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“Are you okay now, though?” I ask. “I haven’t completely ruined your life, have I?”
“You haven’t ruined anything. This is not—” She frowns and leans towards her phone. “Where are you?”
“I’m in my room.”
“That’s not your room.” Francia shakes her head. “Turn the camera around. Give me a tour.”
I stay seated and quickly circle my phone around the room, too fast for her to really process. “It’s just a room. A nice room.”
“A really nice room,” Francia corrects. “When is the wedding going to be?”
“I have no idea. We haven’t really talked about it.”
We haven’t talked about anything. I’ve barely even seen my husband-to-be since we got here.
“I’m sure it will be soon. Ivan was looking for a wife, which means he’s ready to get married. Now that he’s chosen you, what’s the point in waiting? This kind of thing usually leads to a short engagement.”
“‘This kind of thing’?” I ask. “You make it sound like this happens a lot.”
“It isn’t so unusual for people in his tax bracket. Itisunusual for someone like Ivan,” she says softly. “He’s the type who can marry whoever he wants. But I guess it took a special kind of woman to make him settle down.”
My face flushes. Not because Francia is right—but because some part of me wishes she was.
I wish I could be the kind of woman that would turn Ivan’s head. The kind that might make him think twice about settling down.
But this is all fake. I’m no one. All of this is nothing.
“How do you know Ivan, Francia?”
“I don’t know him.”
“Well, you were invited to his party,” I remind her. “How did you get on the guest list?”
“Oh…” She waves a hand dismissively. “That’s just one of those weird things. My family knows his family going way back. We still get Christmas cards from the Pushkins. I’m sure they invited everyone they know who had daughters.”
What I want to ask is:Do you know what a Bratva is? Is your family part of a crime syndicate? Have you ever seen a man die right in front of your eyes?
Instead, I ask, “How does your family know the Pushkins?”
“My parents have this, like, boutique firm and Boris Pushkin hired them years and years ago to represent him. He won his case and they stayed friends. More like acquaintances, really.”
“Your parents are attorneys?” I can practically feel the back of my neck tingle thinking about Ivan’s guards listening in on this conversation. Every detail feels like something they can use against my friends, some tally they can make as yet another reason to dispose of them.
“My dad is. My mom is a legal assistant. I am, too, actually,” she says. Then she tips her head to the side. “Technically.”
“Wait—you could work at a law firm, but you’re a waitress at Quintaño's?” As soon as the question is out of my mouth, I try to back track. “I mean, It’s a good job. I love it. I am just surprised. Don’t your parents need you at the firm?”
She shakes her head. “Not really. My position is in flux. If I was anyone else, they’d probably fire me. Since I’m their daughter, they keep me on retainer and pay me a reduced rate. It’s enough to live comfortably and the tips from waitressing are a bonus.”
“Oh. Well, that’s nice.”
“It has its moments,” she admits. “But they have a lot of…expectations of me. I’m not quite ready to meet them all yet. When I am, I won’t have time to pick up odd jobs and meet new people.”
All the hours I’ve spent working with Francia and even meeting up for drinks after work or at her apartment, I never realized how much we have in common. Or how much wecouldhave in common.
I know what it’s like to be in the shadow of your family with no way out.
“I can’t believe we’ve never talked about any of this before,” I say.
