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Chapter Eighteen

Dimitri

I didn’t know Vera’s parents rated that kind of car. Government issue, yes, but that car was only given to the elites. Only the genuine power players rode in a Chaika with curtains in the windows and a chauffeur in a double-breasted coat.

“Didn’t think Vera was the type to come from royalty,” I muttered.

Mira gave a sharp sniff, still glaring at the car ahead. “Her parents probably have two dachas and a private butcher. Elitists.”

Then she caught herself. Her face softened instantly.

“I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair. I have a headache.”

“No offense taken,” I muttered.

Silence returned, but this time it wasn’t bristling.

I glanced at her and then back to the car ahead of us. “Funny, isn’t it? The people who preach equality get driven around in a limousine while the rest of us cram into trolleybuses and freeze our asses off.”

She huffed a tired laugh. “Dima…”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry,” I blurted. “That was uncalled for.”

We shared a brief look. Mutual apology in a single glance. Welcome to Soviet friendship.

The Chaika turned onto Sadovaya Street, and I followed.

We passed rows of buildings in that drab mustard-grey shade the city wore like a second skin until the limo glided to a halt beside a nondescript structure I’d only heard about in whispers: Metropol .

A place people like me didn’t go to. Not because we weren’t allowed. Because we wouldn’t dare.

I parked the Lada behind the Chaika and killed the engine. Mira shifted in her seat, then placed her hand lightly on mine.

“Vera’s parents are very important in the Party,” she whispered. “Be on your best behavior.”

I swallowed. “Wasn’t planning on starting a revolution.”

Her hand lingered just long enough to feel like a warning. Then we both got out of the car.

Vera emerged from the Chaika looking perfect, of course.

Those sharp cheekbones glowing in the wind, and Petyr at her side like some accessory she wore effortlessly.

Behind them came the parents. Her father looked aloof, obviously accustomed to going to actual restaurants.

Her mother, on the other hand, radiated authority like she could reroute the Neva River with a memo.

Sofia caught sight of me and grinned the way crocodiles probably smiled before dinner.

She clapped a manicured hand on my shoulder.

“Bringing an honest worker to Metropol!” she boomed in a voice that could have filled the entire restaurant. “Now that’s a Party privilege!”

My face went hot. I looked like I was wearing a burlap sack compared to their clothes. Mira winced beside me. Petyr glanced down at his shoes. Vera said nothing.

A tall man in a black suit stepped out from behind the heavy glass doors. When he saw Vera’s parents, he smiled like he’d just spotted celebrities.

“Comrade Smirnov, Comrade Smirnova,” he said, bowing slightly. “Your usual table?”

“Of course,” Vera’s father said with a dismissive wave, like it was expected. Like it had never occurred to him, there could be a non-usual table.

Inside, the air was warm and thick with the smell of expensive things: roasted meat, real coffee, maybe even imported wine. The lighting was soft, and the chandeliers were crystal. Everyone inside acted like they knew each other from secret meetings I wasn’t invited to.

The women were draped in satin. The men wore tailored suits and gold watches. No one looked hungry. No one looked tired. I’d never seen this version of the USSR before.

We were led to a table near the window—the table, apparently. The chairs were cushioned. The tablecloth was starched white and clean. I sat stiffly on the edge of my seat, too scared to lean back. Mira did the same.

A waiter appeared with a bottle of something dark and expensive-looking. No label. That meant Georgian wine, probably. Real wine. Not the paint stripper they sold in kiosks. He poured without asking, and no one thanked him.

I tried not to stare at Petyr, but he looked like a deer that had wandered onto a frozen lake. His charm was intact, but the way his fingers fiddled with his water glass gave him away.

We didn’t belong here. Any of us. Not me, not Mira, not Petyr.

Only Vera seemed at home.

And suddenly, I understood something I hadn’t before.

This wasn’t just a pleasant lunch. This was theater. Her parents were staging a scene of some sort.

And I wasn’t sure I wanted to stick around for the second act.

