I pulled out my phone, my hands trembling slightly. I unlocked it as I hurried to my room. Maxim’s appearance meant that a big shift in my life was about to happen and it would be one I would most probably hate. He would otherwise have never made such a pointless visit. He had no ties with me, and neither I presumed, would he have the spare, unassigned, minutes to squander.
I shut my bedroom door behind me and dialed my father’s number, but he didn't pick up on the first ring like he normally did when I called, and for a moment I wondered where he was... Perhaps he wasn't in Moscow. Budapest then? Or Paris?
I began to scroll through my contacts hastily to look for his other numbers until I realized I was not calling his personal one, the one he kept between us. I dialed again and when it was answered, I collapsed to my bed.
“Dad?” I called out anxiously.
“Moya Printsessa,” he said.
The endearment made me clench my jaw. When my father called me My Princess I always knew it was time to beware. Something horrible was coming my way. “Where are you?”
"New York," he answered in his thick accent. “I landed two hours ago.”
I was confused. “You’re here? Why didn't you tell me you were coming?”
"I wanted to surprise you." His laughter boomed down the line.
The last surprise from my Dad I enjoyed was when I was seven. Ever since then his surprises just meant bad news for me. “That’s nice,” I said automatically.
“I'm only here until tomorrow evening so come have breakfast with me at my hotel. I'm staying at the Ritz-Carlton. You haven’t bought your own apartment yet, have you?”
I ignored the question. "Why are you only here for one day?”
"I was in Puerto Rico, but I have … business to handle in Moscow so I have to rush back. I stopped by to speak to you.”
My heart sank. I knew then that there was something very wrong.
"What does this have to do with the Ivankovs?" I asked.
"Come to breakfast tomorrow at ten," he instructed, “I'll tell you everything then.”
"I have something important to do tomorrow morning, Dad."
"That jewelry business you're launching? I told you to get people to handle it all for you. Why are you constantly involved?”
I clenched my fist. “Because I want to do it on my own.”
“Hmm … you always were a silly little thing. Well, you will just have to change your plans. I will see you at ten tomorrow morning. I will send a car for you. Ah, marvelous. My food has arrived. Goodnight.”
"Goodnight, Dad,” I said, but he had already hung up.
I went out then. I ate the noodles Britney had microwaved for me. I even put the finishing touches on the sample. When Britney talked to me I gave her all the right answers. But inside I was a seething mass of nerves. I felt it in my bones that tomorrow my life was going to change and there was not a damn thing I could do about it. At the usual time I said goodnight to Britney and I climbed into bed.
Sleep never came.
Chapter Four
Freya
Curled up in my window seat, I watched the dawn arrive. It seemed magical. As if it was going to be taken away from me. Someone once told me the greatest luxury was freedom. Deep down I knew my father was about to snatch away my greatest luxury. How? I did not know yet. But in a few hours all would become crystal clear. For my father did not waste time mincing his words.
As life began in the street below I got into the shower. When I came back out wrapped in a towel, Britney was sitting on my bed, eating a bowl of cornflakes and chocolate milk.
“Morning,” she said brightly.
“Morning,” I said, matching her cheerfulness. I put my towel on the heater and naked went to open my underwear drawer. I took the first set I saw in it and began to dress.
“You never talk about your dad. Is he horrible?”
Horrible? Horrible was not a word I would use to describe him. My father was a repulsive sociopath. A man who was so utterly cold, he lived without compassion, remorse, or conscience. Only two things mattered in his life. The relentless insatiable acquisition of more and more power, and the pursuit of his own pleasure.
He didn’t care about anyone or anything.
Once I went into his study and he was fucking a woman on his desk. I immediately tried to leave, but he wouldn’t let me, but neither would he stop. I had to stand there with my gaze on the floor until he finished. As the woman passed by me, he said as casual as you please, “What did you want?” I’ve seen my father kill a man the way someone else would kill an ant.
I met Britney’s eyes in the mirror. “My father is not … horrible. We’re just not close.”
“Yet you’re changing all our plans to go to have breakfast with him?”
I pulled on a white blouse and started buttoning it. “Yes. He is my father. Besides, he has to fly out again later today and this is the only time he has.”
“Hmm …” She eats another spoonful of cereal. “What do you think he wants to say to you?”
Tucking my blouse into a pair of comfortable black cargo pants, I picked up my hair brush. “I don’t know.”
“You mean, he didn’t say at all?”
“Nope.”
When I got out of my shabby apartment building in the Bronx it was 9:30. A glistening black town car with a dark suited chauffeur inside was waiting for me. It was the shiny statement of excessive wealth that did not belong in that neighborhood. Britney was hanging out of the window looking down on me. Her mouth was open in shock. A pair of dreadlocked twins playing guitar and smoking weed by the dirty graffiti wall in a corner of the street looked on curiously.
The chauffeur slid out of the car smoothly. "Miss Fedorov,” he greeted, as he opened the door nearest the sidewalk for me.
Far from happy at the disruption from my wonderfully ordinary life, I got in and began to count the minutes when I would stand before my father.
The Ritz-Carlton was by Central Park. The moment I stepped into the sophistication of its world, far beyond the one I currently lived in, I felt the familiar chokehold of the old life that I had tried so hard to tear free of begin to reassert itself. I walked into the breakfast lounge. It featured an oriental color scheme. The high windows gave a picturesque view of the city’s magnificent skyline. The exquisite furniture and paintings reminded me of our home back in Moscow. I could see my father’s goons hanging around the lobby. They were trying to blend in with the other guests, but they stuck out like sore thumbs.
I made my way to the breakfast room.
It was expansive, filled with the scent of expensive coffee roast and the fragrance of flowers. Breakfasting in it were a smattering of people engaged in quiet conversations. I spotted my father in a corner table quite hidden by a gigantic plant that was so incredibly green it looked fake. Of course, it was not. As usual my father was on his phone.
“Printsessa,” he called loudly the moment he noticed me. I cringed inwardly when people turned to look at us. My father had no use for customs or niceties. They were fools, he declared.
He ended his call and rose to receive me. Dutifully I walked into his large embrace. Shutting my eyes, I inhaled his familiar scent. The components of which were indecipherable as they had been carefully curated by a man who specialized in custom perfumes. Except, of course, for the jarring note from the cigars that he often had either in his mouth or dangling from his fingers.