by A. Zavarelli
“Shoes.”
The shoes dangling from his fingers are flats. Cheap and plain to match the dress. And just as before, he is the one to put them on. Kneeling before me, he shoves each foot into the uncomfortable canvas.
He resurrects himself, and his eyes stare through me. “Now we go downstairs.”
“Please don’t make me, Nikolai. Not like this.”
I don’t have a scrap of makeup on. My hair isn’t even brushed. Shame is welling up inside me, and I am horrified that he would want to present me to anybody in this state. But his only response is to wrench me by the arm and drag me from the room.
My resistance has returned, and I battle him every step of the way, desperate to avoid whatever’s coming. Halfway down the stairs, he pauses, arresting my face with uncompromising fingers.
“Understand this, Nakya. If you step out of bounds tonight, you will only have yourself to blame for what happens next. Should the pakhan decide you are better off passed around as amusement for the brothers, there won’t be a thing I can do to save you.”
Fear paralyzes my throat, and I can’t breathe. I can’t even move. Because this time, he is not a liar. The leader of his mafiya is coming here tonight. The man who Nikolai answers to. The man who might, in fact, decide my fate.
I wanted to believe I was safe here. I even foolishly fell for the notion that I might be able to trust this man. But that trust was misplaced. As powerful as Nikolai might be, he is not in control. Yet he is the only hope I have. I must do what he tells me, and I must believe that there is still humanity inside him. He won’t let those animals take me. He will fight on my behalf to keep me alive.
Once he sees the acceptance on my face, he lurches me forward again. Already, I can hear the voices of our guests. But before we reach them, we are met by another man at the bottom of the stairs. He is young, perhaps younger than me. And even though he bears the Vory tattoos, his features are not as harsh as my captor’s.
“Nakya, this is Mischa,” Nikolai introduces us. “You will go with him and do whatever he says.”
I’m passed off without a second thought, and Nikolai abandons me to the stranger as he walks down the hall.
“Come with me,” Mischa says. “We’ll go into the sitting room.”
I follow him on wooden legs. It doesn’t feel right. I think I might be sick, but then it occurs to me I haven’t eaten lunch today. That alone should have alerted me to the dangers lurking ahead this evening. Since the removal of the tube, Nikolai has been regimental about my meals. Every day without fail, they are delivered at the same time, and I’m not permitted to do anything else until my meal is finished.
But today he forgot. Just as he has forgotten about me.
A thought that’s only compounded when he parades another woman into the main room. Only woman isn’t really accurate. She is still a girl. Barely out of her teens, judging by her baby-faced features. Regardless of her age, there’s no mistaking her superiority. Nikolai refuses to divert his attention from her or the man at his side for even a second. Intuition dictates that this is the pakhan.
The men speak in their mother tongue, and the girl takes too much liberty allowing her starry eyes to roam Nikolai’s face. Her cheeks are pale and pink, her face hopeful and naïve as she hangs on every word. Nikolai says something that makes her laugh, and he smiles at her. I can’t recall him ever smiling at me. I can’t look away from the horror show, even though I know I should. She is too innocent to hate, but I do. I hate her almost as much as I hate him.
“His fiancée,” Mischa says. “Anastaysia.”
Acid burns the back of my throat, and another wave of nausea rolls over me. It can’t be true.
“They are engaged?”
Mischa nods. “Soon, it will be official. Nika is lucky, it’s an honor many men would kill for. She’s a beautiful girl, isn’t she?”
I can’t say a word in her favor. I’m sure she is beautiful, but all I see is the vile creature stealing what doesn’t belong to her. It doesn’t make sense for me to feel this way. Not when he continues to throw me away at every opportunity.
Mischa watches me too closely, and I fear I’ve revealed myself. But when he leans in to whisper in my ear, it’s much worse than that. “It’s better you forget him now. In the end, it will save you pain. For tonight, you have me, and I promise you could do much worse with my brothers.”
Pressure weighs on my shoulders, and as if on cue, Viktor’s gaze moves to me. He asks Nikolai in Russian if the deed is done, and Nikolai assures him tonight.
Blue eyes collide with mine, but they won’t save me. Not tonight, and not ever.
“Mischa,” Viktor calls out. “Take the girl upstairs.”
Nakya’s face fractures under Viktor’s command, and I grow unnaturally still as Mischa drags her dead weight from the couch and up the stairs.
Red threatens my vision, and I desperately try to focus on Ana’s narrative about her end of year studies. The events of this evening are not happenstance. Mischa will take her while we dine, and I’ll be forced to endure the dinner without a show of emotion.
My best friend will be the one to ruin her.
Viktor’s methods are brutal but effective. It could be worse. I know it could be worse. But anyone who isn’t me is not an option. Even now, I can only think of how I will murder him when it’s over. But logically, it will still not change anything.
Nakya will never be able to look at me again. And that’s a murder of a different kind.
Viktor makes a toast, and I nod absently. I check my watch. It’s been two minutes. Ana won’t stop staring at me. She is desperate for my attention, and she should have it. There should be nothing else that exists outside her. She is the pakhan’s daughter.
