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Alina’s life fits into four boxes and a backpack.
Two of those boxes aren’t even hers. They are all that is left of her mama (besides the modest gravestone back in a Keramzin cemetery), unremarkable to anyone else but precious beyond words to Alina.
Now, those four boxes and backpack are sitting on single mattress in a tiny dorm room, waiting to be unpacked.
The desk has a wobbly leg, her wardrobe only has one door and the window doesn’t have much of a view, but by some miracle she’s been placed in a single room rather than having to share.
Alina has never had a room to herself. She and mama had rented a one-bedroom apartment, and then Alina had gone from crowded group homes to crowded foster homes back and forth for ten years.
She wonders if it’s simply pity for the orphan who could only afford to attend Os Alta University because she’d worked long and hard to secure a full academic scholarship. Still, she won’t look a gift horse in the mouth, not when she could have been stuck with a nightmare roommate – Alina has no problem with students who want to party, but she needs to keep her grades up to hold onto her scholarship.
Her limited wardrobe looks a little pathetic hung up, but she hopes she can find some more clothes at the thrift stores nearby.
Though her scholarship gives her money towards living expenses, she’s secured a job at one of the campus coffee shops so that she can build up some savings in case of emergencies.
After all, you never know when you’re going to have the rug pulled out from under you. Alina had learnt that lesson at the tender age of eight when her babysitter opened the door to the police rather than mama.
“I miss you,” she murmurs, fingers brushing over the face smiling out of the photo frame she pulls out of one of the boxes.
It all comes rushing back, the way it always does when she hasn’t looked at mama’s things in a while.
Summer picnics. Mooncakes baking in the oven. The scent of irises clinging to mama’s jumpers. Warm hugs. Gentle hands soothing hurts. Alina’s favourite stories like The Jade Rabbit and The Six Soldiers and Hou Yi and the Ten Suns. Home-made birthday cakes with her name iced in swirling letters. Cuddled up on the couch watching movies or reading together. Painting together at the kitchen table. It had been a simple life, but one filled with love.
It doesn’t hurt like it used to, but there’s still an ache that never goes away, even if she can forget it for a while.
The frame, filled with a picture of Alina and mama at the park just a few weeks before she died, goes in pride of place on the bedside table.
She finds spots for everything else – her stationery and painting supplies; her small collection of books; a tiny figurine of Sankta Alina, the mythical figure she’s named for; her glittery gold costume jewellery; her slow but mostly reliable laptop; and a few other odds and ends she’s picked up (and miraculously managed to hold onto) over the years.
The walls are bare, painted the colour of porridge, but Alina isn’t too worried – she can get cheap canvases at the art store nearby and soon enough the walls will be covered in bright colours and scenes from her favourite fairytales.
This is a new adventure and it will be great.
Hopefully.
Economics is …
Well, it’s fine.
She’s good at it, which helps. And if she doesn’t have the same passion for it as she does for art then that’s just something she’ll have to accept.
A scholarship will only keep her fed, clothed and housed until she graduates. And she’ll need a more reliable income than art can give her.
Her classes are tolerable. Her professors aren’t too bad. Her fellow students are fine.
She makes a few friends, superficial relationships perfect for getting coffee between classes or studying together but nothing deeper than that.
She joins so many student organisations, hoping to find ones that resonate, but discovering instead that she still doesn’t quite fit anywhere. Undeterred, she signs up for Shu lessons to expand her grasp of the language that mama only had a short time to teach her, and thinking maybe she’ll meet others like her who have lost their connection to their Shu roots, as she has through a succession of conservative foster homes who seemed determined to foist only Ravkan traditions and culture upon her. It helps a little, and she meets Professor Botkin, who kindly and patiently helps her with her elementary-level Shu.
Still, university is not the fix-it she once imagined it might be. She still finds herself yearning for something.
-----
One evening during the spring semester, Alina unfolds her Birth Certificate, smoothing out the creases.
Alina Keyen Kir-Taban, born 21st June 2004.
“A summer solstice baby,” mama smiles, “my little sun.”
Mother: Keyen Leyti Kir-Taban, age 18.
Father: Unknown.
Alina doesn’t really know much about mama’s life before she’d left Os Alta, seventeen and pregnant, and moved to Keramzin.
She’d been born in Shu Han and emigrated with one or both of her parents to Ravka. By the time of Alina’s birth, Keyen was estranged from every family member still living.
After her mama’s death – “… at least it was quick,” the police officer whispers to the social worker, thinking Alina can’t hear, “poor thing” – Ravkan Social Services had reached out, trying to find some family who might take Alina in. Not one known family member had responded to the attempts to contact them.
