1. Maggie

MAGGIE

Y ou know, if I squint and keep my headphones on, it looks festive out.

There’s big flakes of snow drifting down from a cozy-looking grey sky. The air is crisp, and the little lights along the airport’s runway look like Christmas lights, because they’re blinking a very festive red and green, depending on what they’re trying to do for the pilots.

If I try hard enough, I could definitely pretend that I’m back home in Des Moines. That I’m just heading home from college, and when I get there, my mom is going to have my favorite Christmas movie on and all the hot cocoa that I can drink waiting for me.

A stab of grief, however, shatters that illusion just as the announcements from the flight attendants blare in English and Russian over the speakers on the plane.

There is no house to go back to.

My mom is in hiding.

And apparently, the only reason I’m here is because my biological father made a deal with the devil to keep me from meeting the same fiery fate as the house.

The people around me jostle and grab their bags. Russian, thick and dark, flows around me in a river of words that I don’t even come close to understanding.

I don’t speak Russian.

Despite the fact that I’m evidently very much half-Russian.

“Miss?” the flight attendant blinks at me. I’m fairly sure that my father assigned her (or paid her, or bribed her, or whatever) to look after me. Since the second I got on this plane she’s been watching me like a hawk.

And, I saw her texting someone earlier after taking a picture of me, so...

Yeah.

It’s either that, or she’s a member of the rival gang that’s the whole reason I’m in this situation to begin with.

I sigh, grabbing my lone piece of luggage. “Yeah. I’m here. I’m guessing you want me to follow you?”

Her cheeks get a little red, but she nods.

“Well, let’s get this over with,” I mutter.

I follow the flight attendant and exit the plane.

We don’t talk. But she somehow manages to stay with me through customs, where she takes the papers my sperm donor dad provided for me and does some fast-talking with the customs officer. He takes one look at my visa, and the color runs out of his face completely.

Great.

That’s just freaking…

Great.

I mean, I know how he feels. I felt that way when I saw my biological father for the first time too.

“This way, please?” The flight attendant gestures toward the baggage area.

I follow her.

“Your bag?”

“Don’t have one,” I say, sighing.

She gives me a raised eyebrow, but I shrug. “Look, I didn’t exactly have time to pack. This whole thing happened fast. Viktor… dad… just came to the apartment and…”

My jaws snap shut.

I don’t know why I’m telling her this.

Heck, she probably already knows.

Maybe I just need to talk about it.

You probably do .

I’m like… partway to completing a degree to be a licensed psychologist. I like to talk about my feelings. I need to talk about my feelings.

Especially after having a bunch of men appear at my apartment, telling me that my mom is in hiding and that I need to come with them to safety.

Granted, it was about six months ago that the house burned down. So I’ve done my best with moving on from that.

The rest of it?

Still grappling with all of that.

The flight attendant doesn’t make a comment, but gives me a bland smile instead.

“So,” I say, shuffling awkwardly. “Do you work for my father, or…”

“No. I am with Mr. Orlov.”

Ice creeps down my spine. “Oh,” I murmur.

Her smile brightens. “Yes. Please. This way,” she gestures to the airport exit.

My heart slams in my chest.

I wish I could call my mom. I did FaceTime with her, before I left. She seems fine. She assured me that she was okay, and that I should do whatever my bio dad was telling me to do.

I believed her.

Now, I wonder if maybe I shouldn’t have.

“Miss?”

The flight attendant is staring at me.

I nod.

Meekly, I walk toward the airport exit.

You’re here to stay safe. To keep you and your mom safe. You’re here to keep them from coming for you.

It’s the logic that I’ve been following this whole time. If I go through with this, if I do what my dad laid out for me, then we’ll be safe.

No one will come to burn down our house. No one will follow me around campus. No one will hurt my mom.

Safe.

And if it means that I have to marry a stranger to do it, then so be it.

I haven’t felt safe in months. Not since I saw the pictures of my childhood home on the news, reduced to ashes.

Not since my mom told me that she was trying to hide, and that she’d tell me more when she could.

Safety has been an illusion for a while now.

However, as I follow the flight attendant out of the airport, I wonder if I’m doing the right thing.

Because right now?

‘Safe’ is the last thing I feel.

One thing I’ve learned about Russia… it is really really freaking cold.

Even in my trusty Eddie Bauer puffer jacket, I’m shivering in the back of the car.

After the airport, the flight attendant brought me to a long black SUV. I got in, the panic that I felt at the airport intensified as the driver slammed on the accelerator, barely looking out at the world as he did.

Alarmingly, we almost hit not one, but two people on the way out.

I’m not sure why, but I definitely got the impression that the chauffeur is on a timeline.

However, I don’t speak Russian, and my squeak of terror did nothing to change his mind, so I just did the best I could. I settled in and watched the sights as they zoomed by my window.