Someone else approaches, and through my blurry vision, I make out Alexei’s face. He wasn’t invited, and even Viktor can’t seem to understand his sudden appearance.
“Lyoshenka. What are you doing here?”
“I’ve been assisting Nika with the acquisition of the piece you requested, and I’m aware this is not an ideal time, but a time-sensitive lead has just come through. Would you mind if I steal him away for a short while?”
It’s a lie, and it’s not well executed. Alexei is referring to the Rembrandt. Something he knows Viktor won’t say no to. Though I’m not certain he ever denies Alexei of anything he requests.
“Business is business,” Viktor says. “Ana understands that it always comes first. I will have a drink with Franco while we wait.”
Alexei nods, and I follow him wordlessly as he leads me upstairs. He is here for a reason, but whatever it may be, it’s not my primary concern right now. My concern is the closed door of Nakya’s room. The one where Mischa will take her and make her his before I rip his throat out for obeying orders.
Alexei turns to me, and I’m aware he requires my attention, but I can only focus on the door, listening for the slightest of sounds.
“Don’t you want to know why I’m here?” Alexei asks.
“You mean besides instilling hope that I will find Viktor’s impossible Rembrandt?”
“I heard of Viktor’s intentions this evening,” he answers. “And I know what you’re doing with the Valentini girl. I know your motivations for taking her, and why you requested those files from me.”
I drag my attention to him, determined to uncover the purpose of his statement.
“You want the truth about your mother,” he says. “And I can assist you. But I will not allow you to punish an innocent girl for the sins of her father.”
My awareness drifts back to the door. I still can’t hear anything, and I know if I breach that barrier, it will ruin everything I have worked for. If Viktor discovers that I’ve interfered with his orders, he will have my head. But I also know that I can’t stop myself.
“Go,” Alexei tells me. “I’ll wait in the office.”
He isn’t doing it for me. He doesn’t believe me capable of anything selfless, and pe
rhaps he is right. I watched without protest as Mischa brought Nakya up here with one intention. But my intentions have changed when I turn the knob to find him holding my sobbing, broken doll. She is hyperventilating in his arms while he attempts to comfort her. But even worse, she is naked.
My eyes cut through Mischa. He is clothed, and he has not yet taken her, but it makes no difference. I’m out for blood when I snatch him by the collar and drag him from the bed. My fist crashes into his face three times before he shoves me away.
“You knew this would happen, Kolyan. You said it was okay.”
“It isn’t okay,” I snarl. “You made her cry.”
He glares up at me and shakes his head. “You made her cry. She’s attached to you, and she doesn’t want me.”
I look at Nakya, collapsed on the bed, curling into herself like a child. Mischa is right. I have broken her with my actions.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
I want to go to her. I want to comfort her. But Mischa stops me.
“It needs to be done,” he says. “You have no choice. It’s her body or her life.”
His words settle over me, and I can’t deny the truth. There is no other option. Either I take the girl and provide proof, or Viktor will demand her actual flesh. She will hate me for ruining her. She will never see that I’m trying to save her too.
“Misch—”
“We can speak later,” he says.
He leaves the room, and I am left alone with my little dancer. She is still sobbing when I collect her in my arms. I shelter her with my body, desperate to convey the depth of my despair in seeing her this way.
“Forgive me, Nakya,” I whisper into her hair. “Forgive me.”
“You were going to let him … touch me,” she utters between broken sobs.
I reach for her face and force her gaze to mine, so there can be no further misunderstandings between us.
“I will be the only one to touch you, zvezda. The only one to take you. And once I do, I’m afraid you will have no say in the matter. You will be mine.”
Alexei is waiting in my office as he promised, tapping out a message on his phone. Undoubtedly, it would be to his wife. While I have only ever known my brother to be a reserved man, he cannot hide his devotion to the pretty blonde who has somehow managed to thaw his frozen heart.
I reach for the bottle of cognac I keep near my desk, extending it to him in offer as I sit down. He declines the hospitality with a shake of his head.
“Thank you,” I say.
“I didn’t do it for you.”
“I know,” I answer. “But still, thank you.”
If he hadn’t come, there is no telling how this evening might have ended. I open the cognac and indulge myself with two long pulls.
“It’s messier than I thought it would be.”
Alexei scrutinizes me with unforgiving eyes. I think it’s easy for him to believe I am cut from the same cloth as Sergei. As far as I can tell, he’s only ever painted me in that light.
“I know you think I’m like him,” I say. “But I have doubts. Perhaps I don’t know him as you do. Perhaps he has been a different father to me than he ever was to you. It’s why I set out on this journey to begin with. To discover his true nature. To discover the truth.”
“Perhaps he has been a different father to me?” Alexei scoffs. “He was never a father to me at all.”
The irony is that he doesn’t see how alike we are. He has always longed for Sergei’s approval, and I have always longed for his freedom from Sergei’s overbearing presence. We are both envious of what the other man has, but too proud to admit it.
“I can’t take responsibility for what he did to you, Lyoshenka.”
“I didn’t ask you to,” he answers.
