Chapter 13 #2
I pause. Does she know about my situation? Does everyone know? I’ve been operating under the assumption that everyone is well aware of the arrangement. Regardless, if Anya isn’t clued in, she needs to be if I’m going to make her my ally.
“I hate this,” I tell her. “This… situation that I’m in. This is not how I planned on being married.”
She nods slowly. “You know, arranged marriages were common in my grandfather’s day, back when Russia was the Soviet Union. Poor fathers with pretty daughters were always auctioning them off to rich or powerful men. It was just something that was done.”
Ah. She does know.
“Of course, now, it’s rare, even in Russia,” she continues. “Individualism and all that. People want to be able to choose their mates, and rightfully so.”
“Are you married?”
She laughs. “No. I would never dream of doing such a thing. Marriage is fine for some, but for me. Not a chance.”
I start biting my lower lip. Butterflies flutter in my stomach. “So, if your father wanted you to be married—”
“My father is dead,” she says. “Has been for many years. This is the sort of thing that happens between Pakhans when their children are of age.” I tilt my head and she says, “I mean a boss. It’s the one thing you and Alexei have in common.”
“Valid,” I say. “I guess you don’t really have any point of reference for my situation.”
She just stares at me, her eyes softened with genuine kindness and maybe a little sympathy. “That doesn’t mean I can’t empathize to some extent. This last week must have been very difficult.”
“Yes. Being married to a man like Alexei, I don’t know. He’s not someone I ever would have dreamed of being with.”
She raises an eyebrow. “So, you’re not attracted to him?”
“No, it’s not that. I mean, he’s very handsome, it’s just that he’s so… I don’t know. Rough. Beastly, I guess, is a better word.”
She starts to speak, but we’re interrupted when the waiter brings us our food. The burger Anya has ordered is huge. She picks up a knife and fork and cuts into it.
“Has he hurt you? Physically, I mean?”
I shrug. “Not really. Not in an abusive way, I guess.”
She nods. “Good. Your being harmed would be very bad for both your fathers.”
I just look down at my salad. Good thing they didn’t marry him, I guess.
“Not that I had any real doubt,” said Anya. “Alexei isn’t really the abusive type. Actually, you’re lucky that it was him you married and not his brother, Pavel. That guy’s got a screw loose or something. Very quick to anger.”
“And Alexei isn’t?”
She pauses, then her face splits into a smile. “Listen, if you’ve managed to have an argument with him and you walked away from it, trust me, you got the better deal. Alexei has better control over himself than a lot of the men in this family.”
I tilt my head curiously. “That’s… I don’t really know how to take that.”
She’d cut her burger in quarters and was now taking a bite with her hands.
“You probably have this preconceived notion of him. Maybe you’ve heard something about his father being an underground fighter or about some of the deeds that Alexei has carried out as his father’s right hand.
But, I can tell you as his cousin, the big, scary, muscle man thing?
It’s just an act to keep the boyeviks in line. ”
I poke at the lettuce on my plate. “He’s making me stay in the penthouse. He says I can’t leave.”
She doesn’t debate with me. She simply nods and replies, “You can’t blame him for being cautious. He’s afraid you’ll run like your sister did. ”
“He locks me in the bedroom at night,” I tell her. “I mean, sure, I did try to leave a couple of times, but he doesn’t have to treat me like a child. Or a pet or something.”
She snickered. “Leave as in go to the grocery store or to the airport?”
I sigh. “It’s still a bit of an overreaction.”
“It’s not. Everything that your fathers are working to build will fall apart if you two split up now, and the last thing I think you want is a pack of angry Russians looking all over the state for you. The way I see it, Alexei was doing you a favor.”
I hate that she’s right. As barbaric as that whole thing was, he only did it because of how serious this arrangement actually is and how detrimental it could be to everyone if we did split up. Suddenly, I can relate to my sister’s selfish decision to run.
“Maybe after a few years when the alliance is strong and there’s more trust between our families, you can leave him. I’m sure not even Alexei would object to that.”