Sofia Smirnova, in her fur-collared spring coat and pearls that probably hadn’t been earned through a single day’s labor, turned to her daughter and set one manicured hand delicately atop Vera’s.

“You know,” she said, her voice pitched just loud enough to draw the attention of every white-table clothed table in a five-meter radius, “nothing would make me prouder than a grandchild. It would be such a patriotic gift to the Party.”

I choked. On water, of all things.

It hit the wrong pipe the second I swallowed and immediately felt like I’d been struck in the throat with a wrench. I sputtered, coughed into my napkin, tried not to make a scene, but it was too late. All heads turned.

Mira leaned toward me and gave me an awkward pat on the back. “Careful,” she muttered under her breath, her cheeks reddening. “You okay?”

“Fine,” I rasped, though I wasn’t. Not even close. The air felt like it had been sucked out of my lungs, out of the whole damned restaurant.

This was the first time since I’d started sneaking around with Petyr that the obvious had actually hit me. That he was a married man. That this wasn’t a pretend marriage.

And Vera, who always seemed so aloof with Petyr, was now sitting there nodding politely at her mother’s grandchild comment, not a single twitch of protest on her face.

I glanced at Petyr, desperate to find some kind of reassurance in his expression.

Instead, I found a goddamn smile.

Wider than I’d ever seen. Practically beaming.

“We keep trying,” he said with a wink that nearly made me drop my fork. Then he turned his head and kissed Vera’s cheek. Soft. Affectionate. Practiced.

I felt it like a body blow. An invisible fist straight to the gut. He might as well have stabbed me with the butter knife.

He was holding her hand now—interlaced fingers, like teenagers in love—and chuckling as Vera’s father launched into some boastful nonsense about grandchildren and legacy.

Something about being able to pull a few strings to ensure the child of a Smirnov was raised with all the privileges the Party could offer. Education. Connections. Influence.

It made me want to vomit.

“Vera, how’s your work at the factory?” Her mother asked. “You know I could find you a position with the Ministry if you’d like.”

“Oh mother, you know I want to work my way to the top, just like you and father.” Vera sipped her wine. “I don’t want people to think I didn’t earn it.”

A server appeared beside us, his face as stiff as the collar on his starched white shirt. He didn’t even ask what we wanted—just looked straight at Mr. Smirnov.

“We’ll have the sturgeon,” the man said, waving a dismissive hand. “And the house pelmeni to start. Vodka all around, of course.”

Of course.

No one argued. Mira didn’t even blink. I stared at the table, gripping my napkin so hard I nearly tore it in two. Why were we even here? Was it for show? Some grand performance where the noble proletariat was honored with scraps from the elite’s banquet?

Or was it worse—were we here to make them feel like good Party members? Like they were doing their part by breaking bread with the workers who actually built the goddamned bread factories?

The server disappeared with our dictated order.

Mr. Smirnov raised his glass with a pompous grin. “To Vera and Petyr. May their union remain strong, fruitful, and a shining example of what Party loyalty looks like.”

Everyone lifted their glass. I did too, like a puppet. Took a sip I barely tasted.

Petyr turned to Vera with a sudden intensity, eyes shining. “Darling, have I told you how radiant you look today? That new lipstick is perfection.”

She smiled, demure and amused, as if she hadn’t heard it a thousand times. “You picked it out.”

He laughed and touched her chin like they were some lovesick couple in a post-war propaganda film.

I felt like my entire chest was filled with rusted nails.

Why couldn’t it be me he flirted with? Why couldn’t he hold my hand? Kiss my cheek? Whisper sweet nothings about how I looked in a threadbare work shirt covered in factory dust?

The bitterness swelled so quickly I could barely breathe around it. But I smiled. Forced it like I’d learned to force everything else. Like I forced my voice to stay low, my walk to stay straight, my eyes to never linger too long.

Because to do otherwise in this place—in their Leningrad—was to risk everything.

And yet, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. About him.