Despite the missing pieces in the puzzle of mama’s life, at least Alina has an outline, a picture to go by.
Her favourite things – hot chocolate, jiaozi, mooncakes, irises, Van Gogh, Jane Austen.
The dimple that appeared when she smiled.
Her inability to resist singing along to the radio.
Her patience with Alina’s rather appalling accent when she taught her Shu.
The little clues that spoke of a privileged childhood that shifted into hardship – a long emptied bottle of Chanel N°19 POUDRÉ (a floral fragrance, the box proclaims, which blends the powdery notes of Iris notes with the softness of White Musks – a scent Alina cannot afford to buy but which she likes to test out in the shops sometimes to remind her of her mother), a diamond encrusted sun pendant and a Hermès silk scarf.
Eight years of precious memories she will always treasure.
Her father, on the other hand.
Father: Unknown.
Mama let very little information slip to Alina, even when she begged for an explanation that she could include for that most common of school projects – a family tree.
Alina has only three clues. A single photograph she found in the back of one of mama’s books, creased and faded. A surname – Starkov – that was the only visible thing on an unfinished letter that had been torn and scribbled through. And the likelihood that her father had lived, worked in or visited Os Alta when mama had fallen pregnant.
Alina knows her curiosity is a dangerous thing.
After all, mama might not have spoken often about Alina’s father but, when she did, it was with the complete conviction that they were better off without him.
It’s just …
Alina is lonely.
She’s connecting with her Shu heritage a little, but she wonders if she’ll feel less out of place if she can learn more about her father and where he came from.
Even if what she discovers just reinforces mama’s belief that she should stay far away from him, at least then Alina will be sure.
It’s the not knowing that’s difficult.
Private investigators are expensive, as it turns out.
They’re also strangely reluctant to take on her case as soon as she gives them details.
It doesn’t bode well that, when Alina explains she’s looking for a man with the surname Starkov, they immediately start offering excuses – they’ve got a full workload, their fees would be beyond her means, or they need more information.
Alina goes to over half a dozen different places until she finds Crow Investigations.
Kaz Brekker is young (scarcely older than Alina, in fact) but he’s professional and efficient, taking all the details down and not raising an eyebrow at the scant information she can offer him.
He names a reasonable price for initial investigations and makes no promises about what he’ll find.
“I’ll be in touch within twenty-four hours with an update,” he promises.
Alina goes back to her dorm room in something of a daze, not quite able to believe that she could have information about her father in less than a day.
She isn’t quite sure whether to be excited or terrified.
Kaz calls her at 9am the next morning, “when can you come to my office, Miss Kir-Taban?”
Alina is so jittery that she decides to skip her morning lecture and head straight over to Crow Investigations.
“If I may ask, Miss Kir-Taban, what exactly are you looking for with your search.”
“I … I don’t expect a sappy family reunion or anything cliché like that, I only … I want to know something about my father.”
Kaz nods, “well, I’ve found someone who can give you more information. His name is Aleksandr Morozov.”
Alina frowns, “can you not give me the information yourself?”
She’s hyped herself up a bit and it’s somewhat disappointing and nerve-wracking to realise she might have to wait longer for answers.
“The information will be better coming from Mr Morozov,” Kaz tells her with confident certainty, “I can contact him now, if you’d like, to arrange for a meeting.”
She nods eagerly.
“Very well,” Kaz says, “if you’ll give me a few minutes.”
He vanishes out of the room, shutting the door firmly behind him so she can’t hear anything he’s saying on the phone.
It’s not that she’s normally nosy, and of course it would be rude to eavesdrop, but she really wants to know what’s going on.
It isn’t long before Kaz reappears, looking satisfied.
“Yes?” she asks eagerly.
“Mr Morozov would be very pleased to meet with you tomorrow. 12 noon, at The Little Palace Hotel?”
Alina has heard of it. The city’s most exclusive hotel, with a restaurant menu that looked both delicious and extortionately expensive.
Perhaps he won’t want to eat, and she can just order a glass of water. Or maybe say she’d eaten a big breakfast.
“Miss Kir-Taban?”
“Oh, right, yes, of course, noon tomorrow, I’ll be there.”
“I will notify Mr Morozov. I’m sure he’ll be glad to hear it.”
“How much do I owe you?” she asks as Kaz shows her to the door a few minutes later, “will you send me an invoice?”
“It’s all been taken care of,” he tells her, and there is a flicker of something in his gaze, as if more is going on than she knows.
“I don’t understand?”
