Chapter 2
2
DARYA
D arya—
I know you are planning to run.
I’m not going to stop you. But I want you to be safe, and I want you to know the truth.
First, your safety.
Inside this envelope you will find a passport, more than enough money to get you out of Spain, and a card with the name and address of someone who will help you disappear.
You cannot take your father with you, not this time. The Orlovs are too close. Sergei will remain here in my care. Trust that I will keep him safe.
And now for the truth.
My name—my real name—is Roman Borovsky. My father was Aleksander Borovsky, a famous safe maker and jeweler.
When I was a child, my father built a vault for a very powerful man. Until recently, I never knew this man’s name. My parents thought that keeping me ignorant would keep me safe.
They were wrong.
The vault was built for your father, Sergei Petrovsky.
I don’t know how or when the Orlovs learned it was my father who built the vault. But they did, because when I was ten years old, the Orlovs came for us. When my father wouldn’t tell them how to access the vault, they killed him.
My father must have known they would come for him. He’d already sent my mother into hiding, and he made sure I got out before the Orlovs could get their hands on me.
The Orlovs hunted me for years. They believed I knew how to open the vault and stopped at nothing in their efforts to find me. Despite the danger, I stayed in Miami, hoping my mother would return.
She never did. I must assume that she, too, is dead, and my father’s secrets with her.
Given their relentless pursuit of you, it seems the Orlovs’ determination to open that vault has not lessened with time.
I should have told you the truth long ago, but you of all people might understand how difficult it is to drop the habits of a lifetime. Let me just say that it took me longer than it should have to trust you, and for that, I can only apologize.
Which brings me to our current situation.
I understand your loyalty to your brother, and his to you. I believe there is nothing Alexei will not do to keep you safe and guard your family’s legacy. I understand that. I can even respect it.
Except that it seems Alexei is planning to trade with the Orlovs for your freedom—and his bargaining chip is a project I have spent many years creating.
I can protect what is mine, no matter who comes for it. But I can’t protect you if you run to Alexei now.
I know your brother will never stop trying to get you back, just like I know the Orlovs won’t ever stop trying to get into that vault, no matter what he offers them. I won’t allow you to be a pawn in their games.
I’m asking you to trust me, Darya. Trust that I will care for your father and do all I can to keep your brother safe. But to do that I need to know you are safe, too. And that means asking you to disappear again, somewhere your brother can’t find you. There’s more than enough money in the account to run as far as you wish. If you need a new identity, the man I’ve named on the card will help you do that.
When I have won this war—and I will win, Darya—I will find you again.
You may not wish to see me. That is a chance I have no choice but to take. I will respect your wishes whatever you decide.
I meant it when I said I loved you. Even if I never see you again, I want you to know that I am
Yours,
Now, and always.
Roman.
I fold the letter with shaking hands. I wonder when he slipped it into my clutch.
When he had me naked in a darkened office?
When I lay beneath him in the aftermath of the explosion?
Either way, it was before he thought I’d betrayed him.
I stare blindly into the stored baggage locker at Malaga Airport. My satchel is sitting inside it, a lonely reminder of the life I’ve led, and the one I’m about to lead again.
A life of running. A life without Roman. Without the children. Without Papa or my brother.
I close my eyes, trying to still my churning stomach. But closing my eyes only takes me straight back to the ballroom in Malaga, and the bomb that has changed our lives forever.
Whatever Roman might have felt for me when he wrote this letter is long gone. I saw the killer in his eyes when he told me to run. Roman believes me to be complicit in the explosion at the ball. He thinks I deliberately endangered his children. There’s no coming back from that kind of betrayal.
The children.
I saw Roman’s face. Whatever Dimitry whispered into his ear turned him from the man I thought I knew into a stone-cold killer. I can’t imagine what news could have been that devastating.
Not the children. Please, God, please, not the children. Please let them be safe.
But even the thought that they might be hurt, even the slightest edge of that thought, is an abyss I cannot dare approach. That way lies utter madness, a loss of such horrific magnitude I can’t begin to comprehend it.
I fumble blindly in the envelope that held his letter, needing to do something, anything, other than let my mind go down that dark road, and my shaking fingers pull out the passport and ticket he put inside it.
I read the name on the passport dully, without taking it in. It belongs to someone else, a name plucked from the ether by some anonymous forger. Just holding the passport, facing the prospect of yet another name, of years lost to the lonely darkness of running, makes me feel sick.
I clutch the edges of the locker, trying to breathe, to force my mind to function. It’s been less than half an hour since I ran from the explosion. It feels like an eternity.
I’m no longer wearing my ball gown. It’s stuffed behind a gas station dumpster half a mile from the ballroom, exchanged for a simple black slip dress made of thin enough material to fold into a tiny patch in my clutch purse. My elaborate hairdo has been replaced by a simple braid, makeup wiped off in a couple of easy swipes. My heels were plain enough to match both dresses. I got a taxi on the roadside outside a bar half a mile away from the ball. I feigned an argument with a nonexistent boyfriend as I climbed into it and addressed the driver in terrible, English-accented Spanish, telling him to take me to the airport so I could fly back to London. I cried the entire way to the airport to give my story credence.
