Page 113 of My Wild Horse King

“I’ve known about this old woman for longer than you’ve been alive, but I didn’t figure you’d ever come all the way out here. In spite of my best efforts, I can’t fathom why you’re sticking around. But I waited, and you didn’t come back on your own.”

I lift my chin. “I’m not sure why you’re here,” I say. “But?—”

“I’m here because there’s no way I was ever going to hand my company over to that moron cousin of yours. I only used him to motivate you, Daniel. My birthday’s in three days, and I want you to come home so I can announce that I’ve chosen you.”

It’s everything I ever wanted.

It’s what I thought I lost when Grigoriy dragged me out of that lobby and Grandfather called to berate me for ruining the Black Rock meeting.

It’s the gold ring I’ve been doggedly pursuing my entire adult life.

Only, now that it’s here, being dangled right in front of me, I realize that it’s not gold after all. It’s barely brass, the kind that turns your whole finger green. The kind I should throw in the trash without a backward glance.

Even so, I can’t help considering it, at least for a moment. With the kind of resources he’s offering me, I could travel indefinitely. I could keep moving as long and as far as I wanted. I wouldn’t be the czar of a powerful country or anything, but I might actually have more power and more reach than Leonid does.

I’d be free to move or travel anywhere I liked.

If Katerina would come with me, I could walk away from all this. Without fearing that I’m training, who knows? Maybe Leonid would let it all go. Perhaps, if he saw me living my best life, running a huge company, he’d see that I posed no threat to him. One of the few regions Grandfather has steered far away from is the Slavic countries. Nothing related to my father in any way was of interest to him. Unless Leonid saw my taking Katerina as some kind of threat, taking Grandfather up on his offer might solve all our problems. And I could actually protect Kat as I’ve longed to do.

“You’d be a Belmont in all the ways you always wanted,” Grandfather says.

And that’s the heart of it.

For more than ten years now, he’s been dangling that over my head. My father’s flawed. He’s weak. He’s greedy. He succumbs to his weaknesses over and over, and no matter how badly we needed him, his children were never a priority in his life.

But he always loved us.

His love was never contingent on our behavior, or our performance, or something as pedantic as having the right name. For eleven and a half years, Grandfather has known that his grandchild was waiting and desperately hoping for his approval. He knew it was all I really wanted, all I longed for.

And he withheld it to make me keep dancing.

Only now that I’ve slipped the leash is he finally offering me what I’ve longed for. Now that it serves him, he’ll hand me the carrot I’ve been chasing.

But I see it now. I see what he’s doing and who he is, and I won’t be satisfied with it, not anymore.

I want more.

And I can’t abandon Kristiana—never again.

No matter what Leonid decides to do with me, whether he might leave me alone or not, I doubt he’ll simply walk away from my sister and her defiant husband. I doubt he’ll leave Grigoriy alone, or my old family friend Mirdza.

I can’t see the light in my own countenance, but I can imagine what it would look like if I were to smile at my grandfather, thank him for his offer, and return to New York City to kiss his ring at that party.

“No.” I shake my head. “I agree with you that Prescott Belmont is a complete disaster, but I’m afraid I’ll have to wish you good luck with him.”

“You—what?”

“I waited a long time, desperate for you to say that I was competent and that you wanted me around,” I say. “But now that you’re here, still not quite saying all of that, but offering me what I wanted, I find that. . .” I spread my hands. “It’s not what I want anymore.”

Grandfather splutters.

“It’s not that your company isn’t amazing. It is. You’re an excellent businessman with an eye for things that will take off and make loads of money. You’re also a decent judge of character in a lot of ways, but you care about all the wrong things.”

“I suppose,” Katerina says, “that being an excellent CEO may not make someone the very best grandfather.”

“Who’s this?” Grandfather points.

“My girlfriend,” I say. “Katerina Yurovsky.”

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