Read · Opening chapter from The Dial

...The cutting phrase “You’re not grown enough to lecture your mother about life” kept replaying in her head like a scratched record.

The Balkan sun was merciless, bleaching the little coastal town in a blinding flash as it bounced off the sea and the windows. Dazzled, she smacked right into a sweaty tourist dripping ice cream. Damn it, she thought, the locals are right—no wonder they all head for the mountains once the heat sets in.

She didn’t consider herself a local, but she wasn’t a tourist anymore either. A year earlier, when she was still fourteen, Rita and her mother had found refuge in cozy little Herceg Novi—a place that seemed to have been forgotten at the edge of a peaceful Balkan country. They’d had to run from a Russia that had suddenly gone mad and turned into a snarling orc rattling a nuclear saber.

First they tried Georgia, but one morning a message scrawled on their car—You’re not welcome here—made the decision for them. Turkey seemed friendlier, but bureaucracy killed that hope fast. So the next stop was tiny, charming Montenegro.

Months went by. They’d finally seemed to settle in—until, surprise, surprise, her mother dropped another bombshell. Suddenly it felt like they’d switched roles: now it was the parent acting like a child. And that thought made the girl feel oddly hollow and sad. Kids believe everything will turn out fine; adults are sure it never will. No, she had no desire to grow up. But who cares, anyway, what a fifteen-year-old girl wants?

All her life she’d been told she was so smart and so independent for her age. And she really did her best to live up to it. Good grades came easily, languages were her thing: Russian, literature, and English. She did the boring house stuff without complaint: washed the dishes, went grocery shopping, helped elderly neighbors. “A Pioneer—an example to all!" her mom used to tease. But she never got the joke and took it personally.

Even here she tried to keep the same order and discipline as back home. She’d even picked up the local language in no time! But instead of a thank-you, all she got was more chores. Her mother and a few of her scatterbrained friends were only too happy to take advantage of her skills: calling the plumber, ordering a taxi, talking to officials, arranging deliveries. She handled it all just fine.

As for her mother—the artistic type, a painter who fell into deep depression every time real life came knocking. So what’s the point, she thought bitterly, of raising a kid to think for herself if, when it actually matters, you just ignore her opinion?

She needed to talk to someone who could actually make a difference. But, of course, there was no one around. She hurried through the maze of the historic center packed with tourists, came out onto a square buzzing with voices, the air thick with the smell of fried garlic and fish. None of it felt right.

Her feet carried her farther, almost on their own, into the newer district, where the streets were crowded with oleanders, magnolias, and palm trees. The asphalt shimmered like liquid mercury. She was dying for a drink.

“Oh, hi! Where’s your mom?” someone suddenly called out from behind a wall of greenery. Of course. Just her luck. In this small coastal place, there hadn’t been such a flood of Russian expats in a hundred years; you couldn’t step outside without bumping into at least two or three of them. “Hi, she’s home!” Rita shouted back, without slowing down. Soon the houses thinned out, giving way to the outskirts, where a cemetery stretched along the road—solemn, shady, and so well kept it could’ve passed for a city park.

She bounded up the steps, only to freeze in disappointment: a couple was already up there, locked in a private embrace.

But there was little time to linger. She crouched down, leaning her back against a wall thick with ivy. Sweat streamed down her skin; the cicadas’ hum buzzed inside her skull. She had just wiped her face on her T-shirt when her phone lit up with an incoming call.

“Hey, Cricket! What’s the rush?” Her dad’s cheerful face filled the screen—seven in the morning, California time.

Rita’s dad—or rather, Igor, her mother’s ex-husband—was the kindest person she had ever known. He wasn’t her real father, but once he came into her life at five, he simply stayed. With him, fear melted away; the world felt lighter, steadier—even fun.

After the divorce, he sat the girl down for a talk and said, in a voice so serious it stayed with her: “Cricket, remember—you’ll always be my daughter.” And he meant it.

Some time after, he helped them when they left Russia. And when it turned out they were broke, he just started sending money. He called it by an old-fashioned word—an allowance. In return, he wanted reports: expenses, sometimes even receipts. Her mom nearly had a fit at the very idea. So it was up to the girl to master that part of adult life.