The city that I flew into started to fall away. Disappeared, actually.

It was swallowed by the snow as we sped away.

It’s been a few hours since the airport, and I’m beginning to feel panic creeping back into the edges of my mind. The fact that I’m stuck in this tin can doesn’t help either, and my senses are on overdrive as we keep moving through the night.

The inside of the car is so quiet, I can hear the individual flakes of snow pelting the windshield. The driver looks like he injects protein straight into his veins, and the leather seats smell like way too much cologne.

It’s kind of nauseating.

I’m doing my best just to stay warm and stay alert.

I’m not doing well at either of those goals.

The overwhelming smell of the cologne is choking me, clawing at my throat, and the puffy coat that I’m zipped into isn’t doing anything to keep me from feeling cold.

All in all, this sucks.

I tug my phone out of my pocket, turning it on. It’s not my regular phone; my dad took that and smashed it before I left, giving me this one instead.

He insisted that it was for my own good. That whoever is hunting us, his enemies or whoever they are, could track me through my old phone.

This one has two numbers programmed in it. My mom, who I am supposed to text very sparingly, and my biological father.

I definitely ignore his number and go for my mom instead.

Me: Landed .

Mom: Oh thank god. I’ve been hoping to hear from you, Mini.

I smile. It’s definitely her. My dad doesn’t know the nickname, and we agreed on it before I left so we could verify communication.

Me: How’s it going with the sperm donor?

Mom: Weird.

In the rushed hours before I left, my mom explained that my biological father was kind of a one-night stand situation. They were never married, and she met him when she was a cocktail waitress in a hotel in Vegas. She had no idea that he was part of a Russian mob until…

Well.

Until the house burned down.

Apparently though, she did have a mysterious amount of money that would appear in her bank account occasionally through the years. She assumed it was from a settlement that she’d been in for a car accident years before.

Whether I believe that or not is not the point. The truth is that somehow, my bio dad knew about me.

And was providing for both of us for a while.

Me: Well, keep holding on. At least you don’t have to marry him?

I meant it to be a joke. I really did.

But my mom calls me, and I pick up.

“Hi,” I murmur.

“Sweetheart, I’m so sorry,” she says, tears thick in her throat. “You don’t have to do this. Really, you don’t. You say the word and…” her voice trails off.

I sigh.

“It’s okay, mom. Really. It’s fine. I mean it’s not like I have much of a life as an alternative, right?”

I hear her choke on some tears, and know that was the wrong thing to say.

“Mom. I’m serious. I couldn’t finish my degree if I was constantly running from some kind of rival mob or gang or whatever dad is into. And if you weren’t safe…”

“You don’t have to do this for me, baby.”

“I know. It’s my choice,” I say firmly.

All of that is true.

When dear old dad explained what was at stake, he did it completely factually. He, Victor Igor Kozlov, had made an enemy years ago. The enemy was a very powerful guy, and he never told us what his name was. The enemy had gone through all of dad’s connections, and then found us.

A woman he had a one-night stand with, and a daughter that resulted.

That apparently he’d been watching over.

For years.

He explained that he couldn’t actually be part of my life because of said enemy. That he knew this guy would try to use all connections against him. So instead, he donated money to my mom, and apparently helped arrange a very serious string of what we thought was good luck. I always thought it was a little odd that things just seemed to go perfectly well for us… my mom bought a house on a very low income, all my schools were always best in class, I got into whatever college I wanted, etc.

We really did just think that it was good luck.

The fact that I did, in fact, have a dad who cared about me is not something I’ve had time to process. Because in the same breath, my father explained the only way to get this other mob member— who had discovered my mom and me— off our backs, was to make an alliance.

And the only way to make an alliance was to offer myself in marriage to Alexei Orlov.

He explained it like I had a choice.

However, given the facts, and the fact that his enemies had already burned my childhood home to the ground…

It wasn’t really a choice.

I have no idea who Alexei Orlov is. He’s not searchable on the internet. He lives in Russia, which isn’t exactly a place with a ton of available information.

All I know is that in a situation where my mom and I are about to be torn apart by wolves, he’s the thing that keeps the wolves at bay.

Marrying the bigger monster isn’t exactly my idea of a great Christmas.

But, as the SUV speeds away into the Russian night, my resolve hardens.

My mom is the most important thing in the world to me. I’d do anything to keep her safe.

I tuck the phone against my chin and sigh. “It’s going to be okay, mom. I love you. I have to go.”

“Love you too, sweetie,” she murmurs.

The phone call ends, and I look out into the darkness.

Telling her that everything is going to be okay is just reassurance. It’s something I’ve done a dozen times, especially since agreeing to this plan.

I only wish I believed it was true.