Page 111 of Hate You Most

She had been too young to understand what happened around her, and frankly, she barely understood it now. Back then, her entire world revolved around skating and training and winning. What happened in the corners of her father’s world was almost entirely filtered out of her mind and wasn’t to be questioned.

She opened another tab and switched to Yandex, the search engine she had used for most of her life while still living at home.

Viktoriya rarely searched herself on Yandex, because what she found there never felt like her, it was the version that was allowed to exist.

Everything was entirely in Russian, and it transported her back into that cold bedroom in that house. Her chest constricted as she typed her own name into the search bar.

She expected to find headlines filled with the same speculation about her relationships that she'd grown used to seeing, but when she searched herself on Yandex, there was nothing except a carefully curated version of her life: her public relationship with Russian actor Lev Mironov. That was all there was. Every truth about her life had been scrubbed away so thoroughly that it was as if the rumors about Dakota had never existed at all. It never mentioned her moving to America, just that she wished for her life to remain private.

Red Meridian surfaced again. It was attached to her father’s name and to countless articles that surrounded herself. Article after article about her life. A consulting firm that was attached directly to celebrity image management, crisis control, and public correction.

The further she read, the more understood. This was what they did and this was certainly what her father had paid a lot of money for. It was what had polished her into something acceptable. Red Meridian kept anything that looked too much like the truth from ever becoming public.

Red Meridian was the consulting firm for every one of the car crash victims. It circled back toward the same network and the same controlled system that operated just beneath the surface of what was visible.

Viktoriya sat very still as the bright screen blurred her eyes. This had not been random, separate accidents. It was not something that had simply happened. The crashes had been arranged to keep the nature of their relationships quiet where it wasn't accepted.

“Viktoriya?” She barely registered the voice behind her as Dakota’s. Her gaze was still fixated on the computer in front of her. What was she going to do? Should she go to the police, even though they'd already dismissed the entire case?

“Hey,” Dakota said again. “Are you okay?”

Viktoriya could tell she'd moved closer, but she just couldn't turn around and talk about it. Talking about it would put all of this out of her own mind and into reality. It would sound utterly insane.

She exhaled slowly, turned around and met Dakota’s gaze.

“No,” she said. “I’m not.”

Dakota's expression sharpened as the last traces of sleep disappeared on her face. She focused entirely on Viktoriya.

“What’s wrong?”

Viktoriya held her gaze for a moment. She weighed how to say it in her mind, how to take something that was this complex and this impossible, and reduce it to something that could actually be said aloud.

Then she said the first thing that popped into her mind, else she wouldn't have said anything. “I think my father caused the accidents. The car crashes.”

She didn't wait for Dakota’s response. She needed answers to her questions and she needed them right now. She had been confused about everything for months, she couldn't handle it a second longer.

She was going to call him again.

Her hands were already moving, having found her phone and dialed in his number as she realized Dakota had been talking to her. Quite loudly. And she hadn't heard a single word.

“Yes?”

“I asked what you were going to do.”

“I’m going to call him, and talk.” she replied.

Viktoriya hadn't turned around fully, even though Dakota was right there, because if she had, if she had seen Dakota’s face, she would've broken down completely.

Instead, she pressed the call button and let the phone ring.

She stared at the laptop screen in front of her while she waited, the evidence directly in front of her.

Her father answered on the other line, immediately irritated, as though her call had interrupted something.

“Hello, Zvezdochka,” he answered.

If she never asked him, she could still pretend that all this could be explained.