“Mr Morozov and I have something of a professional arrangement. It’s all been settled between us.”
Alina’s brow furrows in confusion at the idea of a stranger covering her bill, but she can’t really see a good reason to turn down a saving of a few hundred dollars.
“Stay safe, Miss Kir-Taban,” Kaz says quietly as she leaves.
It’s polite, that’s all.
Alina ignores the ominous feeling it evokes.
Alina can scarcely sleep.
Before, her father had almost been an idea, a distant figure she knew almost nothing about.
Now, she realises she’s close to getting some real answers, perhaps even being able to meet her father, if Mr Morozov knows him.
She doesn’t want to get her hopes up. It’s unrealistic and unwise.
Still, she can’t help but remember her envy as a child when she saw girls at school with fathers who came to their competitions and escorted them to daddy-daughter dances and taught them how to drive and glared down their boyfriends and smiled proudly at their high school graduation.
She doesn’t expect all that, knows it isn’t at all likely.
But, maybe, she can have some kind of relationship with her father, or at least get a bit of closure.
She hopes Mr Morozov can help her.
“You have his eyes.”
Aleksandr Morozov – “Sasha, please, milaya” – is almost too beautiful to be real, with a face that seems to be carved from marble by Michelangelo himself.
It would be intensely intimidating, if he wasn’t so polite and charming. As it is, he is only moderately scary.
“I …”
The photo she has is faded and not a close-up. She hasn’t been able to discern much except that she looks much more like her mama.
“You … you know him, then,” Alina stutters as he pulls out her chair for her and she sits, blushing slightly, “Mr Brekker … he wasn’t entirely clear.”
“I know him. Or, rather, I should say I did know him.”
There is a finality and sympathy in his voice that makes it clear that Alina really is an orphan in truth.
She’s not quite sure how to feel.
“Oh. When …?”
“2020. I’m very sorry for your loss, Alina.”
Strange, to receive condolences for the death of a man she’d never even met.
Alina sighs, “I didn’t really know anything about him. That’s rather sad, isn’t it?”
“Well, what do you want to know?”
“What was his name?”
“Anton. Anton Starkov.”
For a moment, she imagines the life she might have had as Alina Starkova, a girl with two parents, growing up in bustling Os Alta. Would Anton have been the involved kind of father she’d always dreamed of, or someone more distant as suggested by mama’s lack of inclination to find him?
“How … how did you two meet?”
“We grew up in the same neighbourhood. Anton was a few years older than me, but we knew each other well. As we got older, though … well, I’m afraid he fell in with a bad crowd – gangs, drugs, petty crime. I tried to help, gave him jobs when I inherited the family businesses from my grandfather, but … well, he didn’t want to be helped.”
Alina freezes. She thought she had braced herself to be disappointed, but this – drugs and gangs and crime – is nothing like the father she’s always wanted.
Sasha pats her hand gently, “I’m sorry, Alina.”
“It’s not your fault,” she ducks her head, “I … I shouldn’t take up more of your time.”
She means to stand, but there’s a look in his eyes that keeps her seated instead.
“Well, shall we eat?” he asks.
“Oh, I already –”
“My treat, of course,” he adds, as if he knows exactly what she’s about to say.
“Thank you,” she murmurs, scanning the menu for the cheapest item, panicking slightly when she realises there are no prices listed.
Fuck. She knows he said he’d pay, but she still doesn’t want to pick something overly expensive.
Alina can feel her face heat up. This shouldn’t be such an ordeal and yet it is.
She reads through the whole menu again before a large hand suddenly plucks it from her hand, “it’s so difficult to choose, isn’t it? I’ve tried everything on this menu at least twice and it really is all wonderful.”
“Yes,” she mumbles, unable to meet his eyes, “difficult to choose.”
“Why don’t I order for us, milaya? And then you can judge whether I’ve guessed your taste correctly.”
She hopes her nod doesn’t seem over-eager, but this seems like the best option and she’s so relieved to have it sorted. After all, surely he won’t choose something he doesn’t want to pay for.
Their server appears as if summoned, and Sasha orders so rapidly that Alina doesn’t hear anything about her own order except for “… pasta, extra sauce.”
“Now,” he says, as they wait for their food, “you are a student, is that correct?”
She nods, “at Os Alta University.”
“My alma mater,” he smiles approvingly, “and what do you study?”
She shrugs, “Economics.”
He frowns, “but you don’t sound enthused.”
“I …”
“Come now, milaya, tell me, what do you really enjoy?”
“Art,” she admits, compelled to be honest by the look of genuine interest and concern in his dark eyes.
