18. Alexei
Alexei
I’m not sure what to expect when Ofelia begins to play.
What I know—or rather, what I’m beginning to learn—is how deeply hidden her emotions are, how carefully she guards her every word and thought.
Except when she’s naked and gasping under my hands—or when she’s playing.
Those are the only times I’ve truly glimpsed the depths of the silent, wild river within her.
I’ve been with more women than I could ever hope to remember. Many for whom sex is a profession they excel at.
Those encounters pale beside Ofelia’s innate sensuality, a force contained deep inside her, like a subterranean secret.
It’s the same when she plays, I think, as the first chords emerge. Here, too, I glimpse those depths. The way the music gathers within her, like some primordial force, then flows through her into the world.
The first notes are slow and lyrical, and I’m more absorbed in watching Ofelia play them than in the piece itself.
Gradually, the notes become a melody, melancholy and bittersweet, building toward an end I can’t yet see.
Their lilt and flow thrust me back into old memories—and their inherent duality.
Standing at her family finca years ago, just after the kidnapping, staring at Ofelia across the terrace, the longing to touch her so intense I can barely breathe, let alone speak.
Then smiling at her politely like we barely know each other and seeing confusion cloud her eyes.
Watching her play her first recital in London, so breathtakingly beautiful every cell in my body is aching for her.
Then glaring at her in a London club barely hours later, furious at the silent reproach in her glittering eyes and trembling mouth.
Her head goes back, the music swells, and now I’m at Ofelia’s twenty-first, her dress bunched in my hands and her mouth open beneath my own, the dark undercurrent between us so strong I feel like I could drown in it.
Then I’m cutting her dead and walking away, seeing the light slowly fade from her eyes.
As the music deepens around me I can see it all clearly: the years of longing and loneliness caused by my own irrational fears.
But were they irrational? Are they?
And suddenly, just like that, the room disappears, and I’m back in that cell, my body looming over Ofelia’s.
“Spread her legs,” Vilnus orders. The sudden excitement in his voice turns my gut. “Show me if she likes the knife as much as Darya did.”
I schooled myself, long ago, not to react to my sister’s name. And now, of all times, with this child lying beneath me, I can’t afford to lose control.
She only lives if you do this.
I tell myself the same thing every time Vilnus forces me to use my blade on Ofelia.
Playing his game is the only chance I have to get her out of here. And we’re so close now, to the end. But not fucking close enough. And every time is one time too many, every sick game of Orlov’s another trauma she won’t ever be able to forget.
If you refuse, I remind myself, it will only fall to someone else to hurt her.
Someone without my skill and precision.
Someone who wants to hurt her.
Or worse, he’ll make me watch them hurt her. Hurt her even worse than I’m about to, until I can’t take it and react.
A reaction that would cause us both to be destroyed.
No.
Doing this myself, with no visible emotion, is the only way to keep her safe.
But it doesn’t matter how true I know that to be. Nor how many times I tell myself the same thing.
None of that can ever make this right, and I fucking know it.
I slip my knife beneath Ofelia’s dress and split the silk straight down the center, forcing myself not to wince at her involuntary gasp.
Focus. Your ability to wield this fucking blade is all that determines both of your futures.
Because even if my plan works, and we make it out of this room, none of it will matter if Ofelia bears visible scars from my knife for the rest of her life. Even if she, and our families, could forgive me for them—which I seriously doubt—I won’t ever forgive myself.
I slide my blade beneath the thin fabric of her underwear, cutting it away at the hip with surgical precision.
Don’t let him see her face.
I know, from my own torture, that the worst thing is when they can see the effect they are having on you. No matter how humiliating it might be to expose your naked body to their eyes, it’s still better than allowing them the satisfaction of seeing your naked soul.
And I will fucking die before I allow them even a glimpse of the depths I sense in Ofelia.
So the trick is to make them look somewhere else.
Bracing myself, I hook my boot under her knee and push it slowly outward. Then the other knee, until the most intimate part of her is exposed to the whole room.
Ofelia’s eyes close in shame.
“Look at me.” I barely breathe the words, willing her to respond. Her eyes open and roll sideways to where Masha is watching us, her face frozen in terror.
Ofelia stiffens.
Fuck.