She kept the household budget, handled errands, figured out how to fill out documents and deal with payment systems. Her mother would swing between admiration and guilt. “You’re like a little old lady, Rita… God, forgive your scatterbrained mother.” And the daughter forgave her. She spent her days at the Montenegrin school, studied with tutors, and in her mind she was already enrolled in the American university of her dreams—the one she and her father had picked together, along with a few backups. Everything had been fine. Until today.

“Hi, Cricket! What’s the rush?”

“Dad, hi, listen! We’re in trouble. We have to sort this out. This morning Mom said we’re moving again. To Serbia. To Belgrade! I can’t take this anymore. I’ve had enough!” Rita’s voice was shaking; she was barely holding back tears.

“Whoa, hold on!” her father drawled. “When’s she planning this?”

“As soon as possible, while it’s still summer break!”

“And why so sudden? Any idea?” He looked surprised, but not exactly floored.

“Apparently, she’s been talking to people who moved to Belgrade, and according to them it’s great there. Here in Montenegro, it’s just a village, a sleepy backwater for retirees, zero prospects. She has nothing to do here, and she’s getting really depressed,” Rita rattled it off like a machine gun.

“And you don’t want to go to Serbia?”

“That’s not the point! How many times can we move? I’ve only just started to make a life here, I have friends now!”

“And why exactly Serbia? Did she say?” Her dad still wasn’t getting pulled into the teenager’s emotional storm.

“She says there’s a Russian creative community, work, she can ‘find herself.’ She only thinks about herself, I don’t even matter! If she goes, I’ll run away! I’ll stay here and live on my own.” Tears were streaming down the girl’s cheeks.

“Sweetheart, just breathe. Please, stop crying for a second. As far as I know, this country really isn’t the best place for young, ambitious people.”

“I don’t care! I just want to live in one place for once.” Rita wiped her wet face with both hands. Then suddenly it hit her:

“Take me with you? Please! We already agreed I’d be going to California, why wait?”

“Right now I can’t, Cricket! It’s complicated. You know I have a start-up; I’m right on the verge of a big deal with an investor. This project is the big one, the project of my life—you know that. And I don’t even know how long it’ll take—six months, a year…”

“But what am I supposed to do? Can’t you help at all? Do you even understand how hard this is for me?”

“Rita, honey, of course I do. You’ve had to handle so much that your peers can’t even imagine. But I don’t think I can talk your mom out of it once her mind is made up.”

Disappointment clouded her face. She opened her mouth to argue, but her dad kept talking.

“Hold on, I never said I wouldn’t help. I’m just saying, trying to change your mom’s mind is useless. It’s like banging your head against a wall. But there’s always a way around it.”

The girl froze mid-sob, instantly alert.

“Only thing is, honey, you’ll have to forget about summer break and take on something serious,” he went on. “Would you be willing to trade the beach and your friends for real work? Think you could handle that?”

“How would that even help with Mom?” she sniffled.

“Well, for one, she’ll probably postpone the move. She won’t want to interfere with something that’s ‘good for your future.’ And then who knows—summer will be over, school will start, life will go on.” He gave her a sly wink. “Besides, this job could actually do you a lot of good. For college. They pay well.”

“I don’t get it. What kind of job is this?”

“It’s something like a journalistic investigation. You’d be digging into the past: connecting the dots, finding documents, and building theories.”

“I see! And why do you think I can’t handle it?” Rita’s tears had already dried; her tone turned defiant. “When it’s boring stuff like tracking expenses or calling repairmen, I’m ‘so grown-up.’ But the second it’s something real, I’m suddenly a kid again.”

He laughed softly. “Fair point. You’re right—you’re not a kid anymore. And you’ve got what it takes: you know Russian, English, and Serbian. That’s exactly what this job needs. So, listen carefully while I tell you what it’s about and why I think you’re the perfect fit.”

“Who’s it for?”

“For your potential boss and a good friend of mine. Her name’s Sylvia. She’s a journalist with a major news agency. Interviewed me once for a piece. We hit it off.”

He leaned back, slipping into storyteller mode.

“She is one of those classic American blends—ten nationalities rolled into one. But one of her ancestors was Russian.

