You have to learn to walk before you can run. –Russian Proverb
SHE FELL ASLEEP IN MY ARMS… I tried not to fixate on the way her forehead furrowed while she dreamt, just like I tried not to feel guilty over the fact that her entire existence with me was a lie.
A giant test.
It all led back to keeping her safe.
I glanced around the white room.
So similar to the one she’d been placed in after she’d been kidnapped.
Similar to all the rooms Petrov used.
Right along with the sick bastard’s white masks that he forced people to wear whenever they entered his parties.
His men never realized they were getting taken to me because they always assumed the masks meant that they were going to another orgy. Instead, the car would always take a detour to one of the many apartments.
My fixation wasn’t with blood, like she’d guessed.
I absolutely hated white anything. Hated it with such a fiery passion that it took me years of conditioning myself not to puke every time I walked into a modern office with white fixtures, or modern apartments. I’d had to surround myself with it so I would stop reacting.
Petrov enjoyed watching the blood… he chose the white, not me. He loved to see how much he could make people suffer. And bleed.
And he always kept cameras trained on me when I did my work.
Except for one time.
One time, he made an exception.
He shouldn’t have.
But I refused to work otherwise.
It was my gift to her. The only one I’d been able to give.
She moaned in her sleep, I knew the dreams that haunted her at night, and I was powerless to stop them.
With a sigh, I checked my phone.
Jac: Taken care of.
Nikolai: Thank you.
Jac: It’s my job. Our job.
Nikolai: Any word on the girl you claim escaped when you let her in the clinic?
I knew Jac was lying, she’d had blood on her hands, the very same hands that had touched Maya. My grandmother was finally snapping. I added that to the list of things I could blame myself for.
Jac: I have no idea what you are talking about.
Nikolai: Going to bed.
Jac: Is she with you?
Nikolai: Goodnight, Jac.
She didn’t respond. If I didn’t do something, rein her in, she was going to do something stupid, or end up getting herself hurt.
After being gone for so long I didn’t think it wise to suddenly take another extended vacation to either kill my own family member or toss her to the wolves. I wouldn’t be so callous, but I would take away her memories enough to settle her in a nice retirement home… she deserved peace. At least I could give it to her the right way.
The nightmares of my family’s past had haunted her for far too long, the sins, she alone carried on her shoulders, it wasn’t her responsibility, not anymore. It was mine.
One that would sure as hell end with me.
I lifted Maya into my arms and carried her into the bedroom, laying her across the down comforter, wanting so badly to tell her the truth but drowning in the fear of what that would mean for both of us.
Her father only agreed to our terms as long as I could prove the false memories had stayed intact.
I was supposed to report to him after a year.
What the hell was I going to say now? She remembers, but it’s okay because I’m watching her?
“No loose ends,” he’d stated over and over again.
The only answer was to find the last two houses in Seattle and burn them to the ground. Ending my research was a small price to pay to save her life… if the houses were gone, then she would no longer be a threat.
Because locked away in that mind of hers… was the key to her father’s undoing… a girl seeing what she should have never seen.
“Bury it,” he’d demanded. “I don’t care how. Just bury it, or she dies.”
“She’s your daughter!” I yelled, already entranced with the girl I’d seen but a handful of times at her father’s side. I protected her, it was part of my job, and now he was asking me to go back on my oath.
“She knows too much!” he spat. “Either you kill her, or you make her forget…”
“She’s too young,” I argued. “To alter her memories at this age… to replace them, I’d have to create real trauma, real memories to cover up the others, don’t you see? Her brain is too strong, she isn’t one of your foot soldiers. She could die!”
“I don’t care if you have to wipe her entire damn memory, just make her forget. I pay you to make people forget.”
She was blindfolded, tied to one of the metal chairs in the white room, bleeding profusely. If I didn’t stop the bleeding, she would be too weak to go through the process.
“Damn it, Petrov, she’s sixteen. Just bribe her with a new car.” I paced the room, my knife clutched in my hand. I should have never said yes to him, should have never allowed myself to be bribed. Then again, had I not, Maya would have been dead. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about her. She was an abomination to him, born out of wedlock between his wife and an Italian Mafioso.
“No.” Her father uttered a Russian curse. “She is a liability. Make it go away, or she dies, and her death will be on your hands.”
I had no choice.
“Fine,” I whispered. “But I work alone, leave me.”
Petrov hesitated briefly.
I crossed my arms. “No cameras. The last thing you need is for this to come back to you.”
She whimpered, her head falling forward. Shit, she was going to lose consciousness soon. What the hell had he done to her? The doctor in me screamed in outrage, the monster rubbed his hands together.
Petrov strode to the door and unplugged the camera next to it. With a final warning gaze, he stepped through the opening and shut the door behind him, blanketing us in darkness.
I reached for the white mask, hands trembling, then very slowly tied it around my head.
I apologized to her, in my head of course, and I swore that someday I would save her. Just not now. I prayed that she’d understand, that one day she’d thank me.
I expected Maya to pass out. She was only sixteen, beautiful, but so young. She lifted her chin as if to say, do your worst! And I had to respect her in that moment. Sweetheart, I would do my worst, and then, when she swore fealty… I’d do my best work, and save her life.
I stopped staring at her sleeping form, and backed up against the dresser, one of the white masks fell onto the floor.
I’d put simple triggers everywhere in the apartment and nothing… we’d made love a few times… and still nothing extraordinary other than Maya remembering her childhood friend.
Maybe, just maybe I was better than I’d originally thought.
I clung to that thought as I lifted the mask to my face and stared at her one last time, as the monster she had no clue she’d invited into her bed—into her heart.