I’ve learned that there’s very little Ofelia can’t withstand—she’ll face even the worst humiliations with an almost uncanny calm. The exception is when it comes to her little sister.
Then, she’s ferocious as a storm.
I shift subtly, hiding Ofelia’s face from the group at the door. She turns to Masha, and despite the watching men, despite my blade between her legs, she somehow forces herself to smile.
Pretend, she mouths to her sister.
Christ, she’s brave.
Masha’s eyes dart to me, seeking reassurance, and I give her the tiniest of nods. The acute fear fades from her face, replaced by understanding: this is the “game” Ofelia told her we would have to play.
On cue, she bursts into a fit of hiccuping tears, drawing the attention of all the watchers at the door.
Masha, I’m beginning to learn, is as bold as her sister is brave.
Ofelia trembles beneath me.
“Don’t move,” I breathe. I’m acutely aware of my blade against her naked body. Of the pain I’m about to inflict.
I try to retreat to the place I always do when Vilnus forces me to torture. To the dull walled room in my mind where I lock away what’s left of my humanity.
But right then Ofelia looks up at me, her eyes deep and cavernous, and suddenly, she’s all I see.
My knife hand slides up her naked thigh, higher and higher, my eye never leaving hers. Her breath halts, her eyes darkening to something so potent it feels like a palpable force surging between us.
I put my mouth to her ear.
“Trust me,” I breathe.
My hand is so close to the juncture of her thighs that I can feel the heat there.
I turn the knife slowly, pressing the flat of the blade against the outer folds of her most intimate part, and her eyes flare with something that has nothing to do with fear.
It sends an odd, dangerous thrill through me that I slam down like an iron door closing.
What the fuck, asshole?
Never once, in all the years Vilnus has used me as his mad dog, have I ever taken pleasure in the work he forces upon me. Never have I been anything less than utterly sickened by it.
And now here I am, lying atop an innocent child, thinking—what the fuck am I thinking, exactly?
Shaken to my core, it takes every ounce of self-discipline to refocus.
I know where I can cut for the least pain and the most blood. I know exactly where the shallow veins are and precisely how to cut to leave the barest scar.
And still, I can’t fucking stand to do it.
Ofelia stares at me, courage and resignation warring in her eyes in a way that breaks something deep inside of me.
I have to end this. Before I give myself away and end us both.
Bracing myself, I put my mouth near Ofelia’s ear.
“Scream,” I breathe.
As I force my hand to turn the point of the blade so it pricks her skin, a high-pitched shriek fills the room, one I know, with terrible certainty, will haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life.
I come back to the room with my fists clenched and my heart pounding.
The memory of that scream entwines with Ofelia’s playing, as if past and present are layered one over the other. The music soars to a crescendo, and somewhere inside, I finally understand what she’s trying to say.
More importantly, I understand what I need to say.
Neither of us moves until the last notes fade from beneath her fingers. The music is still resonating in the room like a living thing when I finally speak.
“What is that piece called?”
“It’s called ‘Nuvole Bianche.’” Her eyes settle on mine, the music still swirling in their depths. “By an Italian composer, Ludovico Einaudi.”
Nuvole Bianche. White Clouds.
Clouds of confusion, shape-shifting as we both pretend to make something normal that never, ever could be.
“You didn’t know if this was real.” It isn’t a question, and I don’t need the sudden flare in her eyes to know I’m right. “You never knew if I thought of you. If you’d see me. If this would happen.”
She nods silently, her eyes never leaving mine.
I stand up and cross the floor until I’m just on the other side of the piano. “You thought that this”—I gesture between us—“was all in your head.”
She nods again. I can feel the loneliness clinging to the last vestiges of the notes in the room, sense it in every cell in her body.
“Ofelia.” I hold her eyes across the piano. “I meant every word I said the other night, about wanting you. But there are things I didn’t say. Not because I don’t mean them, but because admitting them, even to myself, makes me the kind of man I would normally take my knife to.”
She watches me, barely breathing.
I walk around the piano until I’m standing right in front of her. Raising her from the stool, I gently lift her onto the piano. Then I lift her arms up and hold them with one hand over her head.
“Here.” My finger traces the faint, barely visible silver line my knife made in the hollow beneath one arm. “And here.” I find the matching scar and trace it, my eyes never leaving hers. “These were the first time I cut you.”