Page 74 of My Trojan Horse Majesty

“Tiffany’s?” Leonid asks. “Russia’s famous for its garnets, emeralds, alexandrite, and diamonds. I doubt I’d have much need to purchase a little blue box.”

“No?” Betty asks.

Leonid smiles. “The gems I choose for this woman won’t fit in a small box.”

She roars at that one. “But Isabel’s so petite. How will she lug that around on her finger?”

“She’s stronger than she looks,” Leonid says.

“And I’m five eleven,” I say. “I don’t think anyone, even Leo, has ever referred to me as petite.”

“Does she call you Leo?” the governor’s wife asks. “That’s so cute.”

“But no one else should try it, for the record,” Leonid says. “Only she calls me that.”

The interview moves along to other matters—foreign trade, his priorities at home, and his thoughts on tariffs and import taxes—and I can’t help thinking about what might happen tomeif I don’t somehow break this bond. He’s the czar, and he’s ruling Russia. He needs me with him, but I don’t want to leave my family, not even for him.

I paste on a smile, but my mind’s whirring.

Once we’re finally done, I walk arm-in-arm with him until we’re finally leaving the capitol building through the back door. I can’t help breathing a big sigh of relief that the whole ordeal’s finally over, but this is an everyday occurrence for him. It must be terribly exhausting, and I can see why he might feel lonely. It was all so surface-level.

“Sir,” Mikhail says, “There are some people here to see?—”

Leonid shakes his head. “I’m not seeing anyone else today. That was more than enough for my first day back. Isabel and I have things to discuss.”

“They’re not here to see you,” Mikhail says. “Isabel’sparentsare here to seeher.”

“They’re here?” I ask. “In Salt Lake City?”

Mikhail nods.

Leonid swears under his breath. “Izzy, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

“Izzy.” Mom shoves past one of Leonid’s people and jogs in my direction. “Isabel Brooks, I forbid you to spend another second with that tyrannical despot.”

“It’s not like that,” I say. “You’re watching the wrong news channels. Come meet him, and?—”

“He threatened us, held us captive in our own home, and almost let Mandy die,” Mom says. “Don’t say another word to defend him. I know Leonid Ivanovich better than I wish, and Iforbidyou to talk to him for another single second.”

Chapter20

Leonid

For quite some time now, I’ve been able to burn, electrocute, or drown anyone who disagreed with me. If someone defied me, they didn’t do it for long.

I’ve executed thieves, sexual predators, and murderers.

The world’s a safer place due to my violence, and no one can get in my way. Anyone who does, I immediately dispatch. If they’re not evil, I simply detain them until they can’t interfere. But in this case, I feel like flinging Isabel’s mother into a nearby tree, or wrapping her in bands of air and stuffing a gag in her mouth would be taken the wrong way.

Which means I’m stuck staring at her while she accuses me.

Unfortunately, everything she’s saying happens to be true. I did detain her family, and I threatened to harm them, and I was using Amanda Saddler’s weakness to spur Gustav to action. She’s not even wrong to call me a despot or tyrant. I’ve been a villain for most of my life.

I thought my own father was a lunatic spouting seditious nonsense, and it took me years, but I finally quieted him and found him a place to hide, essentially. Then after I discovered hewasn’tjust insane, I didn’t try to heal his broken mind. No, instead, I worried about myself, convincing Boris and Mikhail to surrender their powers to me. When the others wouldn’t follow suit, instead of walking away, I tried to forcibly take their abilities. That threw us all into some kind of stasis, and then I literally threatened Alexei into offering me his control of water.

All because I wanted the power of our bloodline I’d been denied.

It wasn’t until the past few days that I realized. . .I’d been searching for the wrong thing. I thought if I was powerful enough, I could eliminate all the bad in the world. I thought I could make things safer not only for me, but also for all the other powerless, unloved souls who were despised by the world. I used that excuse to justify all kinds of actions. . .that shouldn’t have been excused at all.

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