An oligarch’s daughter, a hidden fortune, and a dangerous escape
Paul is still trying to explain his relationship with Tatiana to friends Rick and Marie Louise when he meets them in New York. Rick has been promoted to run the Lemson Foundation, Marie Louise’s podcast about middle-class people who became addicted to fentanyl has been bought by Pushkin Industries, and Paul says he can see himself marrying Tatiana. Marie Louise jokes that he is barely past Tinder, but Paul insists she is special and that he wants them to meet her.
The story then shifts back to Paul on the run in the New Hampshire woods. He is fleeing pursuers and burns his own car as a decoy, then leaves the marked trail, smashes his iPhone so it cannot be tracked, and calls lawyer friend Louis Westing from a disposable phone under the alias Grant Anderson. He heads west toward Lincoln, using a compass and survival skills taught by his eccentric father, Stanley Brightman, who spent years taking him hunting and foraging in the woods near Bellingham and warning him that farming, taxes, and civilization were humanity’s great mistakes.
Paul struggles through cold, steep terrain, realizes his compass was thrown off by the magnets in his disposable phones, and must rely on the sun instead. He drinks from a stream only after nearly collapsing from thirst, then makes a hidden H-shaped fire, warms himself, and eats part of a protein bar. At dusk he builds a shelter from branches and leaves, sleeps in a lightweight field system instead of a sleeping bag, and wakes after three hours to electronic beeps nearby, likely from a pursuer’s phone. He lies still as footsteps approach.
The narrative returns to six years earlier, when Paul and Tatiana are dating and attend dinner with friends at Sansovino, an Italian rooftop restaurant in Chelsea. Marie Louise interrogates Tatiana about her background, work, and finances, making Paul suspect she thinks Tatiana is after money. Later, after Paul and Tatiana live together, she invites him to her father’s house in Manhattan. There he discovers she is the daughter of Arkady Galkin, a Russian oligarch, living in a lavish compound of two connected villas with gold decor, guards, a pool, and guests from Wall Street and show business. Galkin tests Paul, takes him to the kitchen for a pastrami sandwich, and clearly approves him. Paul also meets Tatiana’s glamorous stepmother, Alina, who warns him in English that “love of a woman to us will grow the less we love her,” as the family celebrates with Dom Pérignon, caviar, vodka, and plans for Michael Bublé to sing.