Maybe her grandma. Or great-grandma. Doesn’t really matter. She came from that old pre-revolution intelligentsia. During the Civil War, like so many others, she fled Russia. And guess where she ended up?”

“Well?”

“Montenegro! Though back then it wasn’t a separate country. It was part of Yugoslavia—Kingdom of Serbs and… uh, someone else.”

“Someone else? Seriously, Dad? You ancient imperial fossil! Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, that’s who!” Rita shot back, half scolding, half amused.

“I’m just an old guy trying to make apps for you tech-savvy kids,” he chuckled. “But it’s good you know Balkan history that well—it’ll come in handy. Now don’t interrupt, this is almost a detective story.”

According to Sylvia, her grandmother was quite something. In America she’d built a fashion brand from scratch—this was back in the 1950s. Later she sold it, invested in stocks and real estate, and ended up leaving behind a very comfortable inheritance.

“That’s awesome!” the teenager threw in, but her dad didn’t pause.

“Her descendants didn’t exactly grow the fortune, but thanks to her, they all got solid educations and did pretty well for themselves.

Sylvia’s always been proud of her and decided to write her grandmother’s biography. But then it turned out: there’s a missing decade. Practically nothing is known about the ten years that followed her escape from Russia and preceded her arrival in America in the late 1920s. The rest of her life she’d described in detail—but that part? Total silence.”

“The journalist might’ve just let it go,” he continued, “and written the book with the material she had. But first, that would go against her journalistic nature. And second, new clues suddenly turned up. One day she was browsing eBay, hunting for antiques—that’s her thing—and stumbled across a listing that was a century old: some old photos and a diary written in Russian. The seller was a guy named Goran—or maybe Zoran—from Montenegro.”

“And—ta-da!” He grinned. “Imagine her shock when she zoomed in and saw her grandmother’s full name on the cover. And in the photos, there she was too, the same woman, just decades younger.”

“Whoa,” Rita breathed.

“But that wasn’t even the end of it. This Goran-Zoran guy messaged her back saying he had a whole collection like that, and he’d be willing to sell it. One minute the box was his, the next, it ‘wasn’t exactly his.’ Total chaos.”

“In short, total chaos,” he said. “So it was clear—Sylvia would have to go to Montenegro herself. But she couldn’t do it alone. She needed someone local—someone who spoke Russian, Montenegrin, and English; who was reliable, sharp, organized, punctual, and knew a bit of the region’s past. Someone who understood the local mindset... and could drive. Whew.”

He paused for a sip of water.

“Quite the list, huh? Enough requirements for ten people. No wonder she couldn’t find anyone. So she asked me, as a fellow Russian, to look around our expat crowd here. And I thought—you’d be perfect. Well, except for your age. And the driving part. But your mom could help with that. As for age—nonsense. You’re smarter than half the adults I know. What do you say?”

“What do I say? Of course I’m in!” Rita’s voice lit up. “Can I talk to this Sylvia myself? I’m sure she won’t be able to resist!”

Her father laughed. “Deal. I’ll give her your contact.

But do me a favor, prepare for the call. Read up a bit online, especially on the region’s past. Show her you’re interested in the work, not just the paycheck.”

July 9, Tivat

“Oh, for God’s sake, what now?” Rita’s mom grumbled, tapping her daughter on the shoulder. “Try calling her again.”

“Mom, what’s the point? As soon as she’s online, she’ll text. And if they don’t have service, we might as well wait here. They can’t miss us.” Rita shrugged and stepped deeper into the shade of a massive cypress tree.

They were standing across from the exit of Tivat Airport—a tiny place, like everything else in this country. The plane from Belgrade, the one carrying the American woman, had landed over an hour ago. Most passengers had long since left, scattered along the coast. But the journalist was nowhere in sight.

Her mom just wouldn’t stop.

“What if they didn’t come at all?”

In her tone, “what if” sounded like the end of the world. “

“They,” of course, meant Sylvia and her son Steven, who’d suddenly decided to join his mother at the last minute. Judging by how long they’d been stuck there, this was only the first of many surprises.

“Your dear Igor really outdid himself,” Mom muttered. “He came up with a ‘summer internship’ for you! You’re supposed to be out having fun with your friends, not playing secretary for some stranger!”