The tears, at least, weren’t fake.
My escape was made on autopilot. I’d thought it through, known that a solid plan was the only prevention against what I knew would be an emotional, not to mention dangerous, escape.
I just hadn’t truly believed it would come to that. Some part of me had dared to believe there might be a solution that would allow me to stay without endangering those I love. Instead, it seems I waited too long, and endangered them all.
Not in my worst nightmares could I ever have envisaged the devastating reality.
I’d known the Orlovs were coming for me. And I know, better than anyone, the extent of their evil.
I still never expected a bomb.
A bomb my brother knew about.
The nausea hits without warning. I run to the garbage can at the end of the line of lockers, making it just in time to retch up the bare contents of my stomach. I can still feel the aftermath of the juddering blast, smell the acrid scent of it on my hair.
Who was caught in that blast?
Who died because of me?
I clutch the cold steel, resisting the urge to sink to the floor and cling to it like a life belt.
There are cameras in here.
I can’t afford to lose it.
I force myself to turn and walk back to the locker. With hands that are ice-cold and shaking, I open the other envelope in my clutch. The one Alexei gave me.
I ignore the airline ticket and reach instead for the letter wrapped around it. Part of me wants to burn them both without even looking. But there’s no time for theatrics. No time for the rage and hurt.
I know all too well that there will be time enough for both, in the lonely days to come.
Instead I breathe deeply to calm the nausea and fury churning inside me and force myself to read.
My sister,
I hope you are reading this somewhere safe.
When you arrive at your destination, go to the address written on the back of your ticket. A friend of mine will contact you there.
Don’t be afraid. I wish I could explain it all to you in this letter, but what needs to be said is too dangerous to commit to paper. Please burn both the ticket and this letter as soon as you arrive.
Both, if found by the wrong people, will mean my death, and yours.
The rest must wait until my friend finds you. Please trust her and believe what she says.
Most of all, have faith.
We’re nearly home safe.
I crumple the letter into a hard ball, trembling with anger and sadness.
If Alexei had truly wanted to keep the children safe, he would never have let them be in a ballroom with a bomb.
He used them to make me run.
Alexei knows that I would never allow the children to fall into the Orlovs’ hands, and he deliberately played on that. He used the one threat that he knew would make me obey his instructions without question. He told me that the only way to keep the children safe was to run—and so I ran, just like he intended.
But that doesn’t mean I have to run where he wants me to go.
I’m not the girl who fled Miami, blindly following the course set for me by my brother and father. I’m not the sister Alexei remembers, any more than he is the little brother I left behind.
It’s been over six years since my brother helped Papa and me escape. I know that Alexei is changed. I saw it in his face, heard it in the harsh tones of his voice. He is no longer the teenage boy I tried so hard to take care of.
He’s a man, one raised in the ruthless world of the Orlovs, subjected to God only knows what manner of torture. No matter how much I want to trust him, I can’t. Not after that bomb. Not after he put the children in danger.
I look at the other passport, the one Roman gave me.
I can’t use that either.
Roman has no reason to keep me safe anymore, no matter what his letter says. The man who wrote those words is gone. Whoever Roman was, whatever he felt for me, changed forever the moment that bomb went off. Now Roman is the killer he became long ago, determined to protect what is his.
That doesn’t include me. Not anymore. And after reading his letter, now that I understand at least part of his story, I wonder that he didn’t kill Papa the moment he learned our true identities.
Roman’s own father died to protect my family’s vault.
His mother was lost to him for the same reason.
My family is why Roman found himself orphaned on the Miami streets at ten years old.
Roman has no reason to love anyone named Petrovsky, and every reason to want us all dead.
I want to believe that Roman won’t hurt Papa, but I can’t know that. And despite what he’s written, I’m not at all sure Roman hasn’t been playing me this entire time, hiding me in the wings until the right time comes to use me.
Whatever the truth was before tonight, his final words left me with no illusions about how he feels now.
“So go on, then, Darya Petrovsky. Run. Run fast. Because if any harm has come to my children, I swear I’ll hunt you down and fucking kill you myself.”
I shiver, sick and cold inside.
I had thought myself alone during the years Papa and I ran from the Orlovs. Now I realize I never had any idea of what it means to be truly alone.
I can’t trust my brother. The man I love is a killer who believes I betrayed him. One who might also have been betraying me all along.
Which means the only thing left for me to do is disappear.
I try to force my shattered thoughts into some kind of order. Alexei’s ticket is in one hand, Roman’s ticket in the other. Oddly enough, though they are for different flights, they are both for the same destination: Zurich, Switzerland.
I have no intention of taking either flight.
But those watching me need to believe I’m on at least one of them.
And they will be watching.
Roman may despise me, but sooner or later, he’s going to want to know where I am. It’s the kind of man he is.
As for Alexei—I have to assume that he, too, has ways of monitoring my movements. The ticket he gave me is booked under the name on my new passport, the one Papa’s contact sent from Argentina. Alexei clearly knows a lot more than just how to find me at a ball, and that makes him dangerous.
