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I hold my sister, squeezing her shoulder in what I hope is a reassuring gesture. Ania’s mother was a prostitute whom she had never met. Our father, the cold bastard that he was, never showed her any love, but even she can find it in herself to mourn him. Ania has always been quiet and introverted. She’s only eighteen.
“Yeah,” I mutter.
“Is it true you’re getting married?” she asks a moment later, looking up at me with shock.
I laugh gruffly. “News travels fast. Is Mikhail here?”
She steps back, fiddling with her dark hair. “Yeah, he’s in the study. We talked a bit.”
I repress a sigh. Mikhail finds it challenging to interact with Ania, though I know he always tries. “Whenever I look at her, I think of him with another woman…”
When Mikhail first said that to me, I told him our father had been with countless other women apart from our mother, and we might even have more brothers and sisters we don’t know about. Supposedly, Ania’s mother wanted nothing to do with her, but I’m not sure that’s true. If it came from our father’s lips, that was reason enough to doubt it.
“How’s the practice going?” I ask.
Despite the dark circumstances, a glint of light enters my sister’s eyes. “It’s going well… I think. I’m better than I was, anyway. Do you think with Dad… Do you think I could maybe perform?”
Our father never wanted Ania to perform. I never understood why, but it was probably just another way for him to exert control. “I don’t see why not.”
Ania smiles, taking my hand, and we walk into the house together. Yuri, the old butler, stands in the hallway with his hands behind his back. His hair is almost entirely white now. His dedication to his job is such that, until it’s time to work, he won’t even move.
“Hello, Yuri,” I say.
“Hello, sir.”
“He finally arrives,” Mikhail says, walking down the large double staircase. At the top, dominating one wall, there’s a painting of Mikhail, our mother, father, and me. This was painted shortlybefore our mother left. Sadly, she wasn’t able to enjoy her freedom. She passed away from a vicious flu that took her unexpectedly. Ania was a baby then but isn’t in the painting. Our mother didn’t want our father’sbastardinvolved, she said. She was better than our father but still had her mean side.
Mikhail has thick, black-framed glasses perched on his head, holding back his brown, floppy locks. His hair is long to his shoulder, and he’s wearing a cardigan sweater and jeans with little holes in them. He’s always been the more “trendy” one.
Mikhail doesn’t even try to hide how unbothered he is, drawing a concerned look from Ania. He bumps my fist. “Howdy.”
“Try to take this seriously,” I tell him, glancing at Yuri.
Mikhail snorts, clapping Yuri on the arm. “Yuri knew just what type of man our father was, don’t you, Yuri?”
“I’m only here to serve, Master Sokolov.”
Mikhail laughs darkly. “I guess we need to talk business, brother?”
I nod, wishing we didn’t have to. I wonder how soon I can get that painting removed. I’ll put a new one in its place—one that includes Ania. The work looks shoddy, anyway. Maybe I can get Lia to paint something.
Ania follows Mikhail and me as we walk toward the staircase. Mikhail waves a hand at her. “It’s probably better if we do this alone, Ania.”
He doesn’t even look at her as he speaks. I want to give him a sharp slap to the head for being so rude, but our father died today—a few hours ago. I’ve got to give him some slack.
“It’s okay, Ania,” I say. “We’ll talk later.”
“I thoughtyouwere supposed to be the spare,” she snaps at Mikhail, then strides off toward the left, most likely toward the basement door.
“I don’t think she likes me,” Mikhail says as we walk through the house together.
“You could make more of an effort with her,” I tell him.
“Maybe.” He readjusts his glasses. “Are the others coming?”
Bythe others, Mikhail means the other Bratva men, the soldiers, the lieutenants, and everybody else. I lower my voice as we walk down the wide hallway together, past classic paintings that somehow seem bland when I think of Lia’s sketch. It wasn’t even a complete painting—just asketch—yet it had more of an effect on me than any other work ever has.
“We need to be careful.”
