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Chapter Fourteen

Dimitri

I stared at my reflection and fiddled with the top button of my nicest shirt. It was the one I reserved for weddings, interviews, and funerals. Tonight, apparently, qualified as all three.

Weddings, because I was pretending to be someone’s suitor.

Interviews, because I’d be performing for my parents and Mira simultaneously.

And funerals, because the old me, the one who didn’t lie, was probably rolling into an early grave.

My pulse thudded in my throat as I struggled with the button again. I wasn’t sweating, not yet, but I knew I would be the second I stepped outside this room. I ran a hand through my hair, smoothed down the sleeves, and tried not to look like a man about to commit emotional treason.

Petyr said this would work. That it would help everyone.

Mira needed a fake boyfriend to wave around so her family would stop asking about weddings and children. I needed a fake girlfriend to keep my father from scrutinizing every move I made. A simple, elegant lie. No one gets hurt.

Except the liar. The liar always gets hurt.

What if Mira got attached to me?

Petyr had just laughed. “Mira? She collects men like vinyl records. You’ll be her favorite for a week, tops.”

Still. I wasn’t good at games. Not this kind. And now that I was committed, I had to play my part perfectly.

The doorbell rang. My stomach clenched so hard I thought I’d throw up my mother’s stew.

I bolted for the hallway, trying to beat my father to the door, but he was already there—some kind of sixth sense for meddling. He pulled it open with a grunt that doubled as both a greeting and a warning.

Petyr stood there in a freshly pressed shirt, Vera on his arm, and beside her, Mira.

Mira was beautiful. Not in a terrifying way, thank goodness, but in an effortless, confident way that told me she was perfectly aware of her effect on people. And used to it.

My father’s eyes scanned the trio. His mouth curled downward, more frown than expression.

“Don’t keep my boy out all night,” he muttered, then stepped aside like a man reluctantly surrendering his post at the city gates.

They stepped inside. Vera beamed. Petyr smiled at me with that infuriating twinkle in his eye. Mira gave me an appraising look and a little nod, like she’d just decided I was fine for the job.

I tried to smile back, but it probably looked more like a wince.

We all crowded into the living room. The wallpaper still peeled in the corners, and the sofa still sagged in the middle like a sigh. My mother came in drying her hands on a dish towel, and thank goodness for her.

“Oh my, what a lovely surprise,” she said warmly, lighting up the entire room with her voice. “You’re all going somewhere special, I take it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Vera said, immediately slipping into charm mode. “We’re going to the Philharmonic. They’re performing The Rite of Spring tonight. A special program of revolutionary works for a revolutionary city.”

My mother gasped. “Oh, how wonderful. That’s the one where they riot on stage, yes?”

“Almost,” Vera grinned. “But I promise we’ll be home before any artistic bloodshed.”

My mother laughed. My father didn’t.

I stood stiffly in the corner, watching them, my mouth dry. Mira crossed her legs and smiled demurely, playing her part to perfection. Petyr caught my eye and winked.

I cleared my throat. “We should go. Don’t want to be late.”

As we gathered our coats, my father followed me to the door and leaned in close. His breath smelled faintly of vodka and disapproval.

“She’s a pretty girl,” he murmured, his hand heavy on my shoulder. “Don’t mess this up.”

* * *

The moment we stepped into the grand foyer of the concert hall, I felt like someone had stuffed cotton into my lungs. The chandelier above us sparkled, and the crowd—all red lipstick, stiff collars, and faint clouds of perfume—buzzed with anticipation.

I kept Mira on one arm and my nerves on the other. But Mira, bless her, was... surprisingly easy to like.

“God,” she muttered as we climbed the marble stairs, “if one more insufferable man with a mustache offers me a cigarette and a dissertation on Tchaikovsky’s ‘secret meaning,’ I swear I’ll throw myself off the balcony.”

I laughed, startled by the honesty.

She shot me a smirk. “Don’t worry, you’re safe. You don’t look like the type who gives impromptu lectures. Petyr said you were a good listener.”

I glanced sideways at Petyr, who was walking just ahead of us with Vera, then back at Mira. “He says a lot of things.”

Mira’s eyes sparkled. “Oh, don’t I know it.”

By the time we reached our seats—velvet red, row six—I’d stopped imagining how wrong everything could go and started thinking maybe this might work.

Mira took my arm again as we sat, and when she leaned close to whisper a joke about the stern usher’s resemblance to this new politician named Yeltsin, I actually grinned.

Petyr took the seat beside me. Vera slid in next to him, Mira on my other side, and for a brief, fleeting second, I almost believed the lie we were living.

Then a thunderous voice rolled over us from behind.

“Vera Kuznetsova!”

I turned in my seat like someone had yanked a leash.

Our factory boss, Comrade Korovin, was behind us in row seven, puffed up like a prize-winning rooster in his best suit. And beside him, blinking owlishly through horn-rimmed glasses, was a woman draped in lilacs and pearls.

