Page 88 of Kingmakers, Year Three

I’ve never felt such a rush.

The wilder and more uninhibited I am with Cat, the better it feels.

And she feels the same, I know she does.

When she lay in my arms afterward, panting and sweating, looking up at the stars through the holes in the tower roof, she said, “That was the craziest thing I’ve ever felt.”

In this new universe we’ve created together, crazy is good. Insane is even better.

That blissful state only lasts until Sunday, when I’m expected to call my father.

We haven’t spoken in over a month.

I have to call him now, before Christmas, because I know he won’t want to talk to me over the holiday.

He married my mother on December 26th. She had always wanted a snowy wedding, and the weather obliged—their photos are filled with swirling white flakes, as if the whole sky scattered confetti on their heads.

He hasn’t celebrated Christmas since she left.

“Hello, Dmitry,” he says when he picks up the phone.

His voice sounds dull and echoing, as if his office is empty, though I know it isn’t.

“Hello, Father.”

“Did you call to tell me the results of your exams?”

“We don’t have all the marks back yet. But I’m in first place so far, on the tests that have been scored.”

“Hm,” he grunts.

No compliment. No congratulations.

“How is work?” I ask him politely.

“As it always is,” he says.

I grip the receiver tightly, alone in the bank of phones on the ground floor of the Keep. I’m filled with the helpless misery that always overtakes me at the coldness of my father’s voice.

Why does he speak to me like a robot?

You would never know he was talking to his one and only son.

Trying to force some response from him, I say, “I met someone, Father. A girl.”

“I thought you learned your lesson last time,” he says. “After that embarrassing affair with Anna Wilk.”

Oh, so we remember Anna now all of a sudden, do we?

The plastic receiver creaks as I squeeze it so hard it could almost break.

“This is different,” I say.

“This is not the time for dating,” my father briskly informs me. “You need to secure your place in the Moscow Bratva. Once you have done so, you can make an advantageous match amongst the daughters of our allies.”

“You didn’t,” I say, before I can stop myself.

We never speak of my mother. Ever.

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