Chapter 20
Anya
I wake up alone, as always.
I’m used to the cold sheets on his side of the bed. The only proof he was even here last night is his scent on the pillow and the clothes still scattered across the floor.
So it wasn’t a dream, then.
Of course not. Dreams are supposed to be good, and I wouldn’t be this frustrated if I were dreaming—even though I came harder than ever before. The words I let slip before falling asleep still echo inside me, like an annoying, insistent rhetorical question.
How long is this going to last?
I stare at the ceiling, letting myself dwell on last night for a moment.
Maksim seemed ravenous for me, crazy with desire, and when he finally pulled down his underwear and started stroking himself, giving me a view of that enormous cock, I really thought he was going to finish with me.
But no. He chose to send me off to sleep and lock himself in the bathroom.
Maybe he really was crazy with desire, but not for me.
No.
I kill the thought before it can take root. Self-pity doesn’t suit me. I’d never lie here feeling sorry for myself over whether or not I’m an object of desire for the man who bought me.
Pathetic, Svetlana.
I use the name I don’t like so the rebuke stings more, but that only reminds me how I’ve come to like it when Maksim calls me that.
“What the hell!”
I grumble and jump out of bed. Today’s too important to waste time.
I head to the bathroom, shower, pin my hair in a tight bun, and put on the most versatile outfit I can find: leggings, boots, a tank top underneath, a cashmere sweater on top, and the pair of pointe shoes Maksim gave me that I’ve been religiously breaking in over the past few days.
I think I’m more nervous about this tea with Mrs. Gurenova than I was when I showed up at that registry office, ready to marry a man whose face I’d never seen. She said she knew my career at the Bolshoi, and it’s been so long since anyone’s said that, I don’t quite know how to react.
Even with uncertainty churning in my stomach, I leave the room and walk down the stairs with my head held high. If my idea of teaching some classes there is accepted, it’ll be the first thing that’s truly mine since I arrived in this house.
No.
It’ll be the first thing that’s mine since the accident that took everything from me.
Almost at the bottom of the stairs, I’m startled by what I see. Or rather, who I see. Yelena is leaning against the wall next to the front door, and looks like she’s been waiting a while.
In the few times we’ve crossed paths since I moved in, she’s always been like this: polite, contained, and distant.
Always observing more than speaking. It’s hard to form any opinion about her, especially because in this house full of enormous men, this small blonde woman makes me feel more scrutinized than anyone else.
“Are you taking me?” I ask, because it’s the only explanation I can find for her being at the door at eight in the morning.
Yelena doesn’t answer.
Instead, she uncrosses her arms and holds out a knife toward me. She grips the blade with her slender fingers. I notice her short, well-manicured nails painted black as she offers me the carved handle.
I look at the knife, not understanding. I look at her, then back at the knife.
“Take it,” she says.
I reach out and take it. The handle is dark wood, carved with grooves that fit the fingers—it looks like fine artisanal work, more functional than decorative. The blade is short, a little smaller than my hand, and when the morning light hits it, the gleam is lethal.
“Why are you giving me this?”
“Because a woman in the Bratva needs to know how to defend herself.” Her voice is hard, clipped, like someone with plenty of experience being a woman in a world of men. “And because I don’t want to lose anyone else in the family.”
Family.
The word hits me in a place I didn’t even know existed.
She said “family” as if I were part of it.
Yelena spoke so naturally that it would be pathetic to question whether she really sees me as family.
Me, who entered this house sold like cattle, am now “family” to this woman who’s barely exchanged three sentences with me.
“I won’t know how to use it,” I admit, because it’s true and also because it’s better not to drag out the conversation about my place in the family. “I’ve never used one.”
“You’ll learn now.” Yelena steps away from the wall. “Pay attention.”
Then she starts talking. Fast and clipped, like someone who’s given this lesson a thousand times and has no patience for distracted students.
“Hide it here, inside the belt.” She touches her own hip to demonstrate.
“Or in the boot shaft, if your pants are tight.” She indicates my legs.
“Or here.” She pulls the neckline of her blouse, showing the strap and part of the fabric of her bra.
“It has to be somewhere your hand can reach fast—faster than other people’s eyes. ”
I nod.
“Hold it like this, not like this.” She wraps her hand around mine, correcting my fingers. “Blade out and thumb locking the handle, understand?”
