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“So …” It takes a lot to challenge Dad, but even if my life here is darkened with stress and anger and abuse, at least I’ve got my brother Drake. At least I’ve got my computers. I can escape mentally, at least. “Wouldn’t it be better if I didn’t marry him? Then you can follow one of your contingency plans?”
Dad smirks. “Yeah, that’s an option. It would also make thingsmucheasier if you could do what you’re told andmake him want you.”
I feel sick hearing my father say this. There’s no point in me explaining that I’ve never wanted anybody. I only want to put my headphones on, blast music, and move my fingers across the keyboard at lightning speed. It’s all I’ve wanted since booting up my first laptop, but Dad wouldn’t care. He doesn’t care about anything unless it brings his Bratva some benefit.
“Okay, Dad,” I say, the only thing Icansay unless I want to make things worse. “Is there anything else?”
“How about a kiss for your old man, huh?” he says with a wet grin.
I walk around the desk and kiss his cheek, tasting the sweat. Once I’m out of his office, I run through the house, into my bedroom and the en suite. I gulp mouthwash, swilling it around my mouth and then spitting it out. I do it three more times, then return to my bedroom.
Drake is sitting on my bed waiting for me. His real name isn’t Drake. It’s Anatoly, but he came to me a few months ago with a determined look on his face. “I don’t want to be Anatoly anymore. I want to be Drake. It’smyname. I want to be myownperson.”
My little brother’s feet dangle off my large, four-poster bed. I’ve spent my entire life in luxury, but it all feels meaningless. Drake—I even think of him as the name he wants since he deserves it—looks ready to cry. His mop of black hair trembles as he holds back tears.
I rush to him, kneel down, and take his small hands. “What’s wrong? It’s okay.”
“Duh-Dad said yuh-you’re going to luh-luh-leave soon.”
When he breaks down, I wrap my arms around him. He cries into my chest, breaking my heart. I don’t say anything. I could tell him,No, I’m not going anywhere, but that would be a lie. Dad would find a vicious, maybe violent, way to make me go. He might even threaten Drake to make me do it.
“Can you take me with you?” Drake pleads, squeezing me tightly.
I try to stay quiet. I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep.
He leans back like he wants to force me to look at him. His hair is wild and messy. I know that once Drake reaches maybe twelve or thirteen, Dad will stop seeing him as the in-the-way kid and start viewing him as next in line in the Petrov empire. He’ll have to cut his hair and learnDad’s ways. Could Dad change Drake’s goodness? Could he warp his love-filled heart?
“Then you have to come back for me,” Drake says, “when you can.”
“Drake …”
“You can’tleaveme. Come back. Please?Please?”
I’m not sure any big sister could hear her baby brother pleading like this and be completely unmoved. I hug him again, looking over his shoulder at the photo of Mom I’ve got hanging on the wall. She passed a few years ago, leaving me and Drake alone with the sick old man—our father.
“Mila?”
“I’ll come back for you,” I say, even knowing I shouldn’t.
Headphones, music, code …
Sometimes, I feel like two different people. There’s the quiet, meek version of me, the flesh-and-blood version, and then there’s the person I become when I sit at my computer and disappear into the act of programming. Luckily, Dad isn’t too savvy with computers, so I can teach myself without him knowing what I’m doing. My desk is situated strategically, so my computer doesn’t face the door, and I can see if anybody barges in.
The few times Dad has bothered to look at my screen, I switch to whatever video I’ve got queued up in the other window. This morning—two days after Dad told me about the marriage—it’s a silly pop video. Dad thinks I sit in here for hours and hours, days even, watching videos, wasting my time.
Then, it finally happens—what I’ve been dreading. Dad doesn’t bother to knock on my door. He rushes right in, his face red, beaming like a man who’s just won the lottery.
“Konstantin did it,” Dad says breezily. Very few people would ever guess he’s talking about someone supposed to be a close friend. “It’s time.”
After those two words, “it’s time,” everything changes. Suddenly, Dad is rushing me to pack. It’s time for the drive to Vegas. It’s time to meet my future husband, Dimitri Sokolov.
In a matter of hours, I’m sitting on my bed with three suitcases piled up, my heart beating so hard it’s on the border of causing me actual physical pain. Drake is on my lap, fighting off tears,holding me tightly, but I can’t cry. I can’t let myself feel. I have to be strong now for both of us.
When Drake finally stops crying, he says, “Is he nice? Your new husband?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never met him.”
I have to make him love me, want me, or … I don’t even want to think about it.