“You’re a freshman. You could switch majors.”
“Economics is more useful,” she tells him, repeating what she tells herself every day.
Art is an uncertain career. Alina definitely can’t afford uncertain.
His frown deepens and Alina rushes to reassure him, not wanting him to be concerned on her behalf.
“Economics is fine, really.”
Sasha doesn’t seem convinced, but he thankfully doesn’t challenge her.
“Tell me about the art you like,” he says instead, and Alina needs no further encouragement than that.
She fairly gushes about her recent trip to The Fold Art Gallery. She doesn’t get chance to spend a whole day there very often, but when she does it’s always an amazing experience.
“I’m glad you like it, milaya,” he smiles like he knows something she doesn’t and then laughs – although not unkindly – at her perplexed expression, “I own the gallery, Alina.”
“Oh,” she blushes pink, “I’m sorry, and here I was babbling on about it when I’m sure you already know –”
“Relax, milaya,” he interrupts her gently, “I’m glad to hear all the aspects that you love – it’s wonderful feedback for us, you know. Do you visit often?”
“Every few months, I guess,” she says, “between classes and work, it’s hard to find the time.”
She could make time, it’s true, but Alina can’t afford to be visiting the gallery multiple times a week like she would if she had the means. She doesn’t say that out loud, but she feels sure Sasha knows it anyway.
“We can’t have that, Alina – someone who is so passionate about art deserves to see it whenever she wants. I’ll arrange a lifetime membership for you.”
Alina shakes her head frantically. It’s bad enough that he’s paying for this meal, but a lifetime membership at The Fold is expensive.
“I insist,” he tells her in a voice that brooks no refusal, and she stutters out her fervent thanks.
“Now, what about your own work,” Sasha says, “do you have any pictures.”
Alina pulls out her phone, trying not to feel self-conscious about the cracked screen, and shyly shows him a few photographs of the most recent pieces she’s done.
He doesn’t just flick through them with passive interest. He asks questions about her influences and inspirations, tells her the aspects he likes most and immediately spots the little flecks of gold paint she adds to each of her works to really make them shine.
“You’ve got an interest in all the old myths and legends, I see.”
Alina nods, “mama told me a lot of tales from Shu Han. And then I learnt some of the Ravkan stories when I was older. I … I’ve always enjoyed fairytales.”
She admits it self-consciously, well aware that a clearly successful businessman like Mr Morozov may think she’s quite childish.
“Have you ever thought about freelancing as an illustrator – I know a few people in publishing and collections of these tales are released fairly often – I’m sure some of them would love to have fresh illustrations for their versions.”
“I’m sure my work isn’t that good, Sasha.”
“You’re more talented than you know, Alinochka,” he tells her, almost chidingly, “and you must learn to accept it.”
Alina changes the topic, slightly uncomfortable with hearing such sincere and effusive praise.
Still, no matter how she tries to be polite and ask about him, or bring the conversation back to Anton Starkov, it almost seems as if Sasha only wants to talk about her.
Alina has no idea why.
It is nice, though, to have someone be so sincerely interested in her. She hasn’t had that in a long time, not since mama.
The food, when it comes, is absolutely delicious. The pasta is one of the dishes she’d been drawn to and it is absolutely the right choice. Dessert is equally good, the best Medovik she’s ever eaten. She notices Sasha has chosen a decadent chocolate brownie and he demolishes it in barely any time at all.
“Guilty,” he admits with a wry grin when she asks if he might happen to have a sweet tooth, “it’s an indulgence of mine.”
Alina rather likes it. He exudes success and confidence and maturity, so she’s glad to see him take a gleeful joy in his dessert.
“I’d like to keep in touch, if that’s alright with you, Alina,” he says when their dessert plates have been cleared away and they’re preparing to leave.
“You don’t need to do –”
He chucks her under the chin affectionately, “None of that. I want to, milaya.”
It’s something of an oddity, his eagerness to spend time with her. She’s never quite mastered the art of making friends – she’d had some as a young child, but it was hard to maintain friendships when she moved around foster and group homes so regularly, and her awkwardness with turning acquaintances into friends had followed her through high school and into university.
Alina tries not to tremble as she puts his number into her phone and sends him a brief hi so he can save her number.
“I’ll be in touch,” he leans down to brush his lips over her cheek and she shivers a little.
He probably won’t message her, she thinks as she leaves the hotel. He was just being polite, but there’s no way a man like him will –
Her phone pings, a new message.
Dinner on Friday? I can show you around the gallery’s new exhibit – it isn’t open to the public yet.