From the ballroom to these storage lockers, my movements will be relatively easy to trace. This is the moment when it becomes more complicated, when I need to think like the fugitive I have been and must become again.
If it were just me running, I doubt I would even bother.
But it isn’t just me.
My hand steals over my belly.
Roman’s baby doesn’t deserve to suffer for my mistakes. I don’t have the right to risk the life of yet another child. I have to stay safe, not because my life is worth saving, but because the child inside me deserves the chance to live.
That thought gives me strength.
Think, Darya.
I can’t take my backpack through international security. There’s enough currency in there to set off every alarm in the place, even without the extra roll of cash from Roman.
But I need to board at least one of those flights.
I take the satchel, close the locker, and exit the luggage area, not hiding from the cameras scattered around. In the international terminal, I enter the ladies’ bathroom and head for an end stall, where I change into jeans, a T-shirt, and sneakers and put my hair up under a cap. I exit from the opposite entrance to the one I came in and leave the terminal again, keeping my head down.
It takes me ten minutes to walk to the nearest airport hotel. I pay cash for three nights, using the passport Roman gave me for identification. In the room I remove everything I will need, including nearly all the cash, from the satchel. I stuff the empty bag with a towel and my cell phone. I put my slip dress and heels at the top, along with a small amount of cash. The bulk of the money and the rest of my belongings I wrap in clothing. I make the bundle watertight by using two garbage bags and stash it inside the toilet cistern.
I head back to the airport terminal with my satchel. I go into the bathroom, change back into the slip dress and heels, bundle the other clothes and money into a tight ball at the top of the satchel, and head for security.
I scan every face I pass, but I don’t see any of the Orlov men I know. Not that it means anything. They could be using anyone.
I also don’t see any of Roman’s men. But that isn’t any surprise, even if it hurts.
I try not to look at the televisions in every room, all of which show endless images of the ballroom explosion that make my every nerve seize in painful anxiety and hurt.
Half an hour later I’ve used my passport to check into the flight Alexei booked for me under the name in my new passport. I enter a duty-free shop and pay cash for some perfume, then ask the assistant for a large carry bag. I linger behind a row of shelves and quickly move the bundle of my jeans, sneakers, and T-shirt from my satchel to the duty-free bag. I join the boarding line for my flight, trying not to look over my shoulder.
“Welcome aboard, miss.” The stewardess gives me a bright smile, which I return with a wan effort that makes her frown in concern. “Are you unwell?” she asks, studying me.
“A little.” I smile feebly. “I think I’ll be okay.”
The stewardess looks unconvinced and murmurs something to her colleague as I pass.
Good. She’ll remember me.
I push my satchel far beneath the seat in front of me before either of my neighbors arrive, holding the duty-free bag on my lap, staring out the window at the walkway. I wait until I see the flight staff begin to close the doors before abruptly standing up. “Excuse me,” I mutter to the woman in the seat next to me. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
She moves out of the way immediately. The stewardess eyes me worriedly as I hurtle toward her with my hand over my mouth. I shake my head, gesturing frantically at the exit, and she doesn’t stand in my way. I race up the walkway and thrust my head into the nearest bin.
Throwing up is the one thing I don’t have to fake.
“I can’t fly,” I gasp to the staff on the desk. “I’m unwell.”
No airport crew member will ever argue with that.
I head straight for the bathroom and change clothes again. Then I make my way back to check-in and repeat the entire process, this time using the passport and ticket Roman gave me. After I feign illness again, I make my way to baggage claim and wait.
Eventually I find what I’m looking for. A Moroccan woman, with my height and coloring, dressed in traditional djellaba and headscarf with large dark glasses pushed up on her head. She looks around nervously and hurries into the ladies’ room. I enter after her, waiting by the sinks. When she emerges from the stall, I smile at her.
“ Salaam aleikum .”
She looks up worriedly, her eyes darting this way and that.
“Don’t be afraid,” I say to her in Arabic. “I want to help you.” She’s running from an abusive husband and takes little persuading. Ten minutes and five hundred euros later, I exit the bathroom wearing her djellaba and headscarf, her glasses covering my face. My duty-free bag I leave in the bathroom trash.
It takes me less than half an hour to get back to the hotel, recover the package from the cistern, and hide it under the voluminous skirts of my djellaba. I take the fire escape, then a taxi to the ferry terminal. The ticket office is closed—it’s past two a.m.—but the waiting room is full of Moroccans slumbering on striped plastic carry bags, waiting for their morning voyage back to Tangiers. I curl up on the plastic seats beside two older ladies, pull the hood of my djellaba over my head, and feign sleep, one eye open behind my large sunglasses.
The truth is that sleep has never been further from my mind. And I know that the moment my eyes close, the nightmares will come.
I want to know what happened. I’m terrified of knowing what happened.
The only thing I do know is that everything I loved is gone.
And if I think about that, I won’t ever be able to save the only thing that matters anymore: the life inside me.
I stare at the chipped tiles on the floor, counting the cracks in them to stop myself from staring into the horrific abyss of my thoughts.