Papa’s face looks drawn, shadows carving deep lines across his skin. Papa has always been like this, teaching and training us at any opportunity. But tonight it seems particularly intense. There’s something almost spooky about his glittering eyes in the fading light.

Whatever has prompted this, I tell myself that it’s a good reminder that I shouldn’t call Yelena. She may be gorgeous, but she’s also the epitome of forbidden fruit. I couldn’t pick a more dangerous target if I searched the whole city. I should leave things exactly as they are—with me doing the Russians a favor, and nothing more.

The thought of never seeing her again leaves me dull and disappointed.

But that’s how it will have to be. I’ll have to find something else to fill this black pit in the center of my chest.

4

Yelena

Sebastian doesn’t call.

My father is intolerable about it.

“I thought you said you secured his interest?” he sneers at me.

“I did,” I say, my lips thin with irritation.

“Then why hasn’t he called?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe he’s smarter than he looks.”

While it’s hardly flattering to be ignored, a tiny part of me is relieved. I never liked this plan. I never wanted to be a part of it.

“Maybe he’s gay,” my brother says.

He’s lounging by our pool, wearing a pair of his ridiculously short European briefs. Adrian loves to show off his body. He has the physique of a gymnast—lean, powerful, broad in the shoulders and narrow in the hips. Despite all his time in the sun, he has only a hint of a tan. He’s fair like me—ash-blond hair, skin that goes paler than milk in the winter, and only slightly gold in the summer.

I always find it amusing to look at Adrian, because he is the walking, talking embodiment of what my life would be like if I had been born a man. Instead, he came out two minutes before me, the firstborn son and heir, and I followed afterward—the unexpected twin. The unwanted girl.

“He’s not gay,” I tell Adrian. “I would know.”

“He has to be,” Adrian insists. “Or else how could he resist my beautiful baby sister?”

He grabs my wrist and pulls me down on his lap, tickling my ribs right where I’m most sensitive. I shriek and slap him away, jumping up again.

I love Adrian, and I love his playfulness. He’s been my best friend since birth. But I wish he wouldn’t behave this way in front of our father. I can feel Papa’s cold eyes boring into me. I feel them combing over my bare flesh.

I’m not dressed nearly as revealing as my brother—I’ve got on a modest one-piece swimsuit, a cover-up, and sandals. Still, I see my father’s lip curl at the sight of my bare thighs where the loose smock pulled up.

My hatred for him is like a blue-gas pilot light, continually burning deep down in my guts. It never goes out, and it’s always waiting to flare up with the addition of any sort of fuel.

He expects me to dress like a nun around the house so all his men keep their eyes to themselves. But then when it’s time to use me for something—like his little errand the other night—then he’s happy to tart me up like a street whore.

Pulling my cover-up down over my legs, I try to scrub my voice of resentment as I ask my father, “What would you like me to do?”

He considers for a moment, top lip still curled up, like it’s my fault Sebastian hasn’t called. Like he can’t trust me to complete the simplest of tasks.

He knows as well as I do that I can’t be too obvious. The Gallos are clever. If the lure is too apparent, they’ll know. Besides, men don’t want something that’s offered to them freely. They’re predators. They need the hunt.

“We’ll find a way for you to bump into him again,” Papa says with a dissatisfied frown.

He goes back into the house, leaving Adrian and me alone on the deck.

The relief I feel at his departure is immense.

The only time I’m comfortable at home is when it’s just Adrian and me. Even then, I know someone could be watching us. One of the bratoks, one of the many cameras all over the house, or Papa himself, standing at a window.

Or his Avtoritet Rodion Abdulov. A shiver runs across my skin as I look around the yard, scanning for him. He’s my father’s top lieutenant. I hate him almost as much as I hate Papa. I think of him as Papa’s attack dog: ruthless, vicious, and just a little bit mad.

He’s always lurking around, watching me even closer than Papa does. Eager to report anything he sees. I can always feel his piggy little eyes crawling over my skin.

But not at the moment, thank god.

Adrian doesn’t have to worry about any of that. He can lounge on that chair, perfectly comfortable in the summer sun, wearing whatever he pleases.

He’s not scrutinized like I am. He has so much more freedom. As long as he follows the rules, he can do whatever he likes in his spare time.

I don’t have a moment to myself. Anything I do, anything I say, is picked apart later.

“What’s wrong?” Adrian asks me.

“Nothing,” I say irritably. I shuck off the cover-up and my sandals, and dive down into the water.

It’s an Olympic-size pool, set in a gorgeous oasis of flowering trees and privacy hedges. Our yard is like something you’d find behind the Palace of Versailles. Our house is a temple of marble and glass, full of luxuries beyond anything I’d ever seen in Moscow: heated floors and towel racks, a refrigerator the size of a walk-in closet, closets the size of entire apartments.

Yet I despise it all. What’s the good of being in America, if I’m just as constrained as I was back home?

Nothing has changed for me here. If anything, it’s worse. Because Papa knows that we might be corrupted by the individualism and hedonism of America. So he’s only cracked down harder on me.

I hoped I might be allowed to take music composition classes at one of the many colleges in the city, but he’s strictly forbidden it. My only option is to practice on my own like I used to do. I’m not sure when or where I’ll be able to manage that—Papa has refused to get a piano for our new house yet. He keeps putting me off, acting as if he’ll do it as a reward for some unspecified behavior. I think he enjoys denying me this thing that I need, one of the only things that makes me happy.

Adrian jumps into the water too, though I know he prefers sunbathing over swimming. He strokes the length of the pool, back and forth, in tandem with me. When I push off the wall and do a front crawl, he does the same. When I flip over to backstroke, he imitates me. He’s the faster swimmer, even though he barely practices. He keeps perfect pace with me, trying to goad me into attempting a race.

After a few laps, I do start swimming faster. Sure enough, he stays right next to me. Even though I know how this will end, I speed up even more, until I’m pushing off the wall with all my strength, swimming half the length of the pool underwater, then stroking madly for the wall trying to beat him.

Adrian’s fingers touch the tile a moment before mine, and he pops up, grinning.

“Ohhh . . .” he says. “You almost got me that time.”

“The hell I did,” I scoff. “You weren’t even trying.”