37. Lena
CHAPTER 37
Lena
T he timing couldn’t have been any better. The change from my current show to my new one has been a lot more fluid than I expected. Matthew was sad to see me go but not surprised. And it’s bittersweet as I give my last performance tonight.
I’m on stage, gratefully embracing everything this role and cast have offered me. Nerves have no place as I get ready for my next endeavor.
So I sing to the audience.
To the cast.
And to the Ivanov siblings who sit in the front row. One more so than the other.
A brooding Aleksandr, who has never once sat in the front. Only in the back, in the shadows. His gaze consumes me, and for the first time, I feel truly seen. Much is shifting as I spread my wings.
I finish the song, my heart racing as my breasts rise and fall with my breathing. Everyone stands and claps, and I smile but also want to cry. It’s bittersweet. I’d felt stagnant here, but now I feel sad to leave.
We join hands and bow, waiting for the curtains to fall. When they do, Julie jumps on me and explodes into tears. “That was your best yet! I don’t want you to go!”
I laugh as others congratulate me, then say to Julie, “You know you can always visit.”
She laughs too. “Give it a little bit, girl. I’ll be aiming to hit it big like you as well. Just so you know, when I see you on the screens in Times Square, I’m totally bragging to everyone that I know you.”
I laugh with mixed feelings. How strange this has all become.
Anya walks through to the backstage area. I expect Alek to be with her, but he’s not. We haven’t spoken since the other night when Anya walked in on us.
I needed to process what I want. I know I want Alek, but there are many other things to consider if we’re to have any type of relationship. That, and I hadn’t asked him about Cinita, which is a problem for me. I can’t help how I feel and won’t apologize for it .
“The show is still shit, but you shined,” Anya says, trying her best at a compliment. Which she does not give freely.
Julie offers me a courteous smile and says goodbye. She’s warned me against Anya, and to be honest, I kind of like to make my own opinions about someone. Anya, although prickly, has been amazing. She is turning out to be a very unlikely friend, and I feel like I’m benefiting more from our friendship than she is.
Matthew walks in, adjusting his belt as he holds a bouquet of red roses for me. “Before you run off, I want you to know that no matter what, you’ll always have a job here.”
I offer him a sweet smile. I don’t know how exactly he’ll give me my spot back since I’ve already been replaced, but I appreciate the sentiment.
“I’ll just quickly get changed,” I tell Anya. When she found out about my acceptance of the new role, I received a short text.
Upgrade your wardrobe.
Compliments are hard for Anya. She might’ve meant “congratulations,” so I invited her out for dinner to celebrate .
Before I step into my dressing room, I ask, “Will, ah… Will Alek be joining us?”
She looks up from her manicured nails. “Am I not enough?”
“No, that’s not what I meant,” I say as we walk into my dressing room. “I just noticed he was sitting with you, is all.”
I change into a new dress that I bought just for this occasion. It hugs my body but also flows just below the hips. It’s a dark blue silk. I pull my hair out of its bun and let the soft waves flow over my shoulders.
“He has business to attend to this evening. But he wanted to see your last performance first,” she informs me. It fills me with butterflies, and I feel foolish that he can make me feel that way. But I can’t control it.
“Oh,” I mutter, realizing I sound far too disappointed. “That’s okay. Girls’ cocktail night.”
“I don’t drink alcohol,” she reminds me, and I feel silly because I’d completely forgotten. Anya had explained to me she doesn’t like her judgment being impaired.
“More for me.” I offer a big smile. “I thought we could go to the Mexican restaurant where you met my parents. I was actually surprised to see you there that night. I didn’t think that would be somewhere you would go. ”
“Trust me, it’s not my usual choice. Unless River makes me. He owns restaurants. He is for sure the more social one of the two of us, and will drag me out to try new places. That Mexican restaurant was where I first met his mother. So we go from time to time.”
My jaw drops. “You met River’s mother?” If her meeting with my mother was any indicator, it must’ve gone disastrous. It’s not so shocking that she’s met his mother but I could never imagine Anya as the ‘daughter-in-law’ type.
