“I’m afraid it’s your father’s orders,” said Anders.

“He’s not the boss of me!”

“I’ve been asked . . .” Anders was not a cowardly man, but he hadn’t been looking forward to this in the slightest. “I’ve been asked to inform you that all of your credit cards have been stopped as of this morning, your phone contract has been canceled, and you’ll be leaving in five days. Your tickets are in this envelope.”

Konstantin gawked in astonishment. “What?!”

“Your horses have been restabled and . . .”

Konstantin immediately looked around for Bjårk, who lumbered over—he was frightfully overweight. “You’re not taking Bjårk Bjårkensson.”

His face grew grave. Now he was listening.

“He stays with me.”

“I’m not sure whether that will be possible.”

“You can’t banish me and not him! He behaves worse than I do!”

As if to prove this, Bjårk slinked over to the breakfast table and, disappointed to find it empty, let out an almighty fart and disappeared underneath, snuffling for crumbs. His large hind end started shaking the exquisite rococo legs of the gilt table, and Anders rushed over to steady it before it crashed onto the parquet. He rolled his eyes.

“Well, I’m not going anywhere,” said Konstantin.

“You aren’t today,” said Anders. “Your father has impounded your cars. But next week, I’m very much afraid that you are.”

Konstantin blinked. This couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t.

Gradually, the meaning began to sink in.

“You took my phone ?!”

Chapter 6

O n the rare occasions Fintan had the funds and free time to go to Glasgow, he had absolutely loved it. He adored the wet, majestic city with its vast sandstone tenements, the glittering straight roads like he imagined they had in New York, and the expensive Merchant City district with its designer clothes shops and mysterious-looking restaurants.

He loved the people marching down from Buchanan Street, every shape and size, from every corner of the world. Students, tourists, businessmen. It felt like the center of the world. He loved the Glasgow girls, with their tans and long eyelashes and brightly colored clothes, often inappropriate for the weather, and who cared a jot for that? They yelled, they laughed, they looked like stunning tropical birds compared to the duller colors of home.

But most of all he loved the men. Or rather, a certain type of dangerous, slender, short-haired man, who might give you a glance here or there, or walk boldly up Sauchiehall Street hand in hand with his boyfriend. The city smelled of opportunity and excitement and sex, and Fintan had loved it ever since his mother had first brought him there, a wide-eyed and extremely confused fifteen-year-old, to do the Christmas shopping, loading everything into the little prop plane that would take them home again. It had been quite the adventure. They had eaten oysters at Rogano and looked at the beautiful Glasgow School of Art. Fintan had never seen anything like the variety of shops and things to buy and had been paralyzed by choice. His mum had bought him a discounted Tommy Hilfiger sweatshirt and he had worn nothing else for a year. And he had sworn he would go back, be a student there, make his life in the city.