Chapter 5

I stared at Dimitri's back as he stood by the window, rigid as a steel beam, refusing to look at me. Fine. He didn't have to look at me. He didn't have to admit anything. None of it mattered anymore.

"Dimitri, I don't care if Misha is your biological son or not. I don't care if you slept with Anya or didn't. I don't care about your brother's memory or your family obligations or any of the pretty little stories you've been wrapping your lies in. I'm done. The marriage is over."

He turned around slowly. His eyes were dark, searching my face for some crack, some opening, something he could grab onto and twist until I bent.

"You don't mean that."

"I've never meant anything more in my life."

For a moment, I thought he was going to say something. His mouth opened, closed, then opened again. But nothing came out. Instead, he grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair and walked out of the bedroom, slamming the door so hard the frame shook.

I stood there in the silence, listening to his footsteps, then the front door, then the engine. Then nothing.

I looked at our wedding photo on the dresser. The two of us, young and stupid and so sure that love was enough. I picked it up, held it for exactly three seconds, and then threw it against the wall. The frame cracked, the glass shattered, and Dimitri's smiling face stared up at me from the floor, surrounded by broken pieces.

Good. Now the outside matched the inside.

My phone rang. Mom. I wiped my face and answered.

"Katya, sweetheart! I'm calling to remind you about your father's birthday today. Are you coming by the house?"

My mother's voice. Nadia Morozova. Warm, cheerful, completely unaware that her daughter's life was falling apart. Or maybe she was aware and just didn't care enough to ask.

"Yeah, Mom. I'll be there this afternoon."

"Wonderful! Your father will be so happy. Come around three, okay?"

I hung up and sat on the edge of the bed. At least I still had my parents. At least that was one thing Anya Volkov hadn't managed to steal from me.

Twenty minutes later, my phone rang again. Mom.

"Katya, honey, I'm so sorry, but your father just told me he doesn't feel like celebrating this year. He wants to keep it quiet. Just the two of us. You understand, right?"

Something cold prickled at the back of my neck.

"He doesn't want to celebrate? Dad? The man who throws himself a party every year?"

"He's just tired, sweetheart. Getting older. You know how it is. We'll do something next week, just the three of us. Okay?"

"Sure, Mom."

I hung up and stared at the phone. My father, Viktor Volkov, the man who had a birthday countdown on his desk calendar every year, suddenly didn't feel like celebrating? The man who once rented out a bowling alley for his fifty-fifth because "a man only turns fifty-five once"?

No. Something was wrong.

I grabbed my keys and drove to the Volkov estate. Twenty minutes across town, through the nice neighborhoods with the big lawns and the iron gates. My parents' house sat at the end of a cul-de-sac, brick and white columns, the American dream wrapped in Russian stubbornness.

There were cars in the driveway. Three of them. One I recognized as my mother's. One was my father's. And the third was Anya's.

I parked on the street and walked up to the front door. Through the window, I could see movement. Color. I could hear laughter.

I opened the door without knocking.

The living room was decorated with balloons and streamers. A banner across the fireplace read "Happy Birthday Viktor!" in gold letters. A cake sat on the coffee table, tall and white with candles already lit.

And there was my father, wearing a silly paper birthday hat, with Misha sitting on his lap. The boy was feeding him cake with a tiny plastic fork, and my father was laughing, his whole face lit up like I hadn't seen in months. My mother was standing behind them, taking photos with her phone, beaming. And Anya was sitting on the arm of the couch, her hand on my father's shoulder, smiling like she belonged there.

Like a daughter.

The room went silent the second they saw me.

My mother's phone dropped to her side. My father's smile vanished. Anya's hand slid off his shoulder. Even Misha stopped chewing.

"Katya!" My mother's voice came out high and tight. "What are you doing here? I told you your father canceled."

I looked at the balloons. The cake. The banner. The birthday hat on my father's head.

"Canceled, huh?"

"Honey, it's not what it looks like. We just—"

"It looks exactly like what it is, Mom. A birthday party for Dad that everyone was invited to except me. Because you lied to me. Because you told me he didn't want to celebrate. Because you didn't want me here while she was."

I pointed at Anya. She had the nerve to look surprised, her hand fluttering to her chest like a wounded bird.

My father shifted Misha on his lap and cleared his throat. "Katya, behave yourself. I won't have you making a scene on my birthday."

Behave myself. His daughter just found out she was deliberately excluded from his birthday party so his son-in-law's sister-in-law could take her place, and his first words were behave yourself.

I looked at this scene. My father, who used to call me his little star, his Katyusha, sitting with another woman's child on his lap while his own daughter was lied to and kept away. My mother, the woman who raised me, who held my hand at my wedding, standing behind Anya like she was the daughter-in-law she always wanted.

"You know what? Don't bother explaining. I can see everything I need to see."

My mother took a step toward me. "Katya, please. We didn't invite you because we knew you and Anya don't get along. We were trying to avoid conflict. That's all."

"You were trying to avoid me, Mom. There's a difference."

I looked at each of them. My father, who wouldn't meet my eyes. My mother, who was wringing her hands. Anya, who was sitting there with tears already pooling in her eyes, right on cue, ready to perform.

And Misha, staring at me with cake on his face, sitting on my father's lap like he owned it.

That cold thing inside me settled deeper. Past anger. Past hurt. Into something permanent.

They had chosen her. All of them. My husband. My mother. My father. They had all chosen Anya Volkov over me, and they hadn't even tried to hide it.

My sarcastic laugh cut through the room like a blade.

"Well, congratulations, Anya. You got the husband. You got the parents. You got the birthday party. I hope you enjoy the family name, too, because I'm done with all of it."

I turned away from the balloons and the cake and the guilty faces, and I stared at my own parents with eyes that had nothing left in them.

They had cast me out. Not today. Not this week. They had been casting me out slowly, quietly, one lie at a time, one excluded dinner at a time, one photo with Anya at a time, until I was standing on the outside of my own family, looking in through a window at the daughter they actually wanted.

I no longer wanted their approval. I no longer wanted their love. Both had been given to someone else a long time ago, and I had just been too blind to see it.

My father was still holding Misha. My mother was still wringing her hands. And Anya was sitting there with her perfect tears and her perfect timing, the woman who had stolen everything I ever had and made it look like I gave it away.

I wasn't going to cry. Not here. Not in front of them.

But my sarcastic sneer told them everything my tears never could. I saw it clearly now. I had been replaced. Not just in my marriage, but in my family. And the people who were supposed to love me the most were the ones

who held the door open for the woman who took my place