Viktoriya

Chapter 1

The room spun slightly, but Katya helped herself to another flute of champagne from the bar, anyway. She knew what could straighten her spins, but she was pacing herself. As she grabbed her drink, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror behind the bar. The long, deep red hair that hung down her back looked slightly tousled and was starting to frizz in the sun and salt-soaked air of the Maldivian resort her boyfriend and his entourage had rented for the week. It would be five more days of this, seven in total, that Katya had to endure far away from anyone that could protect her. Not that anyone could protect her back in Moscow either. If you're going to be near-captive, she supposed it didn't hurt that it was at a five-star luxury resort. And wasn't she protecting herself all these years to begin with?

Discreetly looking over her shoulder, Katya quickly downed her champagne and swiftly but quietly set it back down on the bar before taking up another one. Why not save herself a trip from the chaise lounge across the pool to the bar? She looked back at herself in the mirror, fixed her smudged lipstick, smoothed her hair, adjusted her white bikini and walked back to her chaise. Which sounded easier than it was-she was in 6-inch platform heels and already day-drunk.

Relieved to have made it back to her sunbathing spot without a fall, she reapplied her sunscreen and sighed back into her position laying out into the sun that was making her fair skin golden. She closed her eyes.

"Ah, look how beautiful my girlfriend is, lying in the sun. She shines under the brightness like white gold. A jewel in the tropics," Boris said, climbing out of the pool and accepting a towel that his assistant, Vladimir, handed him while shaking the chlorinated water out of his blond and grey hair. He was a tall man of 52, as attractive and trim as anyone half his age. The youthful twinkle in his sky-blue eyes hid the hint of sinister beneath.

Katya pretended not to hear him but her mouth twitched, slightly giving herself away. She stayed composed. And thanked God that she wore her biggest, darkest sunglasses.

"Isn't she beautiful, everyone," Boris repeated. This time around, his question was met with an enthusiastic round of applause and cheers. You don't insult the boss's girlfriend, no matter how intoxicated she clearly was.

"And now a kiss from my beautiful Katya," Boris said and leaning towards her. Some of the women in the party cooed at the dashing man's display of affection.

Katya smiled ever slightly and tilted her face up to receive her lover's embrace, all the while, he leaned down towards her so that he was half-covering her body, his back facing the pool and his friends. It was then that he leaned in to her, so close, that she could feel his vodka-soured breath on her, the drops of pool water falling off his chest and onto hers before rising into steam in the heat, as if she were a dragon breathing smoke right from her skin.

He whispered: "my dear Ekaterina. You've been drinking too much, you didn't think I wouldn't see that other glass? Never forget, my dear. Boris sees everything. Now pull yourself together before you look the little fool." Then he kissed her forehead head, gently, and took off running with a start, cherry-bombing back into the pool, to the shouts and cheers of the guests.

She would have been a bit scared if he weren't so right, she was drunk. But she had a role to play. She really did need to pull it together. She was the mistress of Boris Vorodov one of the most powerful men-the truly powerful men-in Russia. She knew she had a part to play and she played it well. That's what she was taught to do. That's how she survived.

Katya swung her long legs over the side of the chair, and gingerly eased herself up to standing position with one arm. She excused herself from the party and made her way back to their spacious suite overlooking the estate on the beach that was theirs, temporarily, and the infinity pool that was currently home to over a dozen Russians, red and bloated from too much sun, too much alcohol and too much money, splashing about, or lounging, or half-passed out in it.

Kicking off her ridiculously high, ridiculously painful shoes, she padded over to a dark corner of the room where the vanity table was stood, and nearly pissed herself with anticipation at numbing the ridiculous pain by becoming ridiculously high herself. She pulled on a fluffy cream-colored bathrobe to counteract the sudden frigidness of the air-conditioned room, wrapped it tight around her front and reached for the little bag on the underside of the little pull-out drawer in the vanity. Her elegant fingers massaged the lining of the desk until she found it, then took it out and held it up to the light. Inside the little baggie, the tiny clumps were so white, they reflected iridescent when you held them up at a certain angle.

This was the good stuff from Stefan, Boris's right hand man, who she knew was taking a big risk selling her any of the hard stuff, and at a discount, no less. "Don't worry about the price, I'll make it up in other deals I have going through boss," he winked at her. It was a lot, so she knew it was worth it to him. But she was beginning to suspect that she was single-handedly funding his two school-aged children's London boarding school tuition. Not that Boris would notice. Whenever she asked for more over and above her allowance, he'd always laugh it off while peeling back bills from the roll in his pocket coat. "Women and their shopping," he'd say, "enjoy another channel purse," pronouncing it like the English Channel. She never bothered to correct him. She simply just gathered up money he threw on the bed (the best time to ask for anything) and she stuffed it into the (Chanel) bag by on her way to the toilet.

Resuming her ritual, she emptied a slight amount of powder onto the glass tray on the vanity and cut it into a neat, generous line, gripping an already rolled bill, tipping one end to the white stuff and the other towards her nostril, and inhaled.

She tilted her head back and waited for the drip, drip of the coke to burn a little trail down the back of her throat, feeling her teeth, her upper lip and her nose go numb. Her favourite part. Drip, drip, drip. Numb, numb, numb. She emptied enough powder for four more little lines, plus one for good luck, and cut them up finely and expertly before snorting them back one after another, barely giving herself enough time to breath between each line. Then she waited for the part she hated the most, the part where she thought of her mama and papa dead in front of her when she was just beginning her teen years, and her big brother, who disappeared shortly thereafter, but not before promising on the doorstep of their aunt's house, "I'll come back and get you Katya, but I need to make some money first. Then it's you and me, versus the world..."

10 years ago seemed like a lifetime ago, and maybe it was. Which would mean that it was half a life time ago that she met Boris, at her modelling school, and he'd chosen her. "Always put your money on red," he'd said, grinning perfect white teeth, holding his hand out to her and pulling her out of the line-up of others. He'd chosen her, she'd thought then, she'd be okay.

She looked back at herself in the mirror, tilting her head at a flattering angle and pursing her lips. I was maybe beautiful once, she thought, staring into the deep blue eyes, rimmed with long, dark lashes blinking back at her, dead.

That was all in the past now, she thought, wiping her nose, ignoring the slight pink on her fingers.

Her next favorite part was already beginning to give her that invincible rush. She blew a kiss into the mirror and got up to rejoin the party.

This was her present, and her future, as far as she dare imagine it.