Chapter 25
25
OFELIA
“ I ’m starting to think your daddy doesn’t care what I do with you, kotya .” Vilnus lounges against the door of our cell, smoking, flanked by a small party of his guards.
I swear the watch party gets bigger every day.
“We sent Roman a message days ago. He still hasn’t answered us.” Vilnus drags heavily on his cigarette and casts Alexei a calculating glance. “Probably too busy fucking the Petrovsky whore.”
His men all laugh obediently.
Alexei doesn’t move. Not by so much as a flicker does his face betray the fact that Vilnus is talking about his sister.
“I’m beginning to think we might need to give Roman a little push. I thought that sending him your mother’s finger might serve as a warning, but it doesn’t seem to have made an impression. Perhaps a video might be better.” He steps into the room, licking his lips in a way that turns my stomach. “Something creative. His sweet little teenage daughter getting broken in with a knife at her throat, for example.”
His men laugh again, though this time, I can hear the faint note of unease behind their laughter. After the conversation I overheard between Alexei and Dima the other night, I’ve realized that not all Vilnus’s men are loyal to him. I’ve begun to notice those who vie for his attention, and the others who stand slightly back, keeping their expressions carefully neutral.
“I could do it myself.” Vilnus’s eyes flicker to Masha. “Like I will with this one, when the time comes. No daughter of mine goes to their wedding bed without feeling my cock inside them first.”
None of his men laugh at that. Several of them look away, clearly uncomfortable.
It seems that even in the home of the most brutal of bratva criminals, some things are still despised by most men.
Unfortunately, their disgust only seems to spur Vilnus on even more.
“You don’t like that, do you?” He looks around at his men contemptuously. “You don’t understand. I don’t fuck them because I like it. I don’t. They’re my children, my blood. I fuck them so the men they marry know who owns them. Know what I’m capable of. A man who can fuck his own daughter? That’s not a man you fuck with. My sons-in-law are loyal to the bone because they know what I’m capable of.”
He stares around the room until he gets a reluctant mumble of assent. He nods as if he’s satisfied. I wonder if he sees the contempt in their downcast eyes. But then again, from what I’ve seen, Vilnus Orlov isn’t the kind of man who cares much for what others think of him.
His eyes scan the room, then settle on Alexei.
“What about you, Petrovsky?” He kicks the seated figure with one booted foot. “You’ve always had a soft spot for little girls. Took me years to teach you to take a knife to them, didn’t it? Had to almost cut you to shreds before you’d lift the blade yourself. I still remember the first time you did it, cut into that Colombian bitch whose father screwed us on a deal. Thirteen, I think she was. You threw up all over the floor after the first cut, if I remember correctly.”
His men laugh aloud at that one. I keep my head down, not game to let Vilnus see the fury in my eyes.
“Thought you’d actually hit me when I made you fuck her.” Vilnus is staring at Alexei, waiting for a reaction, but the other man just stares at him blankly out of his lone eye and doesn’t move at all. “But you got used to it after that, didn’t you, Petrovsky? Even got a bit of a taste for it. Used to be our favorite afternoon sport, didn’t it, boys? Locking Petrovsky in here and waiting for him to whip out that big cock of his and fuck whatever little virgin we threw in front of him?”
This time the laughter comes more readily, with a dark, dangerous edge that strings my nerves tighter than a piano. Somehow I just know that’s exactly what Orlov did to Alexei, used him for entertainment, over and over, until he believed he had him cowed.
But he doesn’t.
I hold on to that truth, to the man who whispered to Dima in the darkness, like the spark of hope it is.
“You’re mean.” Masha’s voice pipes up so unexpectedly I don’t have time to stop it. She’s staring at Vilnus accusingly, and with a terrifying lack of fear. From the corner of my eye I notice Alexei tense.
“Masha,” I hiss, covering her mouth with my hand. “She’s sorry,” I say hurriedly to Vilnus. “She’s young—she doesn’t understand what she’s saying.”
“Oh, I think she does.” He is smiling, a broad, fat-lipped, sickening grin. “She’s an Orlov, that one.” He crosses the room and kneels down in front of us. Close up, he’s utterly repulsive. “Tough as her papa, aren’t you, princess?”