“But you hold it against me. You let it come between us. What happened between you and Sergei is not right, but it should not poison our relationship as well.”
“You did that all on your own.”
I rub the back of my neck and listen for the voices downstairs. I will need to get back soon. Viktor will not wait long, despite his cheerful mood tonight.
“What do you plan to do with her?” Alexei asks.
The image of Nakya’s tear-smudged face haunts me still. There will be little choice in the matter, and it weighs heavy on me already. “I will return her to her father.”
“That was not your intention when you began. In what shape do you plan to return her to her father?”
He wants confirmation that he’s right about me. That I’m a monster like Sergei. My honesty will not sway him, but I offer it to him anyway.
“My intentions were different when I began. In that regard, you are correct. But time and circumstances have changed my position. Whatever happened in the past, her father will be the one to pay.”
Alexei looks doubtful. “So even if you learn that Manuel was the one to cause your mother’s most brutal and violent death, you have no plans to harm her?”
I resist the urge to punch him in the face again because technically, I owe him. “Are you telling me that Manuel was responsible for my mother’s death?”
“No,” he answers. “I want your word that you won’t hurt her.”
“I already said I wouldn’t,” I snarl.
“But you intended to when you took her?”
“What is the point of this?” I demand. “What would you like from me, Lyoshenka? Must I get down on my knees and grovel before you?”
“A Vor would never get down on his knees for any man.”
“And I’m not offering. I am merely asking what it is that you would like for me to say.”
“Do you care for her?”
His words provoke a heavy, sinking feeling in my stomach. I can’t bring myself to acknowledge the question either way.
“You could take a page from my book,” Alexei suggests. “If you want to keep her, then marry her. Viktor will not be able to interfere with the sanctity of those vows.”
“I am not you,” I mock. “If I married the girl, he would just kill me. He wants me to marry Ana.”
Alexei stands up and shrugs into his jacket, apparently finished with this conversation.
“So marry Ana,” he says. “And send the girl back to her father as a ruined woman. I’m sure he will forgive her.”
He’s a bastard for saying so. Alexei knows just as well as I do that Manuel will never forgive her.
I wipe the steam from the mirror in the bathroom, hesitant to see the girl staring back at me. My face is puffy from crying. The whites of my eyes bloodshot. My skin is red from the scalding water of the bath and the subsequent scrubbing of the towel. It falls from my hand, and I stare at my naked form in the reflection.
The therapist Nikolai hired to fix me told me I should find something I love about myself every time I look in the mirror. But tonight, there is only hate. I hate every filthy thing about me. My hips are too big. The stomach that used to be concave is flat and squishy, and my ribs are suffocated beneath a layer of flesh that wasn’t there before. I’m soft in too many places, and I want to punish myself for allowing him to control me this way.
He made me ugly, so he wouldn’t want me, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting him. Mischa was right. There’s something wrong with me. There must be to want someone who is so bad for me. Someone who would throw me to the wolves without a second thought.
I did not think I had another tear to shed, but still they streak down my face. I have never cried so much in my life. My father would never have allowed me to be so weak. But I can feel it happening, and it’s out of my control. I’m splintering. Shattering. Fracturing. He’s taken away my power and left me only with pain.
I lock my hands into fists and yank on my hair. The hurt sometimes helps, but not this time. It only reminds me that I’m alive, and I am defenseless.
I walk from the bathroom, still naked, and listen for the sounds downstairs. I can’t hear anything, but I can imagine it well enough. The dinner par
ty lives on, and Nikolai sits beside his soon-to-be beloved fiancée while I suffer in silence.
Fatigue seeps into my bones, and the divide in my heart grows with every passing day. I’m tired of fighting. I’m tired of hoping for a brighter future when there is none to be found. He can have his Russian wife. And when he tires of this game, I can finally have the only peace this world has to offer me.
Death.
Without bothering to dress, I open the bedroom door and walk down the hall to his office. This is the only place to find the cure for what ails me now. A bottle of cognac beckons from his desk. Probably expensive.
I swipe it and drift back to my room like an apparition. Unnoticed and unfelt. Laughter floats up from down below, and I cannot mistake that timbre. Nikolai is enjoying himself, and I think I should enjoy myself too.
The cognac opens with a satisfying pop, and I drink straight from the bottle. It burns my throat and eyes, and eventually my stomach too. But it’s a good burn. A burn that makes everything else fade away.
My party is cut disappointingly short when the door opens, and Mischa is standing there. His eyes move to the bottle in my hand, and then over my naked body.
In the back of my mind, there’s a small distant voice that tells me I should care. I’m supposed to be a good girl. I’m supposed to be proper and modest and reserved at all times. But tonight, Nikolai decided to make me filthy instead.
“Nakya.” Mischa frowns. “Don’t you know you should never drink alone?”
I collapse back against the pillows, the alcohol flooding my brain and my system. I don’t care anymore. And that’s what I tell him when I cross my legs and make a flippant gesture with my hand.
“Are you here to take me?”
He rubs a hand over the back of his neck and sighs. “If not me, then someone else will. It has been ordered, and it must be done.”
“Because of my father,” I say.