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“Somewhat?” Chloe’s upturned face reflects both sympathy and wary curiosity as she holds my palm pressed against her chest. “She was never fully happy?”

“Not in my memory.” I extricate my hand from her grasp and walk over to take a seat behind my desk. I feel marginally more in control this way, less likely to give in to the urge to grab Chloe and fuck her until neither one of us can think straight, much less dredge up the noxious sludge that is my past.

She follows me, perching on the corner of the desk, a vision of white and gold in her evening dress, a captured ray of sunshine that’s all mine. “Why? Were they never in love? Or did something happen?”

I do my best to keep my gaze on her face and not her cleavage, where the pendant is winking tauntingly at me. “I don’t know for sure, but I suspect it started with Konstantin. My father wanted a son like himself, someone to eventually take over the newly capitalist empire he was building, but even as a toddler, my older brother was different. Crazy smart but different. I don’t think he even spoke until age three or four.”

Chloe’s eyes widen. “Oh. So he’s—”

“On the spectrum? Maybe. He’s never been officially diagnosed. In any case, that may have been the start of the rift between them… or maybe it was just my mother figuring out what kind of man my father was. Whatever the reason, I remember their marriage deteriorating year by year. Each time I’d come home from boarding school, the atmosphere between them would be several degrees icier, their fights more frequent… my father’s mood ever darker.”

A frown gathers between Chloe’s brows. “Why didn’t they just get a divorce?”

“He wouldn’t allow it. He wanted her, no matter what.” I remember my mother screaming at him about it during one of those fights, begging and pleading to let her go. Clenching my teeth, I shove the recollection away—it hits too close to home.

“In any case,” I continue in a level tone, “the more time passed, the worse it got. When I was twelve, he took several lovers and paraded them in front of her. A year later, he killed a man rumored to be her lover. And a few weeks after my seventeenth birthday, I spotted a bruise on her face.” At Chloe’s expression, I say, “She denied it, of course, said she fell or some such. I didn’t believe her for a second. I went to my father and told him that if I ever saw her hurt again, he’d answer to my fist—and I’d take her away where he’d never find her.”

Chloe sucks in a breath. “Did he believe you?”

“He did.” My mouth twists. “I was his favorite child, the son who was most like him. He knew that even at that age, I’d find a way to keep my promise.”

“So what happened then? How did you…?”

“End up killing him?” The words taste like poison on my tongue.

She nods warily, her gaze glued to my face. “When did it happen?”

“Six—no, six and a half years ago. I’d just returned to Moscow after being away for several years—first for service in the army, then my degree at Princeton. Through it all, I kept tabs on my mother, on her health and mental state.” My jaw is clenched so hard it feels as if my teeth are wired together, each word more difficult to get out than the next. “There were no more bruises as far as I could tell, but she was miserable, utterly wrecked by their discord. Yet no matter how many times I offered to help her leave him, she wouldn’t go. She said she was afraid.”

Chloe swallows. “Of him?”

“Of him. Of being without him. Of all of it. By then, they’d spent almost thirty years together. They’d raised four children, such as we were.” I catch my hand curling into a fist under the desk and force my fingers to relax. “Konstantin and Valery tried to get her to leave too, but she refused to listen. The excuses were endless: She didn’t want to face the judgement of their mutual friends, didn’t want to lose the life they’d built together, didn’t want to tear the family apart. But in reality, it came down to fear. Fear of my father and what her life would be like without him… without his toxic obsession with her.”

“Obsession?” Chloe’s voice shakes slightly.

I nod, grimly aware of the parallels. “For better or worse, she’d been the center of his world for close to three decades, long after whatever love they’d shared morphed into this bitter hate. I think a part of her enjoyed it too, the knowledge that she had that kind of power over him, that ultimately, he couldn’t let her go.” I draw in a harsh breath. “In any case, I kept tabs on her, but what I should’ve been doing was keeping tabs on him. Because as her misery grew, so did his—they fed off each other. He started drinking heavily and, as I learned later, using coke. It helped him stay away from her. In a way, he replaced his addiction to her with a potentially less harmful one—and my mother hated that development. Love or hate, she wanted his attention.”