Page 62 of The Fire Beneath the Frost

“We’ll have the sturgeon,” the man said, waving a dismissive hand.“And the house pelmeni to start.Vodka all around, of course.”

Of course.

No one argued.Mira didn’t even blink.I stared at the table, gripping my napkin so hard I nearly tore it in two.Why were we even here?Was it for show?Some grand performance where the noble proletariat was honored with scraps from the elite’s banquet?

Or was it worse—were we here to make them feel like good Party members?Like they were doing their part by breaking bread with the workers who actually built the goddamned bread factories?

The server disappeared with our dictated order.

Mr.Smirnov raised his glass with a pompous grin.“To Vera and Petyr.May their union remain strong, fruitful, and a shining example of what Party loyalty looks like.”

Everyone lifted their glass.I did too, like a puppet.Took a sip I barely tasted.

Petyr turned to Vera with a sudden intensity, eyes shining.“Darling, have I told you how radiant you look today?That new lipstick is perfection.”

She smiled, demure and amused, as if she hadn’t heard it a thousand times.“You picked it out.”

He laughed and touched her chin like they were some lovesick couple in a post-war propaganda film.

I felt like my entire chest was filled with rusted nails.

Why couldn’t it be me he flirted with?Why couldn’t he hold my hand?Kiss my cheek?Whisper sweet nothings about how I looked in a threadbare work shirt covered in factory dust?

The bitterness swelled so quickly I could barely breathe around it.But I smiled.Forced it like I’d learned to force everything else.Like I forced my voice to stay low, my walk to stay straight, my eyes to never linger too long.

Because to do otherwise in this place—in their Leningrad—was to risk everything.

And yet, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.About him.

Sitting across from me, toasting his wife, beaming under the watchful eyes of her parents and the state-owned chandeliers, like he hadn’t fucked me three nights ago in a dark alley, gasping my name into the crook of my neck.

And now?

Now he belonged to them.

Not me, and it never would be me.

* * *

We spilled out of the restaurant in a polite flurry of goodbyes, the way well-trained citizens are supposed to.Coat collars were turned up against the cool spring wind that rolled off the river, and the sky was smeared with a flurry of white puffy clouds.

Sofia Smirnova reached for my hand and gave it the sort of shake that didn’t involve eye contact.“Dimitri,” she said with a tight smile, “how nice to meet you.”

Her husband followed suit.“Yes.And Mira.So glad you two could join us.”

The words “thank you for your service” might as well have hung between his teeth, but he didn’t say them.Too gauche, even for him.

Then—dismissal, as clean and clear as the sound of boots on marble.They turned, visibly turned away from us, toward their actual concern.

“Vera, Petyr,” Sofia said, her hand already on her husband’s arm like they were preparing to be whisked away by a damn czarist carriage.“You’ll come to the dacha tonight, yes?Stay with us for the rest of the weekend.We repaired the pinewood sauna.It’s completely redone.”

I froze.My stomach dropped so fast I actually felt dizzy.There was no possible way their dacha was anything like the shack I dropped my mother off at earlier.

Please, I thought.Say no.Make up an excuse.Tell them you forgot about some Komsomol committee or a mandatory meeting with the factory heads.Lie.I know you want to be with me.I can feel it in my bones.

But Vera grinned like she’d just been offered a cake.“We’d be delighted, Mother.If you don’t mind, we might stay through Sunday.”

And then, the final nail.

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