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 perhaps 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.