“Yes of course. She likes me. Why, I’ll never know.”
I smile at her through the mirror as I touch up my makeup. “Does she know… you know, that you…” I don’t even know how to ask.
“Kill people? Sell people and illegal things? Fuck her son like a dirty whore?”
I choke and grab the celebratory glass of champagne from beside me. “All of those things, I suppose.”
“Of course not. And she still thinks her son is an angel and that he doesn’t sell guns and drugs.”
“Guns and drugs?” I repeat quietly. “Why do you tell me these things, Anya?” Because I have the distinct impression neither she nor Alek share this kind of thing with others.
“If required, you’d be an easy target to remove before you could expose us,” she says matter-of-factly, and a chill runs down my spine. She’s offering a hint of a smile, but I still don’t know if she’s joking. “But I like you. My brother does too. If I were to have any kind of… little sister, I imagine it would be someone like you. With no fashion sense or defenses.”
I choke on a laugh, assuming she meant it as a compliment, which it is. It’s nice to hear that she thinks of me as a little sister, because I consider her a friend and somewhat of a older sister.
I muster up the courage to ask something I’ve always been curious about.
“Why do you kill people?”
“It’s one of the things I’m good at, just like you are at singing. Natural talent.”
I swallow at the ease with which she compares my singing to her murdering.
“Okay, but, like, how many people are we talking?” I want to ask about Alek, too, but feel like that’s something I should ask him.
Her eyebrows furrow. “Have you counted every one of your performances?”
“Well, no, but it would be well in the hundreds.” She raises a brow at me pointedly. “You’ve killed hundreds of people?”
“In our world, consequences are harsh. If you don’t kill, you will be killed. What’s the expression? Dog eat dog world?”
Hundreds of people . I let that sink in. I’m actually sitting in the room as a murderer discusses it like an intrigued woman sitting on her couch watching a crime documentary. Don’t get me wrong, they’re fascinating, but this… this is real and right beside me.
“And it doesn’t bother you to kill someone?”
She shrugs. “Killing gives me power. Authority. And my favorite thing—money. It’s only a crime if you’re caught, Lena. And my brother and I never leave loose ends.”
All of these things I have to take on board.
It should scare me. They should scare me.
I bite my bottom lip. “If Alek and I were a thing and we didn’t work out… Would one or both of you kill me?”
She laughs, and the sound is as menacing as it is beautiful. “I don’t think my brother has any intention of ever letting you go. If you were to bring another man home, he would most likely kill him. But you? No. My brother will never hurt you.”
It goes without saying that when I’m with Alek, it’s the safest I’ve ever felt. But it’s a lot to absorb. I’m just a normal person. I’m not from their world. And I wonder how much I’ll have to change if I decide to be by his side.
“Have you told your parents about the new role?” she asks as I stand and collect my handbag. I down the rest of the champagne, enjoying the little buzz it gives me, but I’ll need it when it comes to any kind of conversation about my parents.
I haven’t called to tell my parents. I’m not ready yet. I know Archer will be ecstatic for me and come back to the city to watch my first performance, but I still don’t know if my parents will be impressed that I have a lead role in an actual Broadway show.
The pay increase is quite nice, and the opportunities that this new part will get me will be even more than I have right now. But I don’t know if it’s enough. If I’m enough.
“Not yet. I want to wait until I’ve performed a few times. As you saw, they’re not the most supportive of my career.”
Anya rolls her eyes, and her slight Russian accent comes out when she says, “You might be disappointed that we kill people, but at least we don’t kill children’s dreams.”
I give her a side glance and can’t help but smirk. “Are you trying to be poetic or supportive?”
The back door is opened for us by Clay, who has been waiting there for us, and Vance stands beside the car.
“Oh, shut up, or I really will put you in the trunk of my car. I’ve become quite good at it,” she says with a chilling smile.
I don’t think I’ll ever get past the shock factor of the things she says, but I think she enjoys teasing me because of it.
It’s oddly… nice.