“I suppose she just wanted to move somewhere where there’re a lot of Russians. Fox River fit the bill,” he’d said. It seemed so odd to me back then that our trusted housekeeper, who moaned about the winter as early as each September, would willingly choose to move to Alaska. It also struck me as weird I couldn’t get her address. Send her some flowers or a gift basket for all those years she’d helped us. She’d disappeared from the face of the earth.
Now, the pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fall into place.
Nicholai.
Ruslana.
The affairs.
Amanda.
Above all—the way my father was treating me now, when he thought I was onto him. How he locked me out of his kingdom too.
I stood up, leaving the scattered papers on the study’s floor. My mother tried to stop me at the door, but I pushed past her, ran out of the apartment building, leaned into a bush, and threw up.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ARYA
Past
“Where is he?” I demanded the day after Nicholai had been sent home, standing at the edge of my father’s study. It had taken me a full day to look at him without fearing I’d physically attack him.
Ruslana had continued fulfilling her duties as if nothing had happened, but each time I tried to ask her about Nicky, she either pretended not to hear me or made a show of washing the dishes and folding the laundry, as if she couldn’t possibly talk and perform her tasks at the same time.
Dad glanced up from his paperwork, dropping his pen and leaning back in his seat. “Sweetheart. Where’s your mother?”
“Take a wild guess.” I propped a shoulder against the doorframe, my voice barely a hiss. “It’s fashion week somewhere in the world. She is probably burning your money while bitching about you simultaneously.” Actually, she was at a yoga retreat, but I wanted to bad-mouth her. This was the first time I said something mean about her to make myself feel better. Weirdly enough, it didn’t work. The bitterness clogging my throat was getting sharper each day. Like a rubber ball with more bands. “Now answer my question—where’s Nicky?”
Dad rolled his executive chair back, gesturing for me to take a seat in front of him. I made my way to the chair, keeping my expression stern.
“Listen, Arya, there’s no easy way of saying this. But I suppose the truth is one thing even I can’t protect you from.” He scratched his cheek. “Let me start by saying I regret the way I reacted when I found you two. I cannot stress that enough. You are my daughter, and protecting you is my chief concern. When I saw him cornering you against the shelves, I thought . . . well, actually, I didn’t think. That was the problem. I acted out of pure paternal instincts. I would like to assure you that I later went to see Nicholai and expressed my remorse over my behavior. I am not a primitive man. Violence is beneath me. So first, let’s get this out of the way. He looked fine and well. A few scratches, but nothing more.”
I looked skyward, at the cathedral-style ceiling, to prevent myself from crying. I knew I couldn’t let him get away with what he’d done. More than that, I couldn’t get past that even if I wanted to. What I’d seen was a violent, mean man. A man I didn’t want as a father.
“You’re lying,” I said coldly.
“You think I’d lie to you?” He looked at me helplessly, a different man from the one I’d witnessed yesterday beating Nicky to a pulp.
“Yes,” I said flatly. “You’ve done much worse to Nicholai.”
“About that.” Dad considered his next words. “Sweetheart, I just . . . I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. I know you and Nicholai were close. But after I went to apologize to Nicholai in person, he made a request I couldn’t deny. You have to understand, I only did what he wished for me to do because I felt so guilty. And . . . well, I couldn’t exactly turn him down, in case he’d use what I’d done against me. I had our family to think of. You can’t just stay here with your mom on your own.”
“What did you do?” My voice was so cold shivers ran down my back.
“Arya . . .”
“Spit it out, Dad.”
He closed his eyes, letting his head fall into his hands. This week was the first time I wondered if Dad wasn’t all good. The idea was too much to stomach. He was, after all, my only family.
“He asked me if I could buy him a one-way ticket to his father, who lives in Belarus. I agreed.”
The world around me spun, though my feet were still rooted to the ground.