He’s a little sneaky, really. He must know she’d never be able to resist such an opportunity.
Yes, thank you. What time shall I meet you?
I’ll send a car at 7, milaya.
Dress code?
We’ll eat at the gallery, so wear whatever you wish.
Another ping a few minutes later. An email from The Fold Art Gallery confirming her premium lifetime membership and promising a membership card will be with her in 1-3 working days.
In all her excitement as she dreams of no longer having to ration visits to one of her favourite Os Alta spots, Alina never even thinks about the fact that she didn’t give Sasha her email or dorm address.
Alina doesn’t really expect to hear from Sasha for the rest of the week.
As it turns out, her assumption is very wrong.
You should be in bed comes when she responds to his message at 11.35pm, it’s important to get a good night’s sleep.
Got the recipe for the pasta dish you had at the Little Palace as you seemed to like it – a courier will drop it off at your dorm with the ingredients so you can try making it yourself.
Well done, Alinochka, when she sends him a photo of her latest finished piece, it’s beautiful.
Some articles I think you might find interesting, milaya, he writes with links to half a dozen articles about how to put a Fine Arts degree to use and the importance of studying something you’re enthusiastic about at university.
So, when Friday comes, Alina gets into the sleek black town car – which causes something of a stir outside her dorm – not quite sure if she feels more or less nervous than she expected to be when she first accepted the invitation.
More nervous, because she’s really enjoyed their exchanges during the week and having someone look out for her, and she’s scared that this might be the end.
Less nervous, because she feels she knows him better and won’t be quite as anxious around him.
As it is, she needn’t have worried.
Sasha compliments her dress (a stellar $15 thrift store find) and envelopes her in a warm hug that makes her feel more cared for than she has since mama died.
He’s dressed down this evening. At their lunch, he’d worn a smart suit, as if he’d come straight from business meetings. Now, though, he’s wearing jeans and a soft cashmere jumper, both in black. When he rolls his sleeves up, she spots a small tattoo on the inside of his wrist – an eclipsed sun done in black ink.
He’s as attentive during this meal – delivered, in a happy coincidence, from her favourite Shu restaurant – as he was during their first.
She does manage to get him to open up a bit more about himself. She learns that he owns the Little Palace Hotel, The Fold Art Gallery and many other properties in Os Alta and across Ravka, including three of Os Alta’s most popular clubs – Corporalki, Etherealki and Materialki.
She’d guessed he was rich, but she hadn’t quite realised he’s super rich. Strangely, he doesn’t make her feel particularly self-conscious about her own contrasting lack of wealth the way others might. He’s more matter-of-fact about it rather than boastful.
She only gets concerned when they’re opening Fortune Cookies – Keep your mind and heart open, hers reads, love is just around the corner – and he tells her he wants to give her some money.
“Your father was working for me when he died, you know,” he says when she immediately protests, “and we have death in service benefits in place for all our employees. We weren’t aware of any family, so we made a donation to charity in his name. I’d like you to have the money, though, Alinochka, as is your right.”
She shakes her head, “I couldn’t. You’ve already given it away and I wouldn’t dream of taking it from a charity.”
He laughs, “sweet girl, we make plenty of charitable gifts throughout the year, no harm in an extra one in Anton’s name. And the money belongs to you, as Anton’s daughter.”
“But, Sasha, I never even met Anton. It doesn’t seem right.”
“Of course it’s right, milaya, it belongs to you.”
“I don’t know –”
“Alina,” he puts a hand on her arm, stern now, “the money is yours. To be honest, I would do this even if we didn’t have the death in service in place – Anton was my friend once, and he was your father, so I feel something of a responsibility and a connection towards you.”
She wants to refuse. It’s far too generous a gesture, money that she doesn’t deserve. But she can’t help but imagine what these funds - $80,000, he tells her – could do. She would be able to switch her major to Art and know that she has a nest egg to keep her afloat while she establishes herself in whatever artistic career she chooses.
“Let me do this, Alinochka,” Sasha murmurs, taking her hands in his, “let me take care of you.”
It’s irresistible. She can’t bring herself to refuse any longer.
She nods, “thank you, Sasha.”
She changes her major on Monday and sends a string of celebratory emojis to Sasha.
When he responds with a good girl, she gets butterflies in her stomach.
Alina expects her interactions with Sasha to reduce now, until eventually they stop messaging altogether.
After all, he’s given her some answers about her father and helped her by passing on the money earmarked for Anton’s family. He’s been more generous and polite than she’d ever have expected. She can’t imagine that someone as important and busy as he is will want to waste any more time talking to a university student.