“Mom, come on. She did text from Belgrade—they were already on the plane, waiting for takeoff...” Rita tried to sound calm, though her mood was sinking fast. She didn’t have many friends in Montenegro—really just Nastya. And even she was leaving for Spain with her parents in a few days.

“I’m going back to the car,” Mom snapped. “Need to cool off.” And without waiting for an answer, she walked off.

Rita stayed behind, pulled out her phone, and slipped into another universe, adding new pins to her Google Map. The air above the runway shimmered with heat and the steady buzz of cicadas. Some tourists had already left; others hadn’t yet arrived. The only good thing about this day was the tree’s shade.

She didn’t really miss her mom’s company or the constant nagging. In her head, Rita was already somewhere else—living a different life.

One where she was a badass investigative journalist exposing corruption in global corporations. Her mentor, of course, would be Sylvia herself: a world-class reporter with a portfolio covering war zones and Pulitzers.

Then again, maybe she’d skip journalism altogether. Maybe she’d become an economics genius... or an architect, like Zaha Hadid. Or at least a designer. Dad always said, “Be whatever you want to be.” Mom, on the other hand, could barely suppress a laugh every time she heard the word “designer”—and that stung more than the daughter liked to admit.

The airport’s automatic doors slid open. Out of the dim hall emerged a large, milk-pale woman in her fifties, followed by a fair-skinned, heavyset guy in his mid-twenties who was clearly her son.

“Oh no…” the soon-to-be assistant almost groaned out loud.

They were the picture-perfect parody of American tourists: denim shorts, loud floral shirts, baseball caps. Rita had never seen Sylvia before—only heard her voice on the phone. It had been low, smooth, with flawless diction, the kind of voice that conjured up a sharp, elegant Miranda Priestly from The Devil Wears Prada. But this... this was no shark of the pen—more like a hippo, a wicked thought that crossed her mind. The woman gestured.

“There! That’s her! The girl! That’s the one—you’re trying to steal her gift!”

Behind her marched a Montenegrin customs officer, his English mangled beyond mercy.

“Ma’am, rule exist. You must pay thirty percent. From price. Is law. Is tax!”

“What?! Thirty percent? Are you insane?” Sylvia barked out a laugh of disbelief.

Steven pretended to evaporate. Rita froze, unsure what to do.

The officer turned to her suddenly.

“Girl, you understand Montenegrin?”

“Tako, razumem,” she nodded.

“Explain. Law say—must pay tax if electronics is new,” he went on nervously in his broken English.

Rita translated into normal, understandable English. Sylvia snorted.

“This is pure extortion. Legalized robbery!”

“Then I will confiscate the item,” the man declared solemnly. “Is in package—means for selling. Translate!”

“It’s a gift!” The American shouted. “I’m going to file a complaint!”

The customs officer hissed under his breath, a phrase so venomous that even without full translation Rita flinched:

“Puši kurac, pička materina!”⁶

Then he spun on his heel and stomped back toward the terminal.

Something clicked in Rita’s head. Oh, this was that kind of story—expensive gadget, import tax, ‘misunderstanding.’ She’d heard of it.

Next to her, Sylvia was stabbing at her phone with a thick finger, face flushed with fury. The girl, cheeks burning, leaned closer and whispered:

“Excuse me, ma’am… but I think he might be, um… asking for a bribe.”

She exhaled, then added under her breath, “Bribe.”

The newcomer froze. One eyebrow arched; she slowly lowered her phone, glanced at Rita, then up at the sky, then back again.

She shook her head, shoulders trembling in a silent laugh. “All right. He’s gonna get what’s coming.”

Then she spun around and strode back into the terminal.

She was gone for ten minutes.

When she returned, her face was carved in stone and she was flanked by two oversized suitcases. Without a word, she nodded first at her son, then at Rita. And like an aircraft carrier leading its fleet, she pulled her luggage toward the parking lot.

“So,” Sylvia puffed, stopping by the barrier gate, sweat streaking down her flushed face, “where’s our ride?”

Mom was waiting in the white Alhambra—a roomy but humble minivan she and Rita had managed to book only after calling half the rental companies in the country.

