I force the word out. “Yes.”
Mama’s mouth opens, then closes. A flush rises slowly in her cheeks, not embarrassment.Rage. “That little snake.”
The words are so unlike her that I blink.
She turns toward the doorway as if she might march out of the house and drag Vika back by the hair herself.
Then the front door opens.
Both of us freeze.
Familiar male voices murmur in the entryway, and Mama’s expression changes before he appears.
My father walks into the dining room as if he still owns it.
In many ways, I guess he still does.
Sergei Markov is not a loud man. He does not need to be.
He wears a charcoal suit beneath a black overcoat, his silver-streaked hair brushed back from his face. Two of his men remain in the hall, visible only as dark shapes near the entryway.
His gaze moves first to my mother.
Then to me.
He sees everything—the red eyes, trembling hands, and the empty finger. His face does not change.
And that tells me he already knows.
The last fragile piece of me goes cold.
“Katerina,” he says.
Mama looks between us. “Sergei. Did you know?”
My father removes his gloves slowly and lets out a heavy breath. Mama’s hand flies to her mouth.
I sit very still, but then the humiliation changes shape inside me. It becomes something harder.
“You knew,” I seethe.
Papa glares at me.
There was a time when that look could silence me. When I was a child, I believed my father’s calm was the same thing as safety. He maintained us after the divorce, paid for the house, the staff, the cars, my mother’s comforts, my entire life. He appeared at birthdays with diamonds and bodyguards. He kissed my forehead, called me his little tsarevna, and returned to the darker half of his world before dessert.
I always knew what he was.
Everyone knew what Sergei Markov was.
Head of the Markov family.
A man with warehouses, ports, politicians, judges, and graves in his history.
A man who arranged my engagement to Lev Morozov as if he were moving a piece across a chessboard. Still, I thought I was his daughter before I was an asset.
Tonight, I’m not sure.
“How long did you know?” I ask.