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The staircase had a grand railing, like a massive semi-circle, and I leaned over it to peer down to the first floor.
All was quiet.
The place was like a morgue.
My heartbeat sped up, the response out of my control yet all the stronger for it, as my breath caught in my throat.
Morgues—how fitting that I lived in one when this place saw more death than life.
How was it Svetlana could bring herself to live here?
I’d whored myself out too, but the Sinners were honest with their sins. My father shielded his behind lies and boardroom deals that were founded in bullshit.
Give me the Sinners over the Bratva any day of the week.
Shuddering, and wishing that it was tomorrow already, I began the careful descent down the stairs. My heels were high, and it would be so easy to tumble down them. So easy to fall like Mama had.
I’d seen her crumpled form at the bottom of these steps far too often.
Nobody was that clumsy.
Mouth tightening, heart still pounding, and my skin clammy, the desire to dig my nails into my palms was a strong one. Nobody cared about a bunch of Band-Aids, but spilling drops of blood onto the hideous zebra-print rug in the hall? Staining the marble tiles? That was a surefire way to draw attention to myself.
Wondering how it was possible that I could be so much happier in a grungy clubhouse, surrounded by sex-mad bikers, most of them stinking of the road and motor oil, the scent of weed in the air and smoke on their clothes, than this manicured paradise, I entered the living room.
It was a grand affair with high, paneled walls that soared to a ceiling with intricate moldings and an authentic candelabra that had falls of crystal raindrops shimmering glittery light all over the parquet floor. It had never been my favorite place, even before Svetlana had gotten her grubby hands on it, but now it was like something from a strip joint.
What the hell Father was thinking was beyond me.
Had he lost more than his patellas during the shooting?
Everything was faux ornate now. High-backed chairs and sofas in the French-style, but made out of a weird kind of plastic, and in lurid colors. They clashed too—the chairs with the molding around the edges were like baby pink thrones, and the sofas were a chartreuse so bright it was enough to wind anyone with good taste.
A matching coffee table sat between them, and this one made turquoise look like it was muted.
When I thought about the antiques that had once graced this room, I knew that Father wasn’t the only murderer in his marriage—Svetlana murdered good taste with every breath she took.
As I walked in, I saw her lounging against one of the two armchairs. Father always looked out of place when he was there, his ruddy cheeks, piggy eyes, and the belly that overspilled his pants no matter how much he spent on tailoring, made him, somehow, all the more uglier when he was surrounded by Barbie pink.
That wasn't a sight I saw often, however, as it was too hard for him to leave his wheelchair. Only at meals where he had business associates in attendance did he make that kind of effort.
Svetlana’s focus was on her phone, her face down-turned as I took her in. Dressed in black, she looked more like a streetwalker than a Pakhan’s wife. A part of me wondered if that was how Father had met her. It wouldn’t be a stretch of the imagination, considering his line of work, but Pakhans didn’t often marry dime-a-dozen whores.
Everything about their marriage stank, but it wasn’t mine to dissect.
Her dress was so short that I could see her panties thanks to how she had her legs crossed, and the hem sat at hip-height, the PVC showing every single asset off to perfection. She was a beautiful woman, but life had made her hard—I knew how that felt.
I didn’t begrudge her finding a sugar daddy. I just begrudged that she was mean to Victoria, looked at me like I was the slut who didn’t belong here, and was always rude.
As my heels tapped against the marble floor, the clicking sound giving way once I was standing on a priceless carpet that appeared to be one of the only things Father had deemed worthy of protecting from his new wife’s interior design disaster, she didn’t bother looking up from her cellphone, just murmured in Russian, “Someone’s gonna get reamed tonight.”
My nostrils flared, concern hitting me like my father’s fist to my gut. “Abramovicz is coming for dinner?”
She peered up at me, a malicious sneer on her lips. “By the end of the night, you’ll wish that was all that had happened.”
My pulse had calmed down some as I’d made my way into the sitting room, but now, it was back to racing like I’d been running. My stomach churned, and I could feel cold beads of sweat gathering at the back of my neck, my temples, and under my arms.
Svetlana wasn’t warning me—she was telling me she was going to enjoy whatever crap Father was going to hurl at me. She was building up the anticipation. Encouraging me to dread what was going to happen, just so that she could see me hyped up, panicked.
