the lighter. His words almost stop me in the middle of bringing the cigarette to my lips.
“Fuck. You are still pissed with me, aren’t you?” He asks, lifting his eyebrows in a mocking glare. “Come on, son. I already told you next time I will let you be a part of it all.”
“Don’t call me that,” I spit out, letting the smoke escape my mouth.
“Calm down. No need to get so emotional. I just want to know how the plan is going. We have to find another way to take him down.”
“I never agreed to that! I told you the other day. And that shit makes you look even more fucked up than you already are,” I retort, pointing to his gold tooth.
The alcohol must be wreaking havoc on him if at some point during our last meeting at his house he understood that I agreed with his plans to take Ray down.
I know it’s what’s expected of me. That my hesitation in making a decision will begin to affect my reputation among our people, but I just can’t. Not when she’s in the middle of it.
“Stop playing games with me. We had a deal.” His voice raises a few octaves, making the corners of my lips lift slightly in a short smile.
“I don’t remember agreeing to your deal either, Kristoff.”
“Fine. I never knew what you saw in that brat, but just because it’s you, I’ll make you an offer.
” He moistens his lower lip and smiles as if he’s about to reveal the solution to world hunger.
“If you help me destroy Ray and his empire, I’ll let her live, and she’ll be all yours.
I’ll make sure of it myself.” I laugh loudly, almost choking on the smoke.
“You want me to join your shitty plans in exchange for something that already belongs to me?” I ask without a trace of the amusement that had been in my eyes before. “Do you hear yourself?”
“I’m offering to protect her. You know that under my protection, nothing and no one would be able to touch her.
Not even you. If you think the bond you created with her behind my back could be of some use to go against me, you’re wrong.
” His face contorts with irritation at the mocking smile I maintain even after his revealing words.
It was only a matter of time before he found out, but the fact that he has discovered it now makes me think that someone else has told him.
“You may be my successor, but you know I am above you, and it will remain that way until I stop breathing. You still have a lot to learn.”
“Is that a challenge?” I ask, tilting my head.
I know the bloodbath that will follow the day I decide to end his life.
In the eyes of others, it would be seen as an unforgivable betrayal on my part.
And it would be. But sometimes I like to fantasize about it.
More than I would like to admit. He just has to press the right buttons for that to stop being only a fantasy, and lately he has been trying very hard to do so. Seems he has a death wish.
I whistle to the man lying on the soft dog bed by the unlit fireplace.
He immediately runs to me. His face lit up as always when it’s time for his damn walks, panting.
He’s putting on weight. Or maybe he’s too old to have the same stamina he used to.
The chains move with a metallic sound on the floor.
I grab the end and put it around my hand, leading him forward.
I have to pull on the chains when he tries to run, almost choking him.
“Fucking slow down,” I say. He starts sniffing the grass and flowers, not giving a shit about what I say as he pushes his body forward again.
I grab my phone and unlock it, going to Denis’s latest message.
It’s a pic of him smiling and posing next to a packaged kidney on a metal tray in the dungeons.
Vlad is next to him, seemingly oblivious to the camera pointing at him too.
I send him a thumbs-up emoji, not seeing the man biting into a bunch of dead lilies until he’s chewing them and ready to grab another.
“Fuck. Don’t do that,” I snap. “You’ve already fucking eaten, why are you eating that now?” I ask with annoyance, leading him to the path where there are no flowers or grass.
He lifts his leg and pisses on the grass. I focus my attention back to the chewed flowers, waiting for him to finish peeing to continue our path. Now I’ll have to buy more seeds. I want to keep the flowers I know she likes for when she wants to move in with me. Again.
Three years ago, in Toronto
Age 21
Lena had run out of the dining room after another argument with Polina.
They didn’t get along well, but I didn’t know why.
I found her in the library, reading the sacred scriptures on the rug in front of the unlit fireplace, a pout on her lips.
Her sad eyes met mine when I closed the gate.
I sat down next to her, glancing at the page out of the corner of my eye.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, stroking her cheek. Her frown relaxed almost instantly.
“It says here that in Catholicism, the fleur-de-lis symbolizes purity,” she said, turning her face away, as if she were ashamed of something.
“You said that was your favorite flower, that it was a reflection of me, but I’m not pure…
” Her lips turned into a pout again. “I have dark and perverse thoughts, and they won’t go away… ”