1
Mila Drozdov
Sochi, Russia
Do not humiliate people, shame is a lifetime lasting effect that can be nursed but can never be cured.
Fort Free
“Come on!” Anna calls to me. “I want to catch up with the others!”
She’s carrying her skis over her shoulder, hurrying across the hard-packed snow toward the lift.
I don’t have quite the same motivation to run, because I do not want to catch up with the two girls laughing and talking while they wait in line for the lift.
I should have made certain who else was going to be here before I agreed to come on this trip.
The girls look impossibly cool and stylish in their mink-trimmed parkas and Carradan skis. Papa gives me a generous allowance, but not enough to buy a $2,400 Cordova ski suit like Karina is wearing.
Actually, I spent almost all my spare cash just to come on this trip. I had to borrow some extra gear from Anna so I wouldn’t have to wear the same thing every day.
At least I’ve got nice skis. And I know what I’m doing on the slopes. Mama wanted me to have lessons, just like she made me take tennis, ballet, cello, and French. It annoyed me when I was little—I would have preferred to participate in the intense pinecone-throwing battles in our neighborhood like all the other kids. But now that I’m at Blackwood Academy, I understand what she was on about.
Those are the pursuits of the rich. If you want to keep up with them, you have to know how to ski.
My family is well-off, relatively speaking. At least, that’s what I thought, living in a normal neighborhood of St. Petersburg, attending a normal school. Since transferring to Blackwood, I’ve seen real wealth. Kids who get dropped off by their chauffeur or drive their own Ferraris to school. Kids who rent out the whole of Yusupov Palace for their birthday parties and have so many stamps in their passports that you couldn’t find an inch of bare space. Kids who receive a doctor’s salary as their clothing allowance.
Compared to them, I’m practically poor.
Anna’s father owns the biggest airport in St. Petersburg. He’s got four sons but only one daughter, so he spoils Anna rotten. It’s amazing she’s still as nice as she is.
“Mila!” she says, as I join her at the end of the line. “Do you know Zariyah and Karina?”
“Yeah,” I say. “We’ve met before.”
I nod to the girls, one of whom is in my algebra class, the other in my study block. Karina gives me kind of a tepid nod in return, Zariyah a lazy wave.
I used to have a lot of friends at my old school. I guess I was a big fish in a small pond there. Now I’m barely a minnow.
Some of the Blackwood students have known each other since Kindergarten. Their parents are friends. They vacation together.
I went to a regular school, up until this year. Then Mama decided that wasn’t good enough and I needed to go to Blackwood instead. I guess they had to let me in, since she’s a legacy. Even though the name Drozdov doesn’t mean much.
It’s been . . . interesting. It’s a great school—I mean, it has to be for what it costs. But I guess I underestimated how much of an adjustment it would be.
The kids all act like they’re grown adults already. They’re barely supervised, free to travel and party pretty much any time they want. Even the teachers seem scared to discipline some of the more “famous” students. The ones with parents in government, or big business, or the mafia.
Speaking of which . . .
Two boys come bombing down the hill. They turn toward us, cutting over to the lift. The taller one stops right next to me, cutting in so tight that he kicks up a spray of snow against my legs. Asshole.
The boys look flushed and exhilarated, faces already tanned from three days of skiing. It’s most noticeable on the one who hit me with the snow, because he’s so blond. When he puts up his goggles, I see his gray-green eyes, which are narrowed in on me as the object in this group that doesn’t belong. He’s got a handsome, haughty face, currently twisted up in an expression of disdain.
His name is Roman Turgenev.
I absolutely loathe him.
“What are you doing here?” he sneers at me.
“She came with me,” Anna says, linking her arm through mine.
“That makes sense,” Roman says, looking me up and down. “I was pretty sure I saw Anna wearing that coat last year.”
Karina and Zariyah snicker. I can feel my face getting hot. I’m not going to let that pass—I don’t care how popular Roman might be.
“I didn’t know you were so interested in fashion,” I say to him. “How very . . . manly of you.”
Only Anna laughs at that.
Roman scowls at me, like I’m a waiter who forgot to refill his drink.
“Do you even know how to ski?” he says.
“Probably better than you do,” I shoot back.
He laughs in my face.
“Not fucking likely.”
“Race me down, then,” I say.
I regret my words the second they’re out of my mouth. I’ve always had this little problem: speak first, think after. It gets me in trouble a lot.
Roman looks like he still can’t believe I’m even talking to him. He tosses his hair back in that careless, arrogant way he has.
“I’m not racing a girl,” he says.
He’s about to turn away from me. I should just let it go.
But my stupid mouth keeps talking.
“Sure, if you think I’ll embarrass you . . .”
Roman turns back, fixing me with his steel-colored eyes. He looks like he wants to rip me into pieces and throw those pieces down the mountain.
It’s very quiet all of a sudden, the other kids glancing back and forth between us.
“I’ll race you,” Roman says quietly. “Try not to break your fucking neck on the way down.”
We all file onto the lifts, Roman at the head of the group with his best buddy Burian, me at the end with Anna. As soon as we’re up in the air, she hits my shoulder and says, “What are you doing! Why do you have to antagonize him?”
“‘Cause, he’s an asshole.”
“Do you know who his father is?”
Yes, I’m aware who Viktor Turgenev is. He’s the biggest Bratva boss in Paris. Roman never shuts up about him, or about how “lame” and “boring” Russia is compared to France.
And I’m aware that Viktor Turgenev could have me murdered in five seconds if he so much as snapped his fingers. But I highly doubt he snuffs every kid that Roman doesn’t like—that would be about eighty percent of the student body.
“I don’t care who his father is!” I snap at Anna. “I’m sick of him pushing me around.”
“You should try being nice to him,” Anna says. “I mean, he’s pretty gorgeous . . .”
“I’d rather kiss a pit bull,” I tell her. “No contest. Dogs are loyal, brave, intelligent . . . everything he’s not, basically.”
Anna laughs. She’s a good friend. Not like some of these other shallow pricks. She’s been kind to me since day one.
“Just let him win,” she advises me. “You don’t want to make an enemy out of Roman . . .”