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“Irina,” I say.
“Have you not taken enough from me?”
I stare at her. “What?”
She walks closer. “First you steal my perfume, among other things, and now, because of you, I am losing my niece.”
For a second, I think I have heard her wrong. “Your perfume?”
“Don’t act stupid with me.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Irina comes closer until there is barely a step between us. “You would know.”
I hold my ground, but my hands curl against my sides. “No, I wouldn’t. I didn’t steal anything from you.”
“Of course you didn’t,” she says, her voice shaking with anger. “Things just disappear around you. Perfume. Jewelry. Peace in this house.”
“Back up,” I say.
She doesn’t.
“You come here with nothing,” Irina says. “No family, no money, no place of your own, and suddenly everyone is supposed to believe you are some innocent little saints? Nikolai might be blind when it comes to you, but I am not.”
“Easy now,” Viktor says.
He steps between us before I realize he has come down the corridor. His hand goes up, not touching either of us, but making space.
Irina turns on him. “Don’t tell me what to do. You’re as bad as Nikolai, you both are blind to her wily charms.”
“Wily charms?” I say.
“I’m telling you to stop before you say something worse,” Viktor says.
“I have been patient for weeks,” Irina snaps. “I have been quiet while she walked through this house like she belonged here.”
“Irina,” Viktor says.
“No. She should hear it.” Irina looks past him at me. “She probably saw the bracelet and tried to steal it, and unfortunately Anya almost got into trouble for it. That’s what I am trying to tell Nikolai. It is a giant fucking misunderstanding.”
My stomach turns cold.
I look at Viktor. “What’s she talking about?”
Viktor exhales and looks away.
“What is she talking about?” I ask again.
“It’s a long story,” Viktor says.
Irina laughs once, ugly and high-pitched. “Really? Is that what you’re calling it now?”
I wrap my arms around myself because suddenly I feel exposed standing here with both of them looking at me like I’ve walked into the middle of something everyone else already understands.
“Listen,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. “I don’t know what you guys are up to.”
Irina’s head snaps toward me. “What I’m up to?”
