44. Laszlo
Iwasn’t prepared for the smell.
All the sessions of exposure therapy, of facing my past, of steeling myself against this fucking cursed place, but the smell couldn’t be replicated. It was one of greed and excess, of casual cruelty, of power. It was more than something sensory.
It seeped into my pores, warping my body, making me small, sucking me into my past.
Lyn squeezed my hand, and I struggled back into myself, looking at her pale, elegant mask.
The red lips drew the eye, a gold, filigreed veil forming the top of it.
I needed to see her, but I couldn’t. Her body was hidden under an explosive gown, her face behind that damned mask.
I’d braided her hair earlier in the day, and it was coiled up, covered by an opulent headdress, a fringe lined with pearls adding a half-foot to her height.
She looked like a stranger.
“It’s okay. Breathe,” she said softly at my side. “Stay with me.”
I sucked in air through my nose and caught her scent. The lavender of her bath last night. The vanilla shampoo I’d washed her hair with. The intimate moment of earlier in the day, preserved in her skin.
It centred me.
Grounded me.
I was going to survive this night, for her.
I promised myself that, knowing precisely what my promises were worth.
My wife and I both had long hair, and it made it easier to hide our secret communication devices. “You can hear me?” I asked.
“Mhm,” Lyn replied, coming through to my hidden earpiece.
There were no short-range Bluetooth jammers. I’d have contact with her all night.
“Time to join the ballroom, then,” I said, as I carefully hovered my hand over her back. I’d feel a lot better once she ditched the robe, but we had to act natural. If anything happened to Lyn, I’d never forgive myself.
Then again, with how much explosive power she was wearing, there wouldn’t be any time for regrets.
The thought didn’t soothe me, and not for the first time, I wish I could have talked her out of it. She wouldn’t have heard tell of that, though. I knew her so well, knew that our rivers really had converged.
I wouldn’t treat her like a disobedient child that I could order around.
She was the most amazing woman I’d ever known. I watched her entrance into the ballroom, my breath hitched, and my heart rushed. It was much grander than I remembered, even from the last time I broke in.
Some were dancing in the grand ballroom, the large wood staircases, curved and flanking each side of the back of the room. To the left was the corridor that led to where the children’s room used to be, the one connected to the chamber below.
Masked faces turned towards us, and I kept my focus on Lyn. I didn’t know who anyone was in the room. If they had any tattoos, they were covered in formal attire. The bulky and unfamiliar cut told me nothing about the personality or proclivities of the person wearing it.
The awareness was discomforting. Some people in this room had hurt me, and I had no way of knowing who. They knew what happened to my sister. I couldn’t afford to dull my senses with medication. Instead, I had to seethe in the discomfort of being trapped in a fucking god damned flashback.
No, I wasn’t a thirteen-year-old boy anymore.
No, my parents weren’t among those in this room, moving around with cruel intentions.
I was a grown ass man, and I was here to protect the shadow of the boy I used to be.
But I wasn’t him anymore.
The crowd wasn’t looking at me.
They were admiring my wife’s poise and grace. She had been nursed on modesty and shame. I imagined that the high collared gown, the long sleeves, the heavy fabric, all felt like a shroud from her past. Something ceremonial and conservative and blindingly white.
Bodies moved around us. Drinks had already been spilled.
A slender boy, no older than fourteen, offered us a platter of drinks, his bare, scrawny chest on display. I recognized the birthmark on his hip. Zach. One of Nikolas Alexander’s victims. The boy I’d been taking care of, watching his thirst for vengeance grow in time with my own.
He had a job to do, and I had mine. We couldn’t bring our bodyguards. Zach was the only one I could trust to take care of Lyn and make sure she got out safely. With Jimmy on the prowl, I left nothing to chance.
I took a drink from him, and Lyn followed suit.
The security room would be up the stairs, along with the data I needed. The Pakhan kept the blackmail material with him, travelled with it, and if there were any information about that night when I was thirteen, it would be up there.
Almost twenty years, I had waited for this opportunity.
There were a dozen bodyguards in black, none of them wearing masks. They were the obvious security, but I spotted at least three others, wearing masks and dressed like Russian nobility, failing to blend into the crowd. They moved too swiftly, too intentionally. They avoided drinks. They watched.
There were six plain security cameras, distractions from the hidden ones. Those were harder to spot, and they didn’t matter to me. The only ones that did were the ones where the children were being held.
Eight kids had been kidnapped, all at the cusp of puberty.
I didn’t know how many parents in this room were willing to trade their kids up in exchange for power and pull, but I was certain there’d be thirteen children total. That was how many went down into those tunnels with me.
Some of the parents in this room had offered up five of their own children to round up the numbers.
“I should freshen up before we start dancing,” Lyn said with a polite tone, but her voice was quivering. She’d been in that suicide dress far too long, and I gestured to our left.
“There’s a washroom through that way.”
I didn’t want to let her go, but I had to.
This was everything we’d worked for.
Everything I’d dedicated my life to.
“I love you,” I said.
“I love you, too.”
I watched her go, until she was through the heavy wooden door, and then I had to swallow my nerves. She had been my anchor in this place, and I was unmoored without her.
Then in my ear, there was a song.
A Russian song. A lullaby. One I’d sung to her, when she was lonely, or afraid, or sad.
My nerves settled.
“Thank you,” I said into the headpiece.
Zach approached me again, and I replaced one flute of champagne for another.
“Hey mister, if you and your wife have kids and need to shove them off somewhere, there’s a room down the hall that way,” he said, giving me quick directions of which turns to take.
“Thanks, but we don’t have any kids. Maybe you should go join them, though.”
It was our signal, and he moved back through the crowd.
Zach had a rage in him that required direction. At first, I gave him money, a place to stay, but then he needed more.
I’d already dragged my wife into my revenge scheme, the woman I loved more than life itself.
I couldn’t be a bigger asshole if I tried, and this kid deserved vengeance as much as I did.
Sure, it wasn’t like Urvan or the Pakhan hurt him directly, but they knew everything about their men, and instead of stopping the child abuse, they used it as a pressure point. Stored it away as blackmail material.
Why should I deny Zach what I dedicated my life to?
I had to get upstairs, but I couldn’t take the main staircase. I would have to pass five bodyguards, and they were all carrying. I had my ruby hilted sword on my hip. Wouldn’t do anything against a bullet. They were wearing vests anyway.
But I’d been here before. Many times. When it was abandoned, I memorized the blueprint. The renovations had changed things, but there would be hidden hallways for staff and spies.
I was about to sneak off when a large man exited the main room upstairs and stood on the balcony. He was probably five-foot-six, but he had the aura of someone with unquestioned power.
Lord Ivan Vasilyev, Pakhan.