Caught in His Gilded World

by Lucy Ellis

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  The Price of His Redemption

  by Carol Marinelli

  PROLOGUE

  ‘HEY, SHISHKA.’

  Daniil Zverev stiffened as he walked into the dormitory and heard what his friend Sev had just called him.

  It would seem that shishka was now his new name.

  Russian slang could hit just where it hurt, and tonight it did its job well.

  Big gun.

  Bigwig.

  Big shot.

  Daniil watched as Sev put down the book he had been reading.

  ‘We were just talking about how you’re going to go and live with the rich family in England, shishka.’

  ‘Don’t call me that again,’ Daniil warned, and picked up the book and held it over his head. He made to rip the pages out but, as Sev swallowed, Daniil tossed it back on the bed.

  He wouldn’t have torn it—Sev only occasionally had a book to read—but Daniil hoped he would heed the warning.

  ‘Did you find any matches?’ Nikolai looked up from the wooden ship he was painstakingly building and Daniil went into his pocket and took out the handful that he had collected when he had done his sweeping duty.

  ‘Here.’

  ‘Thanks, shishka.’

  Daniil would do it; he would smash Nikolai’s ship. His breathing was hard and angry as he stared down his friend.

  The four boys were, in fact, far more than friends.

  Yes, Daniil and Roman might be identical twins and Nikolai and Sev no relation, but all four had grown up together. With their dark hair and pale skin, they were the poorest stock amongst the poor. At the baby house they had stood in their cribs and called to each other at night.

  Daniil and Roman had shared a crib.

  Nikolai and Sevastyan had slept in their own on either side of the twins.

  When they had graduated to beds they had been moved to the children’s orphanage and placed in the same dormitory. Now, in the adolescent wing, they shared a four-bedroomed room.

  Most considered them wild boys, troubled boys, but they were no real trouble to each other.

  They were all they had.

  ‘Touch my ship...’ Nikolai threatened.

  ‘Don’t call me shishka, then. Anyway, there is no need to—I’ve decided that I’m not going to live in England.’ Daniil looked over at Roman, his twin, who lay on his bed with his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. ‘I’m going to say that I don’t want to go. They can’t make me.’

  ‘Why would you do that?’ Roman asked, and turned his head and fixed his brother with the cold grey stare that they shared.

  ‘Because I don’t need some rich family to help me. We’re going to make it ourselves, Roman.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’

  ‘We are,’ Daniil insisted. ‘Sergio said...’

  ‘What would he know? He’s the maintenance man.’

  ‘He was once a boxer, though.’

  ‘So he says.’

  ‘The Zverev twins!’ Daniil was insistent. ‘He says that we’re going to make it...’

  ‘Go and be with the rich family,’ Roman said. ‘We’re not going to get rich and famous here. We’re never going to get out of this hole.’

  ‘But if we train hard we’ll do well.’ Daniil picked up the photo by Roman’s bed. Sergio had brought his camera in one day a couple of years ago and had taken a photo of the twins and, because the others had nagged, he had then taken one of all four boys.

  It was the photo of the two of them, though, that Daniil now held up as he spoke to his brother. ‘You said that we would make it.’

  ‘Well, I lied,’ Roman said.

  ‘Hey...’ Sev had got back to reading but, even though he had just teased Daniil, he cared for him and could see where this was leading. ‘Leave him, Roman. Let him make up his own mind.’

  ‘No.’ Roman sat up angrily. Things had been building for months, since they’d first been told about a family who wanted to give a good home to a twelve-year-old. ‘He wants to blow off his one chance because he has this stupid dream that he can make it in the ring. Well, he can’t.’

  ‘We can,’ Daniil said.

  ‘I can,’ Roman corrected. ‘Or at least I could if I didn’t have you dragging me down.’ He took the picture of the two of them out of Daniil’s hand and tossed it across the floor. There was no glass in the frame, but something broke then. Daniil felt something fracture somewhere deep inside.

  ‘Come on,’ Roman said. ‘I’ll show you who can really fight.’

  He got up out of the bed and there was a buzz around the dormitory as the twins eyed each other.

  Finally they would fight.

  The Zverev twins trained all day.

  Sergio put them through drill after drill and they pushed through all of them. The only complaint they ever had was that they wanted to spar. Sergio had refused to allow it until a few months ago, but even then it was always under Sergio’s watchful eye. As an ex-boxer himself, he knew better than to start the boys too early.

  These boys were beautifully built. Tall and long-limbed, they were fast, light on their feet and hungry.

  He knew that with the right training the twins would go far.

  What a package!

  Two peas in a pod, two pitched minds and two angry youths.

  All Sergio had to do for now was contain them.

  But he wasn’t there tonight.

  ‘Tell the others,’ Roman said, and the room started to fill, beds were pushed back to make floor space and the gathering spectators knelt on them.