“Not bad,” the American muttered, inspecting the vehicle like a professional appraiser.

She and Steven climbed into the back seat. The car’s frame creaked in protest.

The driver shot her daughter a loaded look—the kind that translated roughly as a full paragraph beginning with “See? What did I tell you…” But she said nothing, just started the engine and pulled out.

The girl didn’t know where to look. She’d expected so much from this meeting: the start of something thrilling—real assignments, secret investigations, brainstorming sessions.

Instead? Customs drama, wardrobe-sized suitcases, and a suffocating silence in a car that smelled like sun and vinyl.

They drove through chaotic, noisy Tivat, turned toward the sea, and followed the shoreline. Through the tinted windows unfolded the signature Montenegrin view: the deep-blue waters of the Bay of Kotor⁷ framed by mountains, dotted with white triangles of yachts and toy-like houses under red-tiled roofs. By the time they reached the narrow crossing of the bay, Sylvia finally stopped huffing.

The ferry—poetically named Ruka Pravde, “The Hand of Justice”—rocked gently as it glided forward. The American, seemingly revived, climbed out of the car and stood by the railing, transfixed by the view. When she returned inside, her voice was steady but solemn.

“I owe you an apology,” she said. “I’ve never in my life encountered such primitive, blatant, shameless extortion. Never. And, more importantly, I’ve never paid before. Not a single cent. But, she sighed, “Si fueris Romae, Romano vivito more. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

She paused, reached into her bag, and handed Rita a small crumpled package.

“Here. This is from your father. He wanted it to be a surprise.”

Rita opened it and gasped. “A phone… 512 gigs,” she whispered, almost hugging it to her chest—then, automatically, her mental calculator clicked on.

“How much did you have to pay that customs guy?”

“Technically? Nothing,” Sylvia said. “I just… opened my wallet. He peeked inside, pulled out a hundred-euro note, and said, ‘This way, it’s fair.’ You get that? Fair!”

She laughed hoarsely—without anger now—finally succumbing to the Balkan polako.

“We’ll pay you back,” Rita blurted, her cheeks burning with embarrassment.

“But we’ll talk about corruption later. I think you’ll find it fascinating—especially if you really plan to study in the U.S. You should understand what social Paleolithic looks like in action.”

Old Herceg greeted them with the same scorching heat, the same bustle and a new surprise.

The apartment they’d booked, despite the grandiose promise on the booking site, turned out to be tucked right in the heart of town, where most “streets” were actually pedestrian alleys and stairways. You could only reach the place by helicopter or divine intervention.

“Oh…” the journalist drawled, staring first at her phone, then at the narrow, crooked passage that ended in a dead end. “I don’t think there are even doors here.”

Steven squeezed past her, marching straight to the end of the alley. There, hidden from sight until you got close, was a small iron gate set into the wall. It opened into a pocket of paradise—a tiny courtyard overgrown with ivy, mossy stone walls, and a drowsy Montenegrin man in shorts, lazily nursing a glass of wine in the dappled shade of the trees. The landlord, apparently, waiting for his guests.

His mother approached a heavy stone table, slumped into a chair, and let out a long, weary sigh.

“Okay,” she said, rubbing her temples. “Come by tonight, please—we’ll go over tomorrow’s plan.”

She was about to dismiss the girl when something popped into her mind.

“Oh—almost forgot. I’ll send you some photos now. Just a few pages from the diary. I can’t read them; written in Cyrillic. Could you transcribe them for me, at least in Russian?”

Rita nodded.

She hurried back home, stomach rumbling, eager to eat—and to finally unwrap her father’s gift.

Messages started flooding in as soon as she walked through the door. She opened one at random: a yellowed, timeworn page, the handwriting perfectly neat, almost calligraphic. No one wrote like that anymore—not in the digital age.

The newly minted assistant felt a spark—pure, electric curiosity. Old secrets. Wow.

READ MORE

The cutting phrase “You’re not grown enough to lecture your mother about life” kept replaying in her head like a scratched record.

no desire to grow up. But who cares, anyway, what a fifteen-year-old girl wants?