A few years? I can’t imagine that at all. The thought makes me a little queasy.
“In the meantime,” she says, reaching out and taking my hand, “take some free advice. You and Alexei have to see this through together, so why not make an attempt to get to know one another?”
“Get to know him?” I scoff. “Right. We don’t have anything in common.”
“How exactly would you know that? You’ve only just met him.”
I watch her take another bite of burger as I contemplate that. It’s logical. We didn’t even start off as acquaintances, really. We skipped a lot of steps to get where we are now. “I suppose it is a little silly to expect us to behave like newlyweds when we don’t even really know one another.”
“Exactly. Between you and me, you don’t have to be lovers here. You just have to stay married, which means the least you can do is be friends. Maybe even allies. The way I see it, Isabella, you could use some.”
She is so right. I guess I have been looking at this whole thing all wrong. Alexei and I are stuck in this situation together. We might as well make the best of it.
“Thanks for giving me advice,” I say to her. “By the way, you can call me Izzy. All my friends do. You might as well, too.”
Anya chuckled. “Izzy. I like that.”
The rest of the lunch goes fairly normally.
We eat and chat and she tells me all about her brother Dmitri, who just came back from being in Europe for several years, and a few other bits of gossip surrounding the Mechnikov family.
It’s comforting. It almost feels like when Annie and I used to gossip about our cousins and what they got up to.
I just got back to the penthouse and all I can think about is what she said about ‘getting to know’ Alexei. He’s still not home. Kind of hard to get to know him if he’s going to leave and stay gone for a whole day.
I go into the bedroom and lie down. My mind starts to think back to our honeymoon night. He makes love like a man who is well versed in the female body. Like someone who knows exactly what he’s doing. It makes me wonder how many lovers he’s had. Was he a ladies’ man prior to all this?
Handsome as he is, he’s probably had a line of lovers before this whole thing happened. I touch the comforter, wondering how many of them got it doggy style like I did. How many came in his arms between these sheets before me? The thought almost makes our night feel cheap.
Almost. He was a little rough with me, but also tender. I’ve heard so many horror stories of my friends getting whaled on with their heads hitting the headboard the first time. Alexei, on the other hand, didn’t try to rip me apart with his dick. He considered my pleasure in the equation.
I go to pull my phone out of the pocket of my sundress and it slips out of my hand, knocking into the edge of the nightstand before sliding down and under the bed. Dammit.
I get up and get down on the floor to look for it. It’s wedged between the nightstand leg and part of the bed. I reach for it and grab it, but I catch sight of a boxy shape shoved in the corner. In this light, I can’t really see it, so I turn on the flashlight.
It’s definitely a box. An old shoebox, from what I can see. It’s shoved right next to the nightstand, a place I never would have found just casually looking under the bed.
Probably shouldn’t snoop. Then again, he’s not here and how else am I going to have any clue when it comes to getting to know him?
I reach out and grab the box, bringing it out and into the light.
Sitting on the floor with crossed legs, I open it.
Inside are a collection of things. Polaroids, letters, a dried red carnation…
I look through the photos. It’s Alexei as a teenager.
He’s tall and lanky with a mass of blond hair, cut so that it’s falling into his face.
He’s fucking adorable. I can picture him riding on a skateboard in baggy clothes, his shoulders forward in a goofy stance.
Some of these photos, he’s with other people. One of the constants is a younger boy with long, dark hair and big blue eyes. His brother, Pavel, I bet. There’s also a young girl, thin and pretty with short, blonde curls and a mischievous grin.
There aren’t any names written anywhere, but the way she’s got her arms around Alexei, the way they’re kissing in some pictures… this was a girlfriend. A pretty special one if he’s got a shoebox of memories of her. She’s in every one of these photos.
I find some ones where the two of them are a little older. Maybe in their twenties. Nothing salacious, but they are in their underwear in what looks like a hotel room, laughing. The girl puts her hand up to hide her face in one photo.
It’s then that I see a golden ring sitting at the bottom of the box. Oh. Oh.
This wasn’t just any girl. This was a wife.