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joke. Then I announced I was moving to the US and he became... cold. Something had changed and I couldn’t figure out what.
    The frustration rose inside me, hot and jagged: it wasn’t fair. I crossed my arms and glared at myself in the mirror. If I kept looking at Vasiliy, I was going to start crying and a Malakov never shows weakness.
    Vasiliy’s hands relaxed on my shoulders and he let out a long sigh, then leaned sideways until his head rested against mine. “ Chyort, ” he cursed. “I wish your mother was here to talk to you.”
    I closed my eyes and felt my anger slowly slip away. He was the closest thing to a father I had and he thought he was doing the right thing. “I really do need to get to work,” I told him, my eyes still closed.
    I felt his kiss on the top of my head and then he was moving away. I heard frustrated muttering from Mikhail in the living room as Vasiliy collected him: he wouldn’t get to “accidentally” brush my breast or fondle my ass tonight.
    When I heard the front door close behind them, I finally opened my eyes and stared at myself, and that made it real. This is my life. Goback to Moscow? That wasn’t an option. I came to America to make a life here, so that one day my kid sister, Lizaveta, could join me. If I went back to Moscow, we’d both be trapped there forever and, when she finished boarding school and was old enough, she’d be expected to marry a gangster, too.
    Which left Mikhail. A life with a man I hated.
    I felt the heat begin to build behind my eyes. No. I clamped down hard on it before the tears could start. Angelo? A real life, a happy life with someone I liked? That was a fantasy, a fairy tale. Grow up!
    This is your life.
    I quickly stood, grabbed my purse and ran out before I could think anymore. And for the next four hours I smiled sweetly and explained ultra-high-def TVs and asked people if they wanted extended repair plans and I crushed all thoughts of freedom down into the depths.
    The busy store, glowing screens and noise made for a different kind of numbness. Cut off from emotion, the coldly logical part of me started to think, maybe Mikhail won’t be so bad. Maybe I can grow to love him….
    By the time I’d finished my shift and taken the subway home, I’d almost convinced myself. You can convince yourself of anything, if you try hard enough.
    And then, as I reached my house, I saw the icicles. I’d been in too much of a hurry when I left to notice, but now I stopped and stared. Every single one of the long, gleaming spikes was now lying in the yard, shattered into a million glittering pieces. Someone had snapped them off at the root and hurled them down on the frozen ground.
    I closed my eyes. I could see it unfolding in my mind: Mikhail following Vasiliy out of my house. He’d been bitter and resentful because he wouldn’t get to slide a hand up my skirt that night. And so the first beautiful thing he’d seen, he’d destroyed.
    This is your life.
    I stared and stared at the glittering fragments of ice. And something cracked, deep in my soul. A tiny drop of everything I’d been trying to contain seeped out and, when it hit the surface, it ignited like gasoline.
    I ran into the house and grabbed a dress. Angelo had said he’d be there at eight. If I ran, I could just make it in time.

5
    Angelo
    I nursed a Scotch and waited . Mario, the  bar’s aging owner, had said the Russians would be in any time now. Normally, the frustration would have gotten to me. I’m not good at waiting: life’s too short.
    But tonight, I didn’t mind so much. It meant I had time to think about her.
    My overcoat had been around her shoulders for only a few seconds, but I could still smell her scent on the collar and it filled my mind with the cornflower blue of her eyes and the silken sheen of that platinum-blonde hair. I felt my fingers unpinning it, letting it slide down her back in a shining wave. I wanted to feel it against me. I wanted to part it like a curtain