All her life she’d been told she was so smart and so independent for her age. And she really did her best to live up to it. Good grades came easily, languages were her thing: Russian, literature, and English. She did the boring house stuff without complaint: washed the dishes, went grocery shopping, helped elderly neighbors. “A Pioneer—an example to all!"³ her mom used to tease. But she never got the joke and took it personally.

Her feet carried her farther, almost on their own, into the newer

district, where the streets were crowded with oleanders, magnolias, and palm trees. The asphalt shimmered like liquid mercury. She was dying for a drink.

Soon the houses thinned out, giving way to the outskirts, where a cemetery stretched along the road—solemn, shady, and so well kept it could’ve passed for a city park. Across from the entrance stood a massive Soviet-era monument. The war memorial hadn’t interested anyone for decades—neither the authorities nor the tourists—so the square around it was overgrown with tall shrubs, forming a secluded little pocket. Perfect.

She bounded up the steps, only to freeze in disappointment: a couple was already up there, locked in a private embrace.

“Hey, Cricket! What’s the rush?” Her dad’s cheerful face filled the screen—seven in the morning, California time.

After the divorce, he sat the girl down for a talk and said, in a voice so serious it stayed with her: “Cricket, remember—you’ll always be my daughter.” And he meant it.

university of her dreams—the one she and her father had picked together, along with a few backups. Everything had been fine. Until today.

“Hi, Cricket! What’s the rush?”

“Whoa, hold on!” her father drawled. “When’s she planning this?”

“As soon as possible, while it’s still summer break!”

“And why so sudden? Any idea?” He looked surprised, but not exactly floored.

“And you don’t you want to go to Serbia?”

“That’s not the point! How many times can we move? I’ve only just started to make a life here, I have friends now!”

“And why exactly Serbia? She didn’t say?” Her dad still wasn’t getting pulled into the teenager’s emotional storm.

“Sweetheart, just breathe. Please, stop crying for a second. As far as I know, this country really isn’t the best place for young, ambitious people.”

“I don’t care! I just want to live in one place for once.” Rita wiped her wet face with both hands. Then suddenly it hit her:

“Take me with you? Please! We already agreed I’d be going to California, why wait?”

“But what am I supposed to do? Can’t you help at all? Do you even understand how hard this is for me?”

“Rita, honey, of course I do. You’ve had to handle so much that your peers can’t even imagine. But I don’t think I can talk your mom out of it once her mind is made up.”

Disappointment clouded her face. She opened her mouth to argue, but her dad kept talking.

“Hold on, I never said I wouldn’t help. I’m just saying, trying to change your mom’s mind is useless. It’s like banging your head against a wall. But there’s always a way around it.”

The girl froze mid-sob, instantly alert.

“How would that even help with Mom?” she sniffled.

“I don’t get it. What kind of job is this?”

“It’s something like a journalistic investigation. You’d be digging into the past: connecting the dots, finding documents, and building theories.”

“Who’s it for?”

“For your potential boss and a good friend of mine. Her name’s Sylvia. She’s a journalist with a major news agency. Interviewed me once for a piece. We hit it off.”

He leaned back, slipping into storyteller mode.

“She is one of those classic American blends—ten nationalities rolled into one. But one of her ancestors was Russian. Maybe her grandma. Or great-grandma. Doesn’t really matter. She came from that old pre-revolution intelligentsia. During the Civil War, like so many others, she fled Russia. And guess where she ended up?”

“Well?”

“Montenegro! Though back then it wasn’t a separate country. It was part of Yugoslavia—Kingdom of Serbs and… uh, someone else.”

“Someone else? Seriously, Dad? You ancient imperial fossil! Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, that’s who!” Rita shot back, half scolding, half amused.

“That’s awesome!” the teenager threw in, but her dad didn’t pause.

“Her descendants didn’t exactly grow the fortune, but thanks to her, they all got solid educations and did pretty well for themselves. Sylvia’s always been proud of her and decided to write her grandmother’s biography. But then it turned out: there’s a missing decade. Practically nothing is known about the ten years that followed her escape from Russia and preceded her arrival in America in the late 1920s. The rest of her life she’d described in detail—but that part? Total silence.”