Masha shakes her head violently, dislodging my hand. “My papa dead.”
Vilnus’s smile widens. “Oh, no, he isn’t, my little hellcat.” He prods himself in his chest. “ I’m your papa, Masha.”
She frowns. “No!” She shakes her head decisively.
His hand whips out, faster than a snake, smacking her across the face hard enough for the crack to echo around the room. “Who’s your papa, Masha?”
I bite my lip with the effort of restraining myself.
Masha doesn’t answer, just stares at him, open-mouthed with shock, her eyes wide.
His hand whips out again.
Crack.
Her head is knocked sideways under the weight of his blow.
“No!” The word escapes me before I can stop it. Once it’s out, I can’t stop. “Don’t touch her again.” My voice is low and trembling. “I don’t care what you do to me. Just leave her alone.”
“Ah.” Vilnus leans forward. One pudgy hand comes out and strokes my cheek, slowly, insidiously. “I knew you’d beg for it eventually. You’ve got that look about you, Ofelia. I can always tell when a girl is coming into heat. I bet you’ve been thinking about it, haven’t you? Did you like it when Petrovsky’s knife touched your fresh pussy? I think you did. I think he liked it, too. I can tell, you see. I’ve practically raised that boy.”
I’m pressed hard against the wall, but there’s no escaping his roaming hands or his insidious words. Masha seems to have realized her mistake, because she’s closed her mouth and is now simply staring at Orlov, her bright blue eyes entirely blank, like she’s gone somewhere else.
It takes a minute for me to realize that she isn’t looking at Orlov at all, but over his shoulder, to where Alexei is watching us. His eye isn’t blank anymore. It burns like arctic fire, holding Masha’s eyes as if he holds her heart and soul in his hands.
I hear his whisper in my mind: No matter what Orlov does to you, don’t lose yourself...
“I think you want to fuck this one, Petrovsky.” Vilnus says it without turning around. His hand rests on my breast, squeezing it uncomfortably hard, his eyes watching me keenly. I force myself not to react. “But it must be a quandary, no? What will Roman Borovsky do to you when he discovers you broke in his only daughter? What will your sister say when she realizes the kind of animal you’ve become? After all she did to protect you back in the day?”
He turns abruptly to look at Alexei. But the dull mask is firmly back in place, his lone eye the dull, disinterested opaque it always is in Orlov’s presence.
“My sister ,” Alexei says flatly, with just enough contempt on the second word to send a ripple of real fear through me, “left me here without a second thought. She and that greedy bastard she calls father are dead to me. They have been from the day they ran.”
Vilnus’s lip curls. “So you always say,” he says silkily. “Even when I cut you to ribbons, you insisted you had no part in their escape. But I wonder how true that really is, Petrovsky. What if I make you fuck this one now and send the video to your sister? Something tells me that there’ll be no coming back for you after that.”
Alexei lifts a disinterested shoulder. “It would be an effort. She’s got barely enough meat on her bones to get a cock rise out of me.”
The ripple of laughter that goes through the watching men clearly gets under Orlov’s skin, because his smile fades, replaced by a sour, mean expression.
His hand tightens convulsively on my breast, and I wince. “Then you won’t care if I fuck her myself.”
Alexei yawns. “I don’t give a shit who you fuck, Vilnus. At least I can get some sleep while you do it, since you’ve kept me on nonstop babysitting duty for the past week.”
Vilnus’s eyes narrow. But whatever response he’s about to make is cut abruptly short by a commotion in the hall.
“I am sorry to interrupt your games, Vilnus.” The newcomer speaks in Russian. He’s an old man, dressed impeccably in a black tailored suit and crisp tie. His voice is calm and measured. His eyes barely skim over me, but even that brief touch is enough to send a cold shiver through my body.
They’re the darkest, coldest eyes I’ve ever seen. Not dark like Roman’s, which always have a hint of warmth lingering beneath them. Not an inscrutable mask, like Alexei’s.
These eyes are completely dead—and they terrify me more than even Vilnus’s hand on my breast.
I’m not the only one intimidated by the newcomer.
