Page 77 of Deceitful Vows

Zakhar is too sick to travel. Not even a motorcade of ambulances could guarantee he would survive the three-thousand-mile trip I wanted him to face. He’s in his final stages of life, and I feel like a complete fucking prick that I keep placing my needs before his.

If Mikhail had done the same, I wouldn’t have a future to contemplate, much less one that involved others.

The motion-detected surveillance camera announces my watch has been busted a mere second before a husky, sleep-deprived voice breaks through the speakers of my laptop. “He’s slept more than usual today, but he has also eaten more.” Under the watchful eye of a monitoring system mothers-to-be would pay out the eye to have, my father leaves the corner of Zakhar’s room where Anoushka set up a cot for him. “I think that’s a good sign, but what would I know? I was trained to read a teleprompt from the age of four. That’s as far as my skill set goes.”

This is the first time he’s announced disdain for his life plan.

It isn’t something I thought he would ever display.

I guess Zakhar’s condition is affecting more people than just me.

As he scrubs at his tired eyes, he inches closer to the camera with inbuilt speakers. “How was the meeting today? Did they have a solution?”

I’m so caught off guard by the genuine hope in his tone that I nod before recalling that he can’t see me. “They believe they can find a suitable candidate for Zak.”

“But?” my father asks, aware I left my reply short for a reason.

I don’t often take the honesty route, but when I do, I leave no stone unturned. “I don’t believe they’re the right outfitters for the job. Their work is sloppy. They leave a paper trail a mile long, and their candidates aren’t worthy of Dokovic ties.”

Usually, the mere mention of our family name would puff his chest high.

Tonight, it deflates it.

Since I know why, I say, “I will find someone more suitable.”

“We don’t have time to find someone else, Andrik.” The camera follows his eyes as they drift to Zakhar, who stirs from his roar. “Zakhar doesn’t have time. He needs a new heart.”

“That I will find him,” I shout back, my voice just as loud, my anger as palpable even via a speaker. “But not like this. Not at the expense of everything I’ve been working toward.”

My marriage initially commenced as a way to find out what happened to my mother and why she and the many other women before and after her disappeared either hours after discovering they were expecting a daughter, or within days of their son’s fifth birthday.

It wasn’t meant to be about appeasing the federation’s every want with the hope that they’d supply my half-brother with a heart he so desperately needs.

The only reason I’ve continued my ruse is because Zakhar’s condition is bringing the main players out far sooner than the possible months it could take Arabella to conceive. He’s demanding the attention of the hierarchies I willtake down. I’m just confused as to why.

Mikhail is closer to the imaginary throne my family governs than Zakhar, but remains so far off the federation’s radar he could knock up a dozen hookers and no one would bat an eyelash.

There’s more at play here than I am being told, but I won’t know what it is until I’m buried so deep in the federation’s underbelly they’ll never get me back out.

The reminder adds a ton of angst to my voice—angst I am not used to handling. “For how much you are asking of me, the least you could do is trust me.”

“I do?—”

My huff cuts him off.

He doesn’t trust me because he doesn’t trust anyone.

It wasn’t solely my mother the federation forced from his life. Mikhail’s mother walked the same narrow corridor with the same faceless men. It was just a year earlier than planned since the unborn child in her stomach was a girl.

“If he?—”

I cut him off again. “There are no ifs. Life is too short for ifs and buts.” My eyes bounce between his suddenly wet pair not even a grainy feed can hide when I whisper in a deadly tone, “You should know that better than anyone.”

Needing to end our exchange before I’m tempted to express myself how I usually do when snowed under—with my fists—I click out of the feed of Zakhar’s room, losing one set of worldly eyes.

The pair I didn’t notice straight away are more notable than my father’s, more seeped in history. They belong to my grandfather, and although they put my head in as much of a state as Zoya’s unexpected visit to his palatial mansion today, I have a solution to my problem. An out for my angst.

I have the perfect outlet for emotions I haven’t handled in years, and for the first time in a month, she is only a thirty-minute drive away.

---