Sitting across from me, toasting his wife, beaming under the watchful eyes of her parents and the state-owned chandeliers, like he hadn’t fucked me three nights ago in a dark alley, gasping my name into the crook of my neck.

And now?

Now he belonged to them.

Not me, and it never would be me.

* * *

We spilled out of the restaurant in a polite flurry of goodbyes, the way well-trained citizens are supposed to. Coat collars were turned up against the cool spring wind that rolled off the river, and the sky was smeared with a flurry of white puffy clouds.

Sofia Smirnova reached for my hand and gave it the sort of shake that didn’t involve eye contact. “Dimitri,” she said with a tight smile, “how nice to meet you.”

Her husband followed suit. “Yes. And Mira. So glad you two could join us.”

The words “thank you for your service” might as well have hung between his teeth, but he didn’t say them. Too gauche, even for him.

Then—dismissal, as clean and clear as the sound of boots on marble. They turned, visibly turned away from us, toward their actual concern.

“Vera, Petyr,” Sofia said, her hand already on her husband’s arm like they were preparing to be whisked away by a damn czarist carriage. “You’ll come to the dacha tonight, yes? Stay with us for the rest of the weekend. We repaired the pinewood sauna. It’s completely redone.”

I froze. My stomach dropped so fast I actually felt dizzy. There was no possible way their dacha was anything like the shack I dropped my mother off at earlier.

Please, I thought. Say no. Make up an excuse. Tell them you forgot about some Komsomol committee or a mandatory meeting with the factory heads. Lie. I know you want to be with me. I can feel it in my bones.

But Vera grinned like she’d just been offered a cake. “We’d be delighted, Mother. If you don’t mind, we might stay through Sunday.”

And then, the final nail.

Petyr slipped an arm around her waist and leaned in with a smile. “Maybe we’ll start talking baby names.”

That did it.

The buzzing in my ears turned to a roar. My throat clenched, my hands itched to break something, and I turned away fast—too fast—toward my father’s battered old blue Lada. My boots scraped on the concrete.

“Dimitri!” Petyr called behind me. “You don’t mind dropping Mira off, do you?”

I stopped just long enough to scowl over my shoulder. “Of course not.”

He didn’t catch the sarcasm. Or maybe he did, but pretended he didn’t.

Mira slipped into the passenger seat beside me without a word. I didn’t wait for the Smirnov’s driver to finish shutting their polished rear doors. I started the engine and tore away, tires chirping against the damp pavement.

I was seething. My jaw hurt from clenching. My pulse was a jackhammer in my ears. Every little honk and shout from the streets just fed the fire.

“You’re going to kill us both,” Mira said quietly.

I blinked, realizing I’d been speeding like a madman down Ligovsky Prospekt, weaving through traffic like I had something to prove. I eased off the gas, but my hands were still strangling the wheel.

Then I glanced at her and did a double take.

Mira was crying.

Not loud, gasping sobs. Not the sort of tears meant to be seen. These were slow and soundless, the kind that carved through makeup and made everything ache just looking at them.

“Mira…” My voice cracked. “Are you okay?”

She didn’t answer right away. Just stared ahead, lashes wet, lips pressed tight.

Finally, she whispered, “You’re blind. Deaf, too.”

I blinked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

But she just shook her head, wiping one cheek with the back of her hand.

“Make a right,” she murmured.

I did.

The rest of the ride was silent, except for the rustling of old seat fabric and the occasional thunk of the car hitting potholes. The Lada rattled like it was as angry as I was.

When we pulled up in front of her apartment building—a squat, faded block of gray—I put the car in park and turned to her, ready to press again, to ask what the hell that comment meant.

But she beat me to it.

“Is this even worth it anymore?” she asked, eyes still trained on the dashboard. Her voice was so soft I wasn’t sure I heard her right.

Then she opened the door, stepped out, and closed it with a hollow thud that left my ears ringing.

I thought about what she said and found myself repeating the same question.

“Is this worth it?”