  ‘Show me what you’ve got,’ Roman jeered, as he came out fighting. He had Daniil straight on the defensive, blocking punches and moving back.

  No headgear, no gloves, no money to get them.

  Not yet.

  Roman gave him nothing, no rest, nowhere to hide, and Daniil, with everything to prove, fought back with all he had.

  The other boys were cheering while trying not to, as they did not want to alert the workers.

  Roman was at his fiercest, and though Daniil did his best to match him it was he who tired first. He moved in and took Roman in a clinch. He just needed a moment to rest but his brother shrugged him off.

  Daniil went in again, holding on to his twin so that Roman couldn’t punch him, doing his best to get back some breath before he commenced fighting again.

  Roman broke the clinch and the fight restarted, both blocking punches, both taking the occasional hit, but then Daniil thought he was gaining ground. Daniil was fast and Roman rarely needed to rest but it was Roman who now came in for a clinch and leaned on his twin. Daniil could hear his brother’s angry breathing but as he released him, instead of giving Daniil that necessary second to centre, Roman hooked him, landing an uppercut to Daniil’s left cheek and flooring him.

  Daniil came round to stunned faces. He had no idea how long he’d been knocked out but it had been long enough to have everyone worried.

  Everyone except Roman.

  ‘See,’ Roman said. ‘I do better without you, shishka.’

  The staff had noticed that some of the dorms were empty and, alerted by the mounting cheers, had started running to the room where Daniil now lay, trying to focus.

  Katya, the cook, took him into the warm kitchen, calling to her daughter, Anya, to bring the box of tape. Anya was in there, practising
her dance steps. She was twelve and went to a dance school but for now was home for the holidays. Sometimes she would tease the twins and say that she was fitter than them.

  Anya still had dreams and thought she would dance her way out of here.

  Daniil had none now.

  ‘Hey, what on earth were you doing?’ Katya scolded. She gave Daniil some strong, sweet black tea and then she tried to patch up his face. ‘The rich family don’t want ugly...’

  * * *

  Daniil sat on a bed just a few days later, seemingly a million miles from home.

  In the car he had looked at the small houses and shops as they’d passed them and when the car had turned a corner he had seen in the distance a large imposing red-brick residence. They had been driven down a long driveway and he’d stared at the lawns, fountains and statues outside the huge house.

  Daniil hadn’t wanted to get out of the car but he had, silently.

  The door was opened by a man in a black suit who looked, to Daniil, to be dressed for a funeral or wedding but his smile was kind.

  In the entrance Daniil stood as the adults spoke over him and then up the stairs he was led by the woman who had twice come to the orphanage and who was now his mother.

  At the turn of the stairs there was a portrait of his new parents with their hands on the shoulders of a smiling dark-haired child.

  He’d been told that they had no children.

  The bedroom was large and there was only one bed, which looked out to vast countryside.

  ‘Bath!’

  He had no idea what she meant until she pointed to a room off the bedroom, and then she had gone.

  Daniil had a bath and wrapped a towel around himself, just in time, because there was a knock at the door. It opened and she approached him with an anxious smile. She started to go through his things and kept calling him by the wrong name.

  He wanted to correct her and tell her his name was pronounced Dah-neel, rather than the Dae-ne-yuhl she insisted on using, but then he remembered the translator explaining that he had a new name.

  Daniel Thomas.

  That woman, his mother, had rubber gloves on, and his clothes, his shoes were all being loaded into a large garbage bag that the man in the suit was holding. She was still talking in a language he didn’t understand. She kept pointing to the window and then his cheek and making a gesture as if she was sewing and after several attempts he understood that she was going to take him to get his cheek repaired better than Katya had done.

  He stared at the case as she disposed of his life and then he saw two pictures, which Daniil knew that he hadn’t packed. Roman had slipped them in, he must have.

  ‘Nyet!’

  It was the first word he had spoken since they had left Russia and the woman let out a small worried cry as Daniil lunged for the photos and told her, no, she must not to get rid of them and neither could she touch them.

  His mother had fled the room and the man in the suit stood there for a while before finally coming to sit on the bed and join him in looking at the photos.

  ‘You?’ He had pointed to Daniil and then to one of the boys in the picture.

  Daniil shook his head. ‘Roman.’

  The old man with kind eyes pointed to his own chest. ‘Marcus.’

  Daniil nodded and looked back at the photo.

  Only then did Daniil start to understand that Roman didn’t hate him; he had been trying to save him.

  Daniil, though, hadn’t wanted to be saved.

  He had wanted to make his way with his brother.

  Not alone, like this.

  Copyright © 2015 by Carol Marinelli

  ISBN-13: 9781460386644

  Caught in His Gilded World

  Copyright © 2015 by Lucy Ellis

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