She’s so wrong it’s almost laughable.
Texts, video calls, phone conversations, meals, days out – he suggests them all.
At first, Sasha is the one to initiate everything. It’s not that Alina doesn’t want to see him – she wants it more than she’s wanted anything in a long time – but she worries she’ll take up his time or bother him.
As weeks pass, though, and Sasha shows no signs of becoming irritated or bored by her presence, Alina starts to call him of her own accord, to suggest visits to hole-in-the-wall bakeries or restaurants, or to nervously mention this exhibition or that show that she thinks he might like.
Despite her best efforts, he continues to pay for everything, giving her such a disappointed frown the few times she manages to slip her card to the restaurant server before him that she soon gives up offering.
It’s wonderful, really. Alina hasn’t been able to confide in someone this way since mama died.
Still, her brain can’t seem to decide how to see Sasha.
On one hand, he is like the father she always dreamed of. Warm and caring, proud of every achievement (big or small), always reminding her to eat her vegetables and drink enough water and go to bed early, giving her advice and helping her with difficult decisions.
On the other hand, she feels funny when she looks at him, shivers when he hugs her or kisses her cheek or takes her hand. She finds herself using her vibrator more frequently than she ever has before and, when she brings herself to multiple powerful, shuddering climaxes (far more intense than any she ever had with her first and only boyfriend Mal), it is always Sasha’s face and hands and voice that she fantasises about.
“Did you ever meet my mama?” Alina asks one evening.
They’re at his penthouse, Alina snuggled into his side as they watch Howl’s Moving Castle, his hand carding through her hair.
They haven’t really spoken about Anton since their first two meetings and Alina is ok with that, can read between the lines and realise that he’s not someone she would have wanted to know. But it’s only just occurred to her that, if Sasha knew Anton, then perhaps he might have known mama, even just a little.
Memories of mama are precious to Alina. If Sasha has any other stories, then she’d like to hear them, especially since she doesn’t know any of mama’s family.
“I met Keyen once,” he tells her after a few moments, “saw her from a distance a few other times. She was just a teenager when she dated Anton, and I honestly couldn’t understand what she saw in him. She was bright, that was clear even from just one meeting, and although I got the impression that she wasn’t close with her family, they weren’t associated with the crowd Anton hung around with. It was something of a cliché, good girl and bad boy, but she wised up quickly enough, vanished from the city not long after I met her. As far as I know, Anton never even realised she was pregnant.”
Alina always considered mama the best woman in the world. She’s glad to know that Sasha, although he only met her briefly, had come away with a positive impression.
“Do you want to tell me about her?” Sasha asks softly.
No one has ever asked her that. The police and the social workers expressed condolences, but they were all overworked and understaffed and never had the time to talk properly with Alina. The state only paid for therapists for those children who showed outward problems, and Alina hadn’t ever been able to afford sessions herself.
“I’d like that,” she smiles a little sadly.
Sasha pauses the film and continues to stroke her hair, patiently waiting for her to begin.
“Mama always smelled of irises,” she begins, “and when she smiled, I could never feel sad. She worked at the Keramzin Art Gallery and so we could go free whenever we wanted – it wasn’t very big, but I used to love to wander through it and find my favourite paintings. Mama would draw outlines of some of them for me so I could sit and colour them in.”
“You come by your love of art honestly then, milaya?”
She nods, “mama loved art. She said she was so happy to be able to work surrounded by it every day.”
“Will you tell me more?” he asks, and she can sense he really does want to know, he’s not just going through the motions.
So Alina talks and talks and talks until her words turn into yawns and she falls asleep in his arms.
It’s one of the most wonderful nights of her life.
Alina and her mama had always made a big deal about birthdays. Even though they didn’t have much money, they would find cheap but colourful banners and balloons, bake a cake and spend the whole day doing fun things together.
After the car accident, Alina’s birthday became just another day. She might get a few small presents, depending on which foster or group home she was in, but it wasn’t the same.
Her nineteenth birthday is her first with Sasha. She begs him not to make too much of a fuss, slightly scared that he’ll present her with something ridiculously expensive that she’ll be scared to wear or worried she’ll break.
Instead, after a day trip to Balakirev to visit the dacha that had once been a royal summer home, but which is currently hosting a collection by the famous Shu artist Neyar Saran, he takes her back to his penthouse and presents her with a gift that has almost no monetary value but which is sentimentally priceless.
“How … how did you get these?” she asks, looking down at the photo album filled with images of her mama as an infant, child, teenager and adult, and even some of her with Alina that she has never seen before.
“I have many connections, milaya.”