Vilnus swings around. “Ilyan.” He’s clearly unsettled by the visitor’s arrival. “I didn’t know I was expecting you.”
“Let’s just say I grew impatient.” The man called Ilyan stares flatly at him. “I’m changing the plan.”
“I thought we agreed—”
“ We didn’t agree anything, Vilnus. I gave you a plan, and you followed it. That’s how this relationship works.” The man’s contempt is scathing. He glances at the gathered guards. “You can leave us.” They clearly know who gives the orders, because they all scatter without a moment’s protest.
All except Alexei.
“Borovsky is taking too long.” Ilyan speaks without preamble. He looks at some point over Vilnus’s head, as if he can’t be bothered to actually meet the other man’s eyes. “Something is up, and I don’t like it.”
“He’s got no chance of taking this place,” Vilnus says defensively. “It’s too well protected.”
“Maybe. But I’m taking precautions nonetheless.” He steps aside. “Come here, my dear.”
As the tall, slender figure enters the room, Masha tenses against me, and I suck in my breath. “Mama,” I breathe, relief washing over me in a hot tide.
“Ofelia.” Inger says my name hollowly, like she’s somewhere else. She’s dressed as impeccably as ever in a designer dress. Her hair is carefully coiffed, and she’s dripping with expensive jewelry. I feel a savage rush of anger.
How can she look like that while we are here, in the same bloodstained rags we’ve worn for days, enduring Vilnus’s daily torture?
“Your mother and I are taking a little trip.” Ilyan doesn’t try to smile at me. He doesn’t even look at me. “I brought her here to say goodbye—and to remind her of what happens if she disobeys my orders.” He puts his face close to Inger’s ear. “Do exactly as I say, or your daughters will die, my dear.”
What?
The blood drains from my face, the room spinning around me.
The room is suddenly silent. I can actually hear the beating of my own heart. Masha is stiff and silent beside me, her eyes glued on Mama.
“There’s nothing you can do to save them from Orlov, of course.” Ilyan’s voice continues, cold, flat, and utterly impersonal. He might as well be delivering a shopping list. “It’s too late for that. I don’t get between Orlov and his little games. But it’s not too late for you and Nikolai. That’s why I brought you here. If you follow my orders like a good girl, you will see him again. You can have the future you dreamed of, together, with enough money to live out the rest of your lives in luxury. Maybe, if you lie well enough, you can even convince Nikolai that the story you told him was true. He never needs to know that you kidnapped your own daughters in cold blood for nothing more than money.”
Inger sways, her face white. Ilyan is still gripping her arm. The hand from which her ring finger was cut hangs just beneath his grasp, the stump covered in a neat bandage.
Even the dressing looks like it comes from a designer label. My thoughts are wild, disjointed. I can’t make sense of anything.
I stare at Inger blindly, feeling as if the earth itself has shifted beneath my feet. “Mama.” My voice is little more than a croak. “That’s not true, is it?”
But somehow, I already know it is.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” Her voice is low, despairing, and she finally looks at me directly. But there’s no humility in her face, no apology, only defiance. “I just wanted enough money to start a new life.” Tears spring into her eyes. “Roman took you all away from me, turned you against me.”
“I’m Roman’s daughter .” The anger catches me by surprise, comes without any warning, but once I start speaking, it’s like a torrent that can’t be held back. “And Roman didn’t take us. You gave us away, Inger. A long time ago, even before Papa died. Masha doesn’t even know you well enough to call you Mama. I had to teach her to call you that.”
My breath hurts in my chest, and the anger I can’t control feels as if it’s been sitting inside me forever. “Did you ever love us?” I stare at her furiously, refusing to give her the satisfaction of crying. “Did you ever care about us at all?”
“Of course I did!” Inger wipes a lone tear from her face angrily. “But I was sixteen , Ofelia. I was a child when I got pregnant with you. The same age you are now. What was I supposed to do, just stop living my life? I didn’t want a second child, did you know that? I’d been offered a modeling contract back in Miami, a whole career. But Mikhail couldn’t have that, oh no.” Her face falls into the familiar, resentful lines that have made me feel guilty my whole life. “He wanted the perfect bratva wife. Stay home, fuck him when he deigned to visit, and get fat with baby after baby. What did it matter what I wanted?”
