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“I saw you move the target stand!”
“I told you, it wasn’t me! It was the wind!”
Aleksandr scoffed. “Oh, bullshit—”
“No!” Father swiped his hand through the air. “No. We are not getting into this again.”
Aleksandr snapped his mouth shut, but that murderous glare was still locked on Lukyan.
Autumn snickered, hiding her mouth behind her hand.
Father took a deep breath in, recentering himself before he continued. “The final change, as I’m sure you’ve noticed”—he waved a hand casually to the scoreboard at his side—“is my participation.”
This time, it was Autumn who whooped and hollered as she clapped enthusiastically, cheering my father on.
Father’s head shook slightly, but he wasn’t fooling anyone. The smile on the edges of his lips said it all. “Since I will be joining this year, I’ve acquired someone else to be the referee.”
He gestured behind us, and we all turned.
Nothing happened. Silence filled the air as we all waited.
“I said, I’ve acquired someone else to be the referee,” Father repeated, a little louder this time.
“I told you how to introduce me!” a voice yelled from the chalet.
“Oh, would you just get the fuck out here?”
Mikhail ran out, dressed in a ridiculous referee’s outfit. Black shorts, knee-high black socks, soccer cleats, a black-and-white striped shirt, and a whistle around his neck. The icing on the cake was the black visor on his head. Mikhail cheered, whooping and hollering as he jogged past us to join my father at his side. The sound of applause followed him, which confused me because no one was clapping.
“Thank you, thank you,” Mikhail shouted, taking a bow. He turned slightly, fiddled with something I couldn’t see, and then the applause abruptly stopped. He faced us once again, clapping his hands together once. “I feel truly honored to be here with you all today. Truly. So honored. And I promise to treat you, the players and this game with the utmost respect. I want a nice, clean game. No eye-gouging—”
“Yeah, Aleksandr.” Illayana scoffed.
“No hair-pulling—”
“Yeah, Illayana.” Aleksandr scoffed back.
“And most importantly, no cheating.”
“Yeah, Lukyan!” we all yelled.
Lukyan gasped. “I told you! I didn’t cheat!”
Aleksandr and I very loudly began listing off all the previous times Lukyan had indeed cheated, to which he seemed to have a reasonable explanation for each one. Illayana quickly switched up her tune when she saw Aleksandr and I ganging up on Lukyan, suddenly jumping to his defense, and the four of us started screaming at each other.
Tatiana, Drea, Arturo, and Autumn stepped back out of the way.
“I wish I had popcorn.” Autumn sighed, watching as the fight turned from a screaming match to physical blows.
Drea produced a packet of Skittles from her pocket and offered them up. “Strap in. We’re going to be here a while.”
CHAPTER SIX
Illayana De Luca
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, we are here in the fine mountains of Switzerland to kick off the event of the season, the Volkov Family Games!” Mikhail introduced, walking slowly down the line, dressed in that utterly ridiculous outfit. But hey, I had to admire the guy’s commitment to the role he’d taken.
We all stood ready to start the first game—the three-legged race—spaced out at even intervals so we wouldn’t run into each other, but also close enough to sabotage another team by…oh, I don’t know, tripping them over or something. Not that I was thinking about it. No. Not at all.