“My dear, what a surprise!” Korovin boomed. “Didn’t expect to see our factory’s shining star among the artsy types.”

Vera gave him her warmest, most calculated smile. “Comrade Korovin, of course you’d be here. Revolutionary spirit in the music, no?”

He guffawed like she’d just made a dirty joke. “Exactly! Let me introduce my wife—Elizaveta.”

Elizaveta nodded like royalty granting an audience.

“Ah,” Korovin added, “and this must be your little group. I know young Dimitri from his father, and Petyr, of course. And this is...?”

“Mira,” she said, shaking his hand with a smile. “I’m a Party member, Comrade Korovin. Cultural affairs, district seventeen.”

That lit him up like a propaganda poster. “Ah-ha! A woman of substance!”

Introductions fizzled out as the house lights flickered. We all turned forward, dutiful, reverent.

The orchestra tuned.

The conductor appeared.

The curtain rose.

And Petyr’s hand slid onto my thigh.

At first it was just his pinky, feather-light and dangerous. Then another finger. Then a slow, lazy tracing of the seam of my trousers that made it hard to breathe.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t look at him. Korovin sat directly behind us like the specter of Siberia, and I felt Mira’s warmth on my other side, her arm brushing mine whenever she shifted.

Vera was likely too engrossed in the performance to notice anything—but what if she wasn’t?

Still... I didn’t push Petyr away.

His touch sent heat rushing up my neck. My hands clenched the armrests like they were lifelines. Onstage, dancers flung themselves into rituals of ecstasy and death, but I had my own ritual going on right here: denial, panic, arousal, repeat.

When the curtain finally fell and the lights came up, I was so hard I thought I’d pass out from sheer humiliation.

Korovin patted my shoulder on the way out. “Good lad,” he said, for no discernible reason, and I almost jumped out of my skin.

We filed out into the night, the city glittering around us. A breeze swept through the square, cool and welcome on my burning face.

“Well,” Vera said brightly, turning to Petyr and me, “I think we’re going to call it a night here.”

Petyr winked. “You are?”

Mira grinned and looped her arm through Vera’s. “Yes. We have wedding details to plan for my sister. Seating charts and tulle and arguments about cake.”

Vera looked between us, her smile suddenly sly. “Would you two mind spending the rest of the evening on your own?”

Mira gave me a wink as she and Vera turned and headed off down the block.

I looked at Petyr.

He looked at me.

And suddenly, the city didn’t seem so cold anymore.

Petyr grabbed my arm and pulled me up the street, his laughter bouncing off the stone walls of the surrounding buildings like music.

Not the kind of music you hear in a concert hall, all stiff and official, but the kind that made your chest loosen and your feet want to move.

I tried to keep my composure, but his happiness was infectious, and before I knew it, I was grinning like an idiot.

The wind tugged at our coats, but Petyr didn’t seem to care. He threw his arm over my shoulders like we were just two friends walking home from the factory after a long shift. Like this was normal. Safe. Real.

“This is perfect,” he murmured, leaning close so his breath tickled my ear. “With you dating Mira—my wife’s best friend, no less—we can see each other more often now. No one will be the wiser.”

I laughed, partly from joy and partly from disbelief. The absurdity of it all. A fake girlfriend, a life performed like a play in which we all had our roles. But under all that? This moment. His arm was around me. And his smile? Just for me.

“I’ve felt so alone these last few weeks,” I admitted, keeping my voice low. “Under my father’s roof, it’s like I’m made of glass. The only time I come alive is when I’m working next to you. Even then... we’re never really alone.”

Petyr squeezed my shoulder. “You’re not alone now.”

I wanted to believe that. I did.

“Aren’t you worried someone will notice?” I asked. “We’re walking down Nevsky like this, with your arm over my shoulder, and…”

Petyr stopped abruptly and turned in a slow circle, his eyes scanning the crowd. A pair of men passed us, one with his arm draped lazily around the other’s neck, laughing about something. Another man up ahead playfully shoved his friend against a shop window.

He looked back at me and grinned. “Stop worrying so much. Look around. No one cares. We only have a few hours—let’s make the best of it.”

I swallowed my fear and nodded. He was right. Paranoia wouldn’t protect me, not really. And it wouldn’t get me what I wanted, either.

“Where are we going?” I asked, trying not to sound too eager.

Petyr’s grin widened, and a gleam lit his eyes. “Sanctuary.”

The word hit me like the first sip of vodka on a frosty night—sharp, warm, and full of promise.

Sanctuary. The abandoned bathhouse, our hidden world beneath the city, tucked between shadows and silence.

Where the lights were soft, the air thick with smoke and freedom, and no one had to lie about who they were.

Where Petyr and I could be just Petyr and I, without pretense or fear.

My heart beat faster.

He caught the change in my expression and leaned in again. “Hurry. We don’t have much time.”