I shake my head, barely even aware of the others in the room through my anger. “What about Mickey, then? Is he even Papa’s son, or did you sleep with someone else again?”
“How dare you!” Inger spits the words furiously. “Of course he’s Mikhail’s son! Like I had a chance to meet anyone back then. I barely even managed to see Nik—” She breaks off abruptly, twisting her head away.
“Nikolai.” I finish the sentence for her. “That’s why he was always at our house, isn’t it? I used to wonder why he spent so much time there, when he didn’t even like us. You were sleeping with him all that time.”
“Nicky loves me.” She flings the words at me defiantly. “He’s the only one who has always been there for me. He helped me get a modeling contract and brought Yuri’s yacht over so I could have a proper holiday.”
I’m dimly aware of Vilnus and Ilyan both standing back, watching our exchange with something like amusement, but I almost don’t care. Maybe it’s the horrific week of pain and fear, or maybe it’s a lifetime of being the only adult in our tiny family of three, the one person to whom Mickey and Masha looked for reassurance, for something like maternal care.
Whatever the cause, I’m so blindingly angry that I can barely breathe.
“I didn’t sleep for years after Masha was born. Did you know that?” My voice shakes unsteadily, the words coming from a place of pain inside me that I didn’t even know existed. “You left for a modeling job when she was barely three months old, not that you’d been there much before that. You were too busy trying to get your body back in time for the contract you had coming up. Papa was always working, and none of the nannies could make Masha settle. It was me who got her to take the bottle. Me who woke up when she cried. I was the only mother she knew, and then, when Papa died, you tried to take her away from me.” My tears break through in a rasping pain that hurts my chest.
“’Felia.” Masha’s little arms reach up around my neck, and I hug her fiercely, holding her against my body like a talisman. “Don’t cry, ’Felia.”
“I’m okay, myshka. Don’t worry.” I pat her back mindlessly, burying my head in hers, trying to gain control of myself.
“I can’t fight you, Ofelia.” Inger’s voice is thin and plaintive. “You’re too strong for me. You always have been, ever since the day you were born. You’re just like Roman. So cruel and selfish. I remember standing over your crib when you were a baby and seeing him look up at me through your eyes. I knew you were his. And I knew even then that I didn’t like you. I knew you’d be exactly like him, and I was right—you’re cold and unfeeling, like Roman is. You’ve never cared about me at all, and now you’ve poisoned your brother and sister against me.” Her lower lip quivers, and she starts to cry in earnest, fat, pathetic tears that roll down her face and drip onto the floor. “That’s why I have to look after myself now. If you want to know who’s to blame for all of this, Ofelia, it’s you. You and Roman caused all of this.”
I stare at her over Masha’s shoulder, utterly incredulous.
“You’re trying to blame this on me? ”
Inger sniffs dismally. “It’s not my fault, Ofelia. None of this is my fault. It’s Roman—if he’d just been kind to me—but he just shut me out. You all did, like I was nothing. What was I supposed to do?”
I look between her and Ilyan. “So you’re going to just leave us here, to these men? Don’t you care what happens to us at all?”
She gives a helpless sob. “I can’t help you now, Ofelia. It’s too late. But you’ll be okay, whatever happens. You’ve always been so much stronger than me.” Her face twists into a petulant scowl. “And anyway, Roman will come for you. He won’t be able to help himself. He always has to be the hero.” A flash of spite crosses her face. “Although I doubt he’ll survive this time.”
Which means that neither will we.
I stare at her in complete disbelief.
Part of me wants to keep arguing with her. But another part, the piece of me who just spoke up for myself for what feels like the first time in my life, instinctively knows there’s no point. Not just because my words will have no impact on Inger—but because I don’t want to waste them on her anymore.
Inger has never been a mother. Not to me. Not to Mickey. And certainly not to Masha.
She’s brought all of us nothing but pain, confusion, and turbulence for as long as I can remember.
“Say goodbye to your mother, girls.” Ilyan looks bored. “It’s the last time you’re going to see her.”