“Da,” I answer, serious.
But the moment her hand releases mine, I relax my grip a little. It’s not much, but it’s enough to irritate her.
“If you hold it loose like that, you’ll lose the knife and your hand with it.”
I swallow hard and grip it firmly again, the way she showed me before.
“Good.”
“And then I...”
“Then you cut.” She starts pointing to spots on her own body like a flight attendant demonstrating emergency exits.
“Here, on the wrist, the inside. The side of the neck, and here”—her fingers point to the groin.
“Any man will go down with a stab to the balls, no matter how big he is. And in this house, they’re all built like tanks. ”
“Are you giving me permission to stab your cousin if he pisses me off?” I let out a short laugh, as involuntary as the comment.
Yelena doesn’t laugh.
“I’m not joking,” she says, but I notice she’s trying to hide a smile.
I crouch down to tuck the knife into my boot shaft the way she taught me when a movement catches my eye. I glance over and see Yuri coming from the kitchen with another pack of gummy bears in his hands.
“Are you threatening to rip the heads off her dolls if she doesn’t give you the test answers, Lena?”
Yuri teases as he walks past us with a little laugh. I catch Yelena rolling her eyes as I stand up.
“I did that when I was ten, Yura[22],” she calls after him as he keeps walking. “And if you keep telling that story, I’m going to cut all the cables on your equipment.”
He laughs, already disappearing up the stairs, and the sound is so unfamiliar that I’m left gaping for a second. I look from one to the other, trying to piece together their relationship. My head is swimming with questions, but something tells me Yelena isn’t the best person to answer them.
“Remember everything?” she asks once I’m standing and composed again.
“Yes.” I give a quick nod.
“Good.”
Yelena is almost at the door handle when I blurt out the question that’s been screaming loudest in my head. The one only she can answer.
“Who did you lose?”
She stops.
It’s not a dramatic, cinematic movement of someone caught completely off guard. Nothing like that. Yelena just pauses as if she’d been expecting the question, yet still finds herself flooded with memories.
“My father,” she says, her voice firm but grief lurking beneath the words. “He was a Brigadier. Got caught in an ambush in Moscow territory when I was seventeen. Viktor Orlov—the Pakhan who pulled the trigger.”
I wait half a second for the rest, but it doesn’t come.
Logic says there should be mention of a grieving, devastated mother, but she says nothing.
There doesn’t seem to be any mother in Yelena’s story—at least not after her father’s death—and I understand this is another one of those questions you don’t ask.
I know all too well what it’s like to have a hole shaped exactly like a mother and not want anyone poking at it.
I remember she called me family, that she wanted to teach me how to protect myself, so I say something sincere—something that might reassure her.
“They already tried to kill me with a car, and I’m still here.” I shrug. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Yelena looks up at me and smiles. A small, sideways smile.
“No,” she agrees. “I don’t think you are.”
The moment breaks when a man appears in the hallway. Big, trimmed beard, tattoos creeping out from the edges of a suit jacket that does nothing to hide the bulk of the gun tucked in his waistband.
“This is Grisha,” Yelena says, slipping back into her practical, direct tone. “He’ll take you, pick you up, and never lose sight of you.”
“I don’t need a bodyguard.”
“Complain to the Pakhan, not me.” She shrugs. “I’m just making introductions.”
Without waiting for a response, Yelena turns and heads for the stairs, taking them two at a time. I look at the enormous man waiting for me, wondering if being this gigantic is a prerequisite for joining the Bratva.
“Keep the knife with you.” Yelena’s voice drifts down from the top of the staircase. “It’s my belated welcome gift.”
I feel the weight of the dagger at my ankle and instinctively shift my foot to adjust it. When I turn to thank her, Maksim’s cousin has already disappeared.
Grisha drives the whole way in silence, and I’m grateful for it.
Yelena’s mention of family hit me harder than I expected.
It’s been just over a month since I arrived at this house.
One month. And these people—all of them, even Olga, who at first was more standoffish than the bear hiding in the backyard—have given me a sense of belonging I’ve never felt in my life.
For twenty-six years, the people I called family never did a tenth for me of what these strangers have. Strangers they sold me to.
What a fucked-up situation.
I rest my head against the cold glass and watch the streets pass by. I didn't ask for any of this, and now I don't know what to do.