2016, Santa Rosita, California, a coastal town north of San Francisco…Chamber of Commerce building…

My aunt and uncle stand center stage, so handsome and regal, like gods beaming benevolently down on the common people. Uncle Vilyat is wearing a bespoke raw silk suit, and my aunt Anastasia’s gown glitters like a waterfall of diamonds pouring over her slim body. Her golden hair is piled on top of her head in a carefully woven updo, and nobody but me notices the slightly panicked gleam in her pale blue eyes.

She’s a Grecian goddess come to life. Despite the terrors and stresses I know she swallows daily, being married to Vilyat, she looks like a fresh, dewy college sophomore.

I fade to nothing whenever I’m next to her. I’m not ugly, but she’s a voluptuous pinup girl come to life, and I’m skinny, small-breasted, with straight dishwater-blonde hair. I am grateful for my low-key girl-next-door looks; it’s discouraged some of my more aggressive suitors.

I am in the front row, between my cousins, Helenka and Yuri, who are twelve and eight. News cameras are aimed at us, and at my aunt and uncle. There is nothing in the world more important than making our smiles look real. That is what we Toporov women do. We support our family no matter what. We smile and look pretty for the camera.

The Chamber of Commerce is presenting my uncle with the Santa Rosita Business Philanthropist of the Year award. During a spate of bad weather last year, he sent his trucks cross-country filled with donated food and bottled water. There were other things on the trucks, too, white powdery bricks wrapped in plastic and cleverly concealed in compartments, but nobody outside our family knows about that.

It’s a perfect summer evening. The air is cool and sweet. The room is filled with the crème de la crème of Santa Rosita society. Glasses clink, laughter tinkles. I am wearing the blue linen Chanel dress my uncle’s valet selected for me, with heavy ropes of pearls circling my neck. Yuri and Helenka are excited, clinging to my hands, bouncing on their heels.

For some reason, I am gripped by an odd, dreadful foreboding. I scan the crowd and see no threats. There is no reason for this feeling, and I certainly don’t let it dent the look of pride and happiness on my face.

“You look beautiful tonight, Willow,” my uncle Latvi says, and I start. My father’s older brother. For a big, sweaty pig of a man, he sure can creep up on little cat feet. He smiles at my startled expression, and I give him a polite smile back, and look away. He would do more if he could, but he wouldn’t cross Vilyat, and since the death of my parents four years ago, I’m under Vilyat’s protection.

Still, the look that he flashes at my uncle isn’t friendly. I suspect I know why. Most of our family shuns publicity, for good reason. They can’t afford for anyone to look too closely at their various businesses. My uncle splashes out big money on charitable donations, and it has not gone unnoticed. He looks on it as buying respectability, but with his endless need for attention, he could also be exposing our family to needless scrutiny.

Latvi shuffles a little nearer, and at the same time, Helenka tugs impatiently on my hand. “Willow, I’m really hungry. Can we go to the buffet table? Please?”

I flash her a grateful smile and nod my apologies to Latvi as I start to move away.

She knew exactly what she was doing. Helenka’s only twelve, but she’s smart as a whip. I can only pray she’ll be smart enough to escape this life and leave us far, far behind.

“She’s a strong-minded woman,” Latvi says, glancing at Helenka. In our family, that’s not a compliment.

I turn and walk away, tugging Yuri and Helenka with me.

“I didn’t know snakes could talk,” Helenka whispers with a mischievous smile.

“Shame on you.” I grin back. “That was an insult to snakes.”

My uncle’s bodyguards, Karl and Mikhail, are standing at the buffet table. Karl offers me a glass of champagne as Yuri and Helenka snatch up tiny pie-shaped canapes and stuff them in their mouths.

I take the glass with a murmur of thanks and drain it in a few gulps.

Everything’s fine. There’s nothing to be afraid of here.

I reach for a canape, but a surge of worry twists my gut and I change my mind. The smile never leaves my face.

I turn my attention to my nephew.

“Yuri,” I say. “Five pastries is enough.”

He pouts. “One more? Please?”

“No, because you’ll puke on the car ride home.” I ruffle his light brown hair. “And chew your food. You’re going to choke.”

He sticks his chocolate-pastry-covered tongue out at me, and I laugh.

“Brat.”

“But I’m your favorite brat.” He smiles winningly.

“Maybe.”

And he grabs another pastry before I can stop him, and stuffs it in his mouth.

Later that evening, I am standing next to my aunt and uncle, in the center of a thick crowd of sycophants come to offer their congratulations. Women simper and flirt with my uncle, drawn to his dark air of menace, and as he flirts back, my aunt turns up the wattage on her smile and pretends not to see.

The hair on the back of my neck lifts, and for the millionth time that night, I scan the crowd.

This time, I see a man standing near the front door, flanked by several other tank-like men who stand easily a head taller than the rest of the crowd. With their square jaws and broad shoulders, they could have stepped right out of a Soviet-era propaganda poster. Bratva. Russian mob. I know the look, because I grew up surrounded by such men. And I can tell at a glance which one is the Avtoritet. The leader.

His eyes are glacial chips of blue ice. A thick scar bisects his left eyebrow. He glances at my uncle, briefly. A wave of cold rushes over me. My uncle, leaning in to admire a redhead’s cleavage, doesn’t notice.

The men head for the door. Instinctively, I slide in front of Helenka and Yuri, putting my body between them and the men.

It is the first time I ever lay eyes on Sergei Volkov. But not, God help me, the last.