I stare at Inger. At the tight, discontented lines of her face, the way she can’t quite meet my eyes, the pathetic way she clings to Ilyan, as if she truly thinks he’s going to somehow save her. I think of the years I’ve spent twisting myself inside out, trying to get the smallest hint of real affection from her, when all that time she resented my very existence.
I think of the nights I’ve woken to Masha’s screams. Of how many times I’ve reassured her that she’s done nothing wrong, that she’s not the reason her mama is never home.
I remember the times I’ve seen Mickey’s face crumble when Inger has made fun of his computer skills or ridiculed his previously thin frame.
And I think of all the times I’ve defended Inger. To Papa. To Roman. To the old Russian grandmas, the teachers at my schools... to anyone who has tried to criticize her.
Because she is my mother.
Because I believed Papa when he told us that we stand by family, no matter what they do.
And most of all, I defended Inger because, somewhere deep inside myself, I’ve always believed it was my fault that she didn’t love me. That there was something wrong with me, something inherently unlovable about who I am.
But now, listening to her complain about how unfair her life has been, while casually abandoning Masha and me to rape and possible death, I know, with a deep, comforting certainty, that the problem was never me.
Sitting here in a torn, bloodstained dress, with my baby sister terrified and shaking in my arms because of Inger’s betrayal, I know I’m done with our so-called mother forever.
“Goodbye, Inger.” I stare at her, even though her eyes can’t meet mine. “I hope you and Nikolai are very happy together. Because I can promise you this: even if by some miracle Masha and I survive, you won’t ever see us, or Mickey, again. We’re done.”
She doesn’t react at all, just looks at the floor, as if all she wants is to get out of here.
“Come now, Inger.” Ilyan has watched the entire scene with complete disinterest. “I only brought you here to remind you of what will happen if you double-cross me. Your daughters are lost to you, but you can still have Nikolai.” He cuts his eyes to Vilnus, and for the first time, his lips almost curl, though the flicker of humor doesn’t meet his eyes. “I know you’re disappointed, Orlov. All those years and money you wasted on Inger, only to discover it is Nikolai she wants. But that’s women, I’m afraid.”
“What do I care?” Vilnus shrugs, but his attempt at nonchalance isn’t fooling anyone. “I’ll enjoy the daughter more anyway.”
I shudder, pulling Masha closer. Inger doesn’t even look at me.
“Well.” Ilyan looks at his watch. “This has certainly been entertaining, but Inger and I have a plane to catch. Stay by the phone, Orlov.” He gives Vilnus a hard stare. “When this is done, you can do whatever you wish to Roman’s daughters. But for now, we need those girls in good enough shape to bring Borovsky here. That means that no matter how hard your cock is, you need to keep it in your pants until this is over. And make sure you keep that lying Petrovsky dog on a tight leash.” His eyes, black and dead, rest on Alexei, and the evil in them is the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen. “When this is done, Sergei Petrovsky’s devil-spawned son belongs to me.”
If I’d thought Ilyan sinister before, I find him utterly chilling now.
He glances at Masha and me.
“A pleasure, my dears. Though sadly, I doubt we’ll meet again.”
His eyes fix on Alexei again, and when he speaks, his voice is as dead and flat as his eyes. “My people are watching your every fucking move, Petrovsky. You so much as twitch in the wrong direction, and I’ll take your other eye. Then I’ll take your cock and feed it to your cunt of a father, while I torture his daughter until she’s mad with it.”
Alexei stares straight ahead, his face the opaque mask I’ve come to dread.
It’s like he’s not even inside his body.
Then again, if I had to endure the kind of sadism Alexei has clearly lived with since he was a teenager, I’d have probably found a way to escape as well.
Ilyan glances at Vilnus. “Get Petrovsky out of this room, and keep him under lock and key until this is over. I don’t want him anywhere near these two girls again, do you understand me?”
Vilnus gives a sullen nod.
A moment later, the door closes, and all of them are gone.
Masha and I hold each other on the floor, but my tears have all dried.
Somehow, I doubt I’ll cry again anytime soon.
Not that it matters.
We’ll be dead soon anyway.
I look over Masha’s shoulder, but the corner is empty.
Alexei is gone, and we are all alone.