The girl shifted uncomfortably, glancing around. For a second, it seemed someone was moving among the old graves. But her dad was too deep into his story about this mystery woman, and she didn’t dare interrupt.
“The journalist might’ve just let it go,” he continued, “and written the book with the material she had. But first, that would go against her

journalistic nature. And second, new clues suddenly turned up. One day she was browsing eBay, hunting for antiques—that’s her thing—and stumbled across a listing that was a century old: some old photos and a diary written in Russian. The seller was a guy named Goran—or maybe Zoran—from Montenegro.”

“Whoa,” Rita breathed.

He paused for a sip of water.

except for your age. And the driving part. But your mom could help with that. As for age—nonsense. You’re smarter than half the adults I know. What do you say?”

“What do I say? Of course I’m in!” Rita’s voice lit up. “Can I talk to this Sylvia myself? I’m sure she won’t be able to resist!”

Her father laughed. “Deal. I’ll give her your contact. But do me a favor, prepare for the call. Read up a bit online, especially on the region’s past. Show her you’re interested in the work, not just the paycheck.”

July 9—Tivat⁴

“Oh, for God’s sake, what now?” Rita’s mom grumbled, tapping her daughter on the shoulder. “Try calling her again.”

Her mom just wouldn’t stop.

“What if they didn’t come at all?”

In her tone, “what if” sounded like the end of the world. “They,” of course, meant Sylvia and her son Steven, who’d suddenly decided to join his mother at the last minute. Judging by how long they’d been stuck there, this was only the first of many surprises.

“I’m going back to the car,” Mom snapped. “Need to cool off.” And without waiting for an answer, she walked off.

She didn’t really miss her mom’s company or the constant nagging. In her head, Rita was already somewhere else—living a different life. One where she was a badass investigative journalist exposing corruption in global corporations. Her mentor, of course, would be Sylvia herself: a world-class reporter with a portfolio covering war zones and Pulitzers.

The airport’s automatic doors slid open. Out of the dim hall emerged a large, milk-pale woman in her fifties, followed by a fair-skinned, heavyset guy in his mid-twenties who was clearly her son.

“Oh no…” the soon-to-be assistant almost groaned out loud.

“There! That’s her! The girl! That’s the one—you’re trying to steal her gift!”

Behind her marched a Montenegrin customs officer, his English mangled beyond mercy.

“Ma’am, rule exist. You must pay thirty percent. From price. Is law. Is tax!”

“What?! Thirty percent? Are you insane?” Sylvia barked out a laugh of disbelief.

Steven pretended to evaporate. Rita froze, unsure what to do.

The officer turned to her suddenly.

“Girl, you understand Montenegrin?”

“Tako, razumem,” she nodded.⁵

“Explain. Law say—must pay tax if electronics is new,” he went on nervously in his broken English.

Rita translated into normal, understandable English. Sylvia snorted.

“This is pure extortion. Legalized robbery!”

“Then I will confiscate the item,” the man declared solemnly. “Is in package—means for selling. Translate!”

“It’s a gift!” The American shouted. “I’m going to file a complaint!”

The customs officer hissed under his breath, a phrase so venomous that even without full translation Rita flinched:

“Puši kurac, pička materina!”⁶

Then he spun on his heel and stomped back toward the terminal.

Something clicked in Rita’s head. Oh, this was that kind of story—expensive gadget, import tax, ‘misunderstanding.’ She’d heard of it.

Next to her, Sylvia was stabbing at her phone with a thick finger, face flushed with fury. The girl, cheeks burning, leaned closer and whispered:

“Excuse me, ma’am… but I think he might be, um… asking for a bribe.”

She exhaled, then added under her breath, “Bribe.”

The newcomer froze. One eyebrow arched; she slowly lowered her phone, glanced at Rita, then up at the sky, then back again.

She shook her head, shoulders trembling in a silent laugh. “All right. He’s gonna get what’s coming.”

Then she spun around and strode back into the terminal.

She was gone for ten minutes.

“So,” Sylvia puffed, stopping by the barrier gate, sweat streaking down her flushed face, “where’s our ride?”

Mom was waiting in the white Alhambra—a roomy but humble minivan she and Rita had managed to book only after calling half the rental companies in the country.

