Chapter 03
Anya
The kitchen smells of spilled vodka and boiled potatoes.
It's not even eight o'clock, and my mother is already at that stage where her eyes glaze over and her mouth goes slack.
Galina is sitting at the kitchen table, picking at the peeling varnish on the old wood with her nail.
The glass in front of her holds a clear liquid that could easily be mistaken for water, if not for the smell coming off it.
I feel her gaze burning into my back as I wash the dinner dishes she didn't even touch. Just from the intensity of her huffing, I already know what to expect. She's got that bitter, envious energy—full of hatred for the daughter who dared throw away the golden opportunity to live out her dream.
I love ballet. I always have. But the minute my mother realized I was good, much better than she ever was, my life became hell. I was only seven years old.
“You're using too much water,” she grumbles, her speech slurred. “You think we're rich?”
I turn off the faucet, but don't respond. I've already learned it's better not to talk back when she's in this state.
The front door opens before she has the chance to continue spewing venom.
My father walks in, bringing the cold from the street and two men behind him. I recognize Aleksei Voronov by smell before I can even make out his silhouette: old sweat, cheap cigarettes, and vodka. The two men with him, though, I've never seen before.
One is impossibly tall. So tall he has to duck his head to get through the doorframe. He has a full beard and hair pulled back in a messy half-bun. When he crosses his arms, I can see tattoos covering his hands and disappearing under his coat cuffs.
The other is older. But it's not his appearance that tells me this. It's his posture, his elegance, and the few gray strands at his temples. He wears a three-piece suit that clashes completely with his giant colleague's leather jacket and my father's worn-out clothes.
It takes me three seconds to understand what kind of people are here in my kitchen.
They're not like the other loan sharks, who send dirty, sweaty thugs. No. These men have real money. Everything about them reeks of organization, serious cash, and violence. And only one name crosses my mind.
Bratva.
Fuck. My father got involved with the mafia. Just what I needed.
Aleksei, who should be panicking about having two mobsters standing in his tiny kitchen, seems euphoric. That's the word. Euphoric and fawning, gesturing to the two men as if he'd brought kings into the house.
“Anya,” he says, and the tremor of relief in his voice chills me more than these two guys staring at me. “It's over, sweetheart. The debt is over.”
“How?” I ask, though I have a vague idea of what this scumbag I call a father might have done.
“These gentlemen…” He turns to the men, seeking approval, but receives none. Only silence. “We made a deal, and it's all settled. You're going with them.”
I'm going with them.
Three haunting words. And he drops them with the lightness of someone commenting on the weather.
I look at my father, who stares back at me apprehensively, despite his relief. He's afraid I'll make a scene, that I'll scream, cry, and throw a fit, begging “please, daddy!” He doesn't know me at all.
This son of a bitch sold me.
He sold me!
I'm not going to give him the satisfaction of looking like a stern father in front of his “guests.” I'm not going to make a scene that lets him “put me in my place.” I'm better than that.
I dry my hands on the dish towel slowly.
Everything in me slows down when the world decides to speed up—stage training, the most useful thing sixteen years of ballet left me with.
Besides impeccable posture and chronic pain.
You don't panic in the dark of the wings.
Breathe through your nose and calculate.
And the truth. The truth none of them in that kitchen knows is that I'd already decided to go.
The backpack under my bed has been half-packed for six weeks.
Documents, the little money I hid in the lining of an old pointe shoe, two changes of clothes, and my phone charger.
Only one thing was missing for me to disappear from this city.
And it wasn't courage or money. It was a push. Knowing where to go. What to do.
“Give me five minutes,” I say, looking at the man in the suit, not at my father. It's better to speak to whoever gives the orders, not to whoever obeys.
He tilts his head slightly and furrows his brow. I think it's the first thing I've done that he didn't expect.
“Take all the time you need,” he replies quietly.
I climb the narrow stairs ignoring the brief twinge in my right knee from my heavy steps. The bedroom door slips from my fingers and slams harder than normal, making the sound echo through the house. My mother hates any noise. Today, however, I don't care about her reaction.
My worm of a father sold me, and she did nothing! What kind of mother does something like that?
“The Galina Voronova kind,” I mutter to myself, breathing deeply to control my racing heart.
I pull the backpack out from under the bed and check the lining of the pointe shoe with my fingertip to make sure the wad of bills is still there.
There's a good chance my parents have rifled through my things and stolen from me.
It wouldn't be the first time. I pray silently until I confirm everything's intact.
Good.
I put on the warmest coat I own. It's not warm enough for much of anything, but it'll do. I look around one last time. I feel nothing. That alone tells me I waited too long to leave.
Before leaving, I stop in front of the cracked mirror and fasten the earring firmly in my left ear.
My grandmother Aleksandra Voronova's pearl.
The only person in that family who looked at me and saw a whole person.
She died without seeing what I became. Thank God.
I rotate the pearl between my thumb and forefinger once, an old habit that brings me comfort. Then I head downstairs.
My damn knee gives out halfway down the stairs, forcing me to grab the railing. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the man in the suit shift forward an inch, as if ready to catch me.
Pathetic. The man who came to buy me wants to save me.
My father stands at the foot of the stairs and opens his mouth to speak, but I don't bother stopping to hear what he has to say. It doesn't matter.
In the kitchen, Galina sits with her glass of cheap vodka, greeting me with a bitter smile.
“Always knew you'd be good for something one day.”
I stop at the door.
“You were never my mother,” I say, without anger, because feeling anger would mean giving too much weight to someone who doesn't deserve it. “You were just the woman who happened to be here.”
I leave before seeing her face.
