Then English little girls at boarding school outside London didn’t like her because their friends at Le Rosey sent word ahead that she was not to be liked.
So, Alina was crying in my office again, and I was powerless to help her, again.
I have told her I was helpless because Nicolai Petrovich Romanov was married in the Russian Orthodox Church, and that wasmychurch. I did not fuck with priests of my own church. My soul needed a place to rest.
I took communion on Sundays, every Sunday.
I took communion with Christ yesterday morning in Las Vegas Russian Orthodox parish church that looked like World War II Russian bunker, where I heard priests laughing in Russian about drunken tsar-heir who married complete stranger in dead of night that week.
But it was done. The woman had been baptized and chrismated in Orthodox faith. His marriage had been blessed by God.
And so I told my beautiful, crying daughter, “It is done, and we cannot undo it. It is done before God. I cannot force church to annul real and true marriage between two servants of church.”
“Thenget rid of her,”Alina wailed. “You said that if he wouldn’t divorce her and annul it, you wouldget ridof her.”
“If I do that, Nicolai Petrovich will never love you as you should be loved. You should find love marriage with one of our kind. Find a man devoted to you as I am to your mother, man who can take my place as pakhan and be king of thieves, not pretend to be tsar when we murdered and buried the tsars.”
“But you promised! You promised to get Nicolai Romanov for me, and I want to marryhim.”
I could not hold my sigh of exasperation. “Alina, he will never love you. He will never treat you as you deserve to be treated, with love.”
“But you and Mom had an arranged marriage, and you two love each other.”
“It was not arranged marriage. It was business marriage. What I love best about your mother is that she would put knife in my back as I slept if I deserved it that day. Nicolai Petrovich is not in business like us. He is leisure-class leech, skimming life from men who work for living. I ask you not to want this man.”
“But Ido!Marrying someone like him is what I need, whatyouneed.”
“So, there are others. Magnus Norway, and Ryan Prussian who owes me money for his overpriced hotels. So many others. So many who are already friends of ours, in business sense.”
“They will all refuse, and theycanrefuse. Nicolai Romanov doesn’t have any other family behind him to resist your offers. His uncle owes you millions of euros. My marrying one of themis whatyouneed, to be invited to the really upper-class business deals where therealmoney is made.”
Was my own daughter insulting me? “I make real money, Alina.”
She rested her elbows on the desk and leaned over as if giving me a view of her womanly breasts, which I did not want to see. She was my baby daughter. I only wanted to see again puffy little skirts and tiaras on her as she danced baby ballet. I should tell her to go put on sweatshirt.
But she said, “No, Dad, you don’t makerealmoney. You do well for the head of a small-time bratva.”
Yes, this was getting insulting. “Oh, do tell me how to make money.”
“You have a solid business model that cranks out what is a decent amount of money for its size, but nothing like those people I went to school with.”
And this was why I sent her to fancy boarding schools, to make connections for her and for me.
I sat quietly, listening to my daughter.
“They don’t let you into the big deals unless you are one of them. The only way to get in with them is tomarryone of them. If I marry Nicolai Romanov, you would be investing in legitimate enterprises where the money didn’t have to be laundered, and that’s where a lot of it is lost even before you pay taxes.”
Then I was listening very closely to what my daughter told me.
“At the party, I heard about some of the business deals that he is doing with John Borbon and some of the other ones there. Nicolai Romanov is not a leisure class leech. He’s in meetings all week, where he pressures people here and meets people there and invests in properties everywhere and makesobsceneamounts of money. He’s a savvy businessman who invests in opportunities that you and Iwill never haveunless Imarry him or someone a whole lot like him. This is a business arrangement.”
I leaned back in my chair and folded my hands over my stomach, which seemed a little thicker every year. “Continue.”
“I heard what the priests were saying in church, too. Nicolai Romanov made a strategic marriage, not a love match, to escape your offer. He’s never been in love because men like himdo not love.Trust me, I went to school with them. The world’s elite are nothing but a cabal of psychopaths.”
My daughter had a point. She knew most wealthy people better than I did, and that was why I had sent her to school with them.
“When Romanov comes to understand the benefits of having your money and influence behind him, he will make the strategic match,” Alina said. “He’s sharp, Dad. He’s not a romantic sop. We just have to get him free of Lexi or whatever her name is, and then he’ll make the right choice.”