“Not bad,” the American muttered, inspecting the vehicle like a professional appraiser.

She and Steven climbed into the back seat. The car’s frame creaked in protest.

The girl didn’t know where to look. She’d expected so much from this meeting: the start of something thrilling—real assignments, secret investigations, brainstorming sessions.

Instead? Customs drama, wardrobe-sized suitcases, and a suffocating silence in a car that smelled like sun and vinyl.

The ferry—poetically named Ruka Pravde, “The Hand of Justice”—

rocked gently as it glided forward. The American, seemingly revived, climbed out of the car and stood by the railing, transfixed by the view. When she returned inside, her voice was steady but solemn.

She paused, reached into her bag, and handed Rita a small crumpled package.

“Here. This is from your father. He wanted it to be a surprise.”

Rita opened it and gasped. “A phone… 512 gigs,” she whispered, almost hugging it to her chest—then, automatically, her mental calculator clicked on.

“How much did you have to pay that customs guy?”

“Technically? Nothing,” Sylvia said. “I just… opened my wallet. He peeked inside, pulled out a hundred-euro note, and said, ‘This way, it’s fair.’ You get that? Fair!”

She laughed hoarsely—without anger now—finally succumbing to the Balkan polako.

“We’ll pay you back,” Rita blurted, her cheeks burning with embarrassment.

“No need, sweetheart. Consider it tuition. The price of experience.” Sylvia’s eyes gleamed.

Old Herceg greeted them with the same scorching heat, the same bustle and a new surprise.

“Oh…” the journalist drawled, staring first at her phone, then at the narrow, crooked passage that ended in a dead end. “I don’t think there are even doors here.”

His mother approached a heavy stone table, slumped into a chair, and let out a long, weary sigh.

“Okay,” she said, rubbing her temples. “Come by tonight, please—we’ll go over tomorrow’s plan.”

She was about to dismiss the girl when something popped into her mind.

“Oh—almost forgot. I’ll send you some photos now. Just a few pages from the diary. I can’t read them, written in Cyrillic. Could you transcribe them for me, at least in Russian?”

Rita nodded.

She hurried back home, stomach rumbling, eager to eat—and to finally unwrap her father’s gift.

The newly minted assistant felt a spark—pure, electric curiosity. Old secrets. Wow.

READ MORE

...The cutting phrase “You’re not grown enough to lecture your mother about life” kept replaying in her head like a scratched record. The Balkan sun was merciless, bleaching the little coastal town in a blinding flash as it bounced off the sea and the windows. Dazzled, she smacked right into a sweaty tourist dripping ice cream. Damn it, she thought, the locals are right—no wonder they all head for the mountains once the heat sets in.

In a crowd, she was easy to spot: light-blond hair in a messy halo, gray-blue eyes, a narrow, slightly angular face. A classic Russian girl. Always rushing somewhere, never a trace of the Montenegrin polako in her. She didn’t consider herself a local, but she wasn’t a tourist anymore either. A year earlier, when she was still fourteen, Rita and her mother had found refuge in cozy little Herceg Novi—a place that seemed to have been forgotten at the edge of a peaceful Balkan country. They’d had to run from a Russia that had suddenly gone mad and turned into a snarling orc rattling a nuclear saber.

Across from the entrance stood a massive Soviet-era monument. The war memorial hadn’t interested anyone for decades—neither the authorities nor the tourists—so the square around it was overgrown with tall shrubs, forming a secluded little pocket. Perfect. She bounded up the steps, only to freeze in disappointment: a couple was already up there, locked in a private embrace.

There wasn’t much time left before the call at four. Out of options, she dashed through the cemetery gates and down an alley toward its old Russian section. Forgotten for decades and only recently cleaned up by some enthusiast, it was filled with weathered stone crosses marking the graves of long-dead émigrés. Once, a hundred years ago, those who had fled the same kind of madness had ended up here too. She stood still, trying to make out the faded names on the stones, struck by how perfectly, eerily symmetrical history could be. But there was little time to linger. She crouched down, leaning her back against a wall thick with ivy. Sweat streamed down her skin; the cicadas’ hum buzzed inside her skull. She had just wiped her face on her T-shirt when her phone lit up with an incoming call.