She traces her fingers over the photographs, smiling tearfully as she notes all the similarities between her features and mama’s. It always hurts, that she sometimes struggles to remember mama’s face and has to look at the few pictures she has to remind her. Looking at these new images, memories come rushing back.
“Sasha, this is …”
She can’t find the words for how much it means to her. Instead, embarrassingly, she bursts into noisy tears.
“Shh, Alinochka,” he envelopes her in his arms, pressing his lips to the crown of her head, “it’s alright, milaya.”
“I love it,” she tells him, “I really love it, Sasha.”
I love you, she thinks.
“Was that your dad?” asks Marie (friendly, if a little gossipy, studying Chemistry) when Sasha drops her off at her dorm one evening with three bags full of Safina clothes (“Genya Safina is my cousin, Alinochka, and when I mentioned you, she absolutely insisted on sending all of this as a gift”).
She means to tell the truth, or a shortened version of it, at least. Instead, she only nods.
“You’re soooooo lucky,” Marie gushes, “my dad only ever comes to visit when my mom nags him. And then he spends half of dinner moaning about how much money I’m spending. Yours seems way better.”
“Yeah,” Alina murmurs, “he’s the best.”
-----
“What can I get you and your daughter,” the beaming waitress asks them when they go out for lunch one day.
Alina flushes bright red, but before she can correct the woman, Sasha just rattles off his own order and “you’ll have the ravioli, won’t you, Alinochka? And just the garlic bread with that. We have to leave room for dessert,” he explains to the waitress, “it’s a celebration – someone won a prize for their painting.”
She nods dumbly as the waitress coos her congratulations and promises the food will be out soon.
Sasha just squeezes Alina’s hand and smiles at her proudly like there’s nothing strange at all going on.
-----
“Let me get those for you, Alinochka,” Sasha takes the bags containing her new laptop, laptop bag, printer and assorted accessories (he’d offered to buy everything for her, but Alina had insisted on using the money from a few paintings she’d sold at a recent student exhibition) from her, “I’ll bring the car around.”
“So nice of your dad to come and help you out,” the cashier says as she hands Alina her receipt.
“Yes,” Alina nods, “so nice of him.”
-----
Alina’s Pornhub history these days is telling.
daddy takes care of his sweet girl
step-father step-daughter
daddy’s girl
older man/younger woman
So many hours spent sprawled out on her bed with her vibrator, watching commanding and paternal men with dark hair fuck petite young women who call them daddy.
The video she’s found today is particularly arousing, the couple in it strikingly similar to her and Sasha.
“That’s it, baby, be a good girl for daddy.”
“You’re so little, baby. Daddy has to get you ready or he’ll hurt you.”
“Look at you, all pink and wet, dripping for me. You were made for daddy, weren’t you?”
“So tight and warm, but we’ll make it fit, won’t we, baby?”
“You can take it, my good girl, you can take it all.”
She comes so hard her vision goes white.
Fuck. This is a problem.
It just comes out one day.
Dinner at his penthouse, trying to surreptitiously sneak her vegetables onto his plate.
“Nice try, milaya,” he piles them (and extra) back onto her plate.
“It’s for your own good,” he adds when he spots her pouting, “it’s important to eat balanced meals.”
“Yes, daddy.”
She freezes as she realises what she’s said.
When she slowly looks over at him, she expects to see an annoyed or even disgusted expression on his face. She isn’t expecting his eyes to have darkened, intensely focused on her.
“Eat, Alinochka,” he murmurs quietly.
She finishes every bite of the stir-fry without a word.
When she puts her knife and fork down, Sasha’s mouth curves into a pleased smile, “good girl.”
Alina shivers. Sasha’s smile widens.
They watch a film after dinner, Sasha flicking through some paperwork as she half-dozes.
She means to get up and head back to her dorm, but she’s so comfy on the couch that she doesn’t fight her tiredness and just lets herself fall fast asleep.
She wakes briefly when Sasha picks her up and carries her to bed, feels him press a kiss to her forehead, “sleep well, milaya.”
“Daddy,” she mumbles, almost without meaning to.
“Daddy has to go to work,” she thinks she hears him say, which is silly because it’s the early hours of Saturday morning, “I’ll be back later.”
-----
Alina wakes alone to find a note on the bedside table explaining that Sasha’s had a work emergency and she should make herself at home until he gets back.
She showers and steals one of his shirts – half of her clothes seem to have migrated to the penthouse but she likes the way Sasha’s shirts smell – and then eats some granola and yoghurt for breakfast.