The air outside cuts like a blade and carries the usual smell of salt and sea, typical of this godforsaken place. The black luxury sedan is parked in front of the house. The giant from the kitchen opens the back door for me and waits. When I climb in, I freeze.
I expected the back seat to be empty. But it's not.
There's a man sitting there. Big, judging by the broad shoulders and the way his head nearly touches the car's ceiling. He doesn't move. Doesn't shift. Doesn't look at me. Doesn't even turn his head. He remains absolutely still, which makes the whole situation even more intimidating.
When the giant slides behind the wheel and starts driving, the streetlights illuminate the face of the man beside me. My heart freezes.
His face is a skull.
Matte black plastic, from forehead to chin. Two narrow slits where the eyes should be. For half a second, my idiot brain insists this must be a prank. Then I remember there's no one in my life who would bother messing with me.
I think I miscalculated the size of my father's debt. The Masked Man is here to collect. My chances of making lemonade out of this damn lemon just dropped from slim to none.
“Svetlana Voronova.” The deep, low voice fills the space.
The name my bitter mother called me, and my coward of a father's surname.
“Anya,” I correct, trying to look him in the eyes through the mask. “I prefer Anya.”
“Svetlana is prettier.”
His answer catches me off guard. I'm sitting here, fighting the tremor spreading through my body, and he's telling me my name is pretty?
Something is very wrong with this whole situation. Not just because I'm voluntarily sitting in a car with a mafioso. But because even though I'm afraid, I still want to know what's happening here.
“What do you want from me?”
The Masked Man takes his time responding, and when he finally speaks, his deep, low voice makes the word sound absurd.
“Marriage.”
“What?”
I don't bother hiding my shock. Because I am shocked. I left that cursed house imagining I could still argue with these guys. Maybe they'd say I'd become a prostitute. I'd offer my brain instead. Any service that didn't require paying with my own body. Marriage never crossed my mind.
“We're getting married tomorrow.”
The sentence falls on me like an anvil. None of this makes sense.
Nothing.
I have a thousand and one reasons to reject the proposal, make a counteroffer, or even try to jump out of the moving car.
But I don't do any of that. The truth is, maybe this is a better alternative than I imagined.
I'll end up married to a criminal. Still, it can't be worse than the hell I was living in.
“Okay,” I say. “Then we have some things to discuss.”
The mask turns half a degree in my direction, indicating I should continue. It's the first time he's moved. With that, his scent reaches me: cigarettes, cologne, and leather.
“What do you expect from a wife?” He doesn't respond. “I need to know if I'm going to live like a prisoner.”
“You won't,” is all he says.
“So I'll be able to go wherever I want? Do whatever I want?”
“You'll have permanent security.”
“How is that different from a leash?”
“This is my world,” he responds, unfazed. “You can go out, but you'll have two men a few feet away at all times, ensuring your safety. It's non-negotiable.”
In his world, maybe that was even an advantage. The guy was a mafioso. People whispered about him everywhere, from here to St. Petersburg. I nod.
“My parents…” I continue, finally getting to what really matters.
The Man watches me.
“I can make them disappear,” he says, like he's offering a glass of water. “Tonight, if you want. You'll never hear their names again.”
Predictable. He thinks it's a great gift for the woman who just got sold by her own father. This man doesn't know me.
“No,” I say firmly. “You don't touch them.”
I think I hear a gasp beneath the mask. Or a growl. I'm not sure. Could've been the wind outside, or the two men pretending to be statues in the front seat.
“They sold you.” He's irritated, after all.
“I know.” I hold what should be his gaze, but it's just the dark plastic of the mask. “That's exactly why.”
None of the men in here seem to understand, so I give them time to finally grasp what they're buying. Who I am.
“Killing is too quick. Done, gone, finished.
They won't even understand what they lost. I want them old and broken, rotting in that kitchen that reeks of cheap vodka. Knowing until their last day that the broken daughter they traded for a debt is alive, far away, and living better than they ever will.” I turn my face to the window.
“Leave them breathing. It'll be better that way.”
The car falls silent, but this time it's different.
The air in here is heavy. The man in the suit barely moves his head, as if he wanted to look at me, incredulous at what I said, but restrained himself.
The Man in the Mask beside me doesn't reveal much.
But I sense something's shifted in him. He's recalibrating what he thinks about me, just like that doctor at the hospital five years ago.
Good. Let him rethink everything he thinks he knows. Most people are wrong about me. That's not my problem.
“Do we have a deal?”
He stays silent for another moment, watching me.
“Yes.”
I turn back to the window. The city is just a scatter of lights, soon giving way to the darkness of the road and the fog.
After a while, I hear his voice again, lower now. I thought he was done talking, which is exactly why I'm caught off guard when he speaks, so quietly it's almost like he's murmuring to himself.
“You should be afraid.”
I don't take my eyes off the window.
“I lost my entire life in the gutter of a dirty street in Moscow when my knee was destroyed. Now that's scary.”
He doesn't respond this time, and I'm grateful for that. I bring my hand to my left ear and turn my grandmother's pearl between my thumb and forefinger, searching for something I can't quite name.
Calm? Peace? I don't think so. What I really want is for something in the universe to tell me if this is the right decision.
Outside, there's nothing but darkness. And beyond this darkness, a house I've never seen, with people I've never met, and a marriage to a man everyone fears.
This is the life I didn't choose, but the one I just negotiated for myself.
Clause by clause. Eyes wide open. I signed this contract as a party to it, not as merchandise.
When the sign marking the city limits flashes past the window and I see Vysotsk fall behind, I feel like I can breathe a little easier for the first time in five years.