She has no pending assignments, so she fishes her sketchbook out of her bag and starts to draw whatever comes to mind.
Mostly, as is often the case now, it’s Sasha.
When it reaches noon and he hasn’t yet returned, Alina thinks maybe she should make her way back to her dorm.
Her phone is dead and she can’t see a charger anywhere in the living room, so she wanders into Sasha’s office to see if she can find one so she can get enough battery to call an Uber.
It’s there on his desk, but when she reaches for it, she spots something that catches her eye.
A pile of glossy surveillance shots, dated a few years ago, of Anton Starkov. He looks older than he did in the photograph mama had, but it’s definitely him. If Alina looks closely, she can see that she does indeed have his eyes, as Sasha had told her.
Most of the photographs show Anton alone, but the last couple include another man, one whose face Alina recognises – parts of Rasmus Grimjer’s body (his head, legs and one arm) had been found in the Sokol River a year ago, and she remembers the news article talking about organised crime and gang wars.
There are documents too. A handwritten list of names, all crossed out with dates next to them, one of them Anton Starkov, 9 March 2020. Shipping orders that look to be in code. Guard rotations that seem to be centred around her campus.
She thinks back to what Sasha had told her about her biological father – that he’d fallen into a bad crowd, that Sasha had given him a job with his family business, that Anton had still been working for Sasha when he died.
Sasha never has told her what he does. He’s got all his properties, which is probably more than enough, but he also sometimes references an import–export business.
Alina frowns down at the photos and papers, heart beating fast in her chest.
She’s being silly, letting her imagination run away with her.
After all, if Sasha really was, well … he isn’t the sort to leave incriminating paperwork out in the open, is he?
Not unless he wanted her to find it.
Does she really want to know, though?
Can she imagine a life without Sasha?
For so long she’s been drifting along untethered, looking for someone who can be her permanent home.
She doesn’t want to lose that, especially when she doesn’t know for sure what she’s looking at on Sasha’s desk.
There’s a reasonable explanation for this. Probably.
She hurries back to the sitting room with the charger, plugging it in and opening her sketchbook once more.
The first page she lands on includes a sketch of Sasha’s hand and wrist, his eclipsed sun tattoo just about visible.
Alina realises how often she has seen that tattoo since she met Sasha. On the drivers he sends to pick her up and one of the regulars in her favourite coffee shop and two of the students in some of her classes and other random people she passes by every day.
She stares at the page for a full five minutes until she’s startled by the sound of the door opening.
“Alinochka,” Sasha strides over, pressing a quick kiss to her cheek, and she swears she catches the faintest coppery scent of blood, “I thought we could –”
“How did Anton die?” she blurts out.
His brow furrows, “what is this about, Alina?”
“You said he got mixed up with a bad crowd. Is that how he died?”
Sasha looks suspiciously at her. She hasn’t really brought up Anton since their initial conversations and he must find it odd that she’s asking questions now.
“Even terrible men can have morals, Alinochka. Anton made the mistake of dabbling in an area that his boss had deemed off-limits.”
Alina does not ask for more details. There are some things it is better to remain ignorant of.
Besides, she can hear in his voice and see in his eyes the answer to the most important question.
Sasha does not simply know how Anton died. He is the one who killed him.
She has no evidence. She doubts there is any. But Alina knows. She knows.
She can run, thinks Sasha would let her go if he thought that was what she truly wanted.
But the truth is that she doesn’t want to leave.
And the thing is …
What is Anton (a sperm donor, a stranger) to her when compared with Sasha (the first person who has truly cared for her since mama died, the man who is everything Anton should have been and more)?
“Sasha?”
“Yes, Alinochka.”
“Can we stay in tonight? I’m tired.”
“Sure, milaya. We’ll stay in tonight.”
It’s inevitable, she thinks.
They’ve been on this path since the moment Kaz arranged their meeting.
It’s fate in a way. He robbed her of her father, so it’s only right that he steps into that position, in a way.
“Daddy, daddy, daddy,” Alina warbles plaintively.
Her head is full of cotton-wool, hazy with pleasure. She can’t remember how exactly they got to the bed, but she doesn’t really care.
“That’s it, milaya, be a good girl for daddy … just like that, Alinochka.”
He rocks inside her, making space for himself, filling her entirely in a way that makes her whine and tremble.
“So perfect,” Sasha sighs, “like you were made just for me, Alinochka.”
In her pleasure-addled mind, Alina thinks maybe he’s right. Perhaps she really is made just for him. Certainly, she’s never felt like this with anyone else and she knows she never will.
Who needs a boyfriend when you have a daddy?