Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
VIKTOR
By the time a couple of weeks have passed, Nikolai and Matvey aren’t joking any longer about the Excel situation.
And just for being such a pair of smartasses when they first saw the spreadsheets, I’m deliberately not sharing the black-and-white backups Avelina made especially for me.
Nikolai glares at the monitor, fighting the urge to squint. “Fuck me! There’s so much dumb neon pink in this spreadsheet, I’m pretty sure it just seared my retinas. The numbers aren’t numbers anymore. They’re glittering unicorn vomit…”
Across the table, Matvey groans like he’s being tortured. “My eyes,” he whimpers, dramatically throwing his head back. “No man should have to endure this.”
“Death would be a mercy at this stage,” Nikolai mutters, stabbing his finger at the screen. “Look at this, look at it. Column D has…are those sparkles? Actual fucking sparkles?”
“They’re emojis,” Matvey corrects. “Tiny sparkly emojis. Of Care Bears!”
I drag a hand down my face. “Don’t say another word,” I snap.
They don’t listen. They never do…
“She turned our arms shipment data into a Care Bear acid trip.” Nikolai scowls. “Weapons aren’t supposed to be cheerful and cute!”
“Yeah,” Matvey whines, gesturing wildly. “These color codes don’t even make sense. Red should mean danger, not extra cute or whatever her coding means—”
I slam my fist on the table so hard that their words cut off in an instant.
“Listen to me very carefully,” I growl, my voice low and lethal.
“You do not complain about her spreadsheets. Not here. Not ever. And if either of you so much as breathes the words ‘dumb colors’ or ‘shitty sparkles’ within her hearing…” I lean forward, letting my glare settle on them.
“I’ll cut your balls off and feed them to Queenie. ”
Matvey gulps audibly. Nikolai actually crosses his legs like he’s physically protecting himself.
“But Viktor,” Matvey dares to utter, “my head really does hurt.”
“Mine too,” Nikolai adds with pure misery in his voice. “It’s like staring into a rainbow made of knives.”
“Then suck it up!” I snarl. “Take some fucking aspirin. Wear goddamn sunglasses. I don’t care what you have to do to get through it. If these colors make her smile like that—like a fucking beaming sun—then you two will sit here and worship the damn sparkle emojis.”
They shut up after that, sulking like scolded children.
As for me, that big, bright smile of hers flashes through my mind. Warm, golden, and blinding.
It’s pure sunshine.
And I’ll burn the whole world down if it means keeping that smile right where it belongs.
The first time I notice, it’s by accident.
I’m heading out to do my evening work, and Avelina says she’s going to put the kids to bed, Babulya following her with a knowing smile.
I come back earlier than usual, and as I pass her room, something doesn’t feel right.
At first, I think it’s leftover tension from dinner. From pretending I wasn’t watching her the entire time. From trying to figure out the best time to ask her on this date. And from pretending she wasn’t the brightest damn thing in that room.
When I go downstairs, I hear Matvey say something to the soldiers. Something along the lines of, “Avelina is out. Now’s a good time to run the monthly security checks in her room. But the children are asleep, so you’ll have to leave their room until tomorrow.”
“What?” The word leaves me before I can stop it.
Matvey doesn’t look up from where he’s tapping away on his laptop at the large table in the rec room. “She drove off a while ago. She’s usually gone for a couple of hours, so the men can include her room as they run the monthly checks in the west wing of the house.”
I freeze. “What do you mean she’s usually gone for a couple of hours?”
Matvey finally tears his gaze away from his laptop. “You know, she’s on one of those outings. She goes out in the evening. Drives off. Comes back a little later.”
“And you all just let her?” The harshness in my voice shocks even me.
“She’s not a prisoner, Viktor.”
“But she could be in danger.” Or she could be targeted by Geliy’s enemies. And things could spiral out of control. My gut twists, and I rub at my chest as subtly as I can.
He shrugs. “She comes back just fine.”
I pivot on my boot and head straight to the security room.
With one glare, the men manning the cameras scurry out.
The door slams, and I sink into the chair.
My fingers fly across the keyboard as I pull up the security footage.
Avelina lingers by the kids’ room for a moment before she lifts a small duffle bag over her shoulder and heads down the stairs.
Before she leaves the house, she checks in with Babulya who’s obviously going to keep an eye on the children for her.
I watch her leave three times, on various nights, before I finally storm out of the room and back to the rec room. Matvey glances up at me, blinking slowly. “You want to know where she goes?”
I don’t even have to ask the question, but I nod.
“Some ice rink,” he tells me.
I stare. “Why?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. But I saw the parking pass on her car.”
A parking pass to an ice rink. Is she... Did she find some coaching job? And why would she go so damn late at night?
I don’t know how or what to call this feeling inside me. It’s not jealousy. And it’s not quite anger or frustration. It’s something dark though. Something that claws at me from the inside.
I shouldn’t make it my business. I shouldn’t confront her. But she needs to take someone with her. If something were to happen, if someone were to hurt her... I swallow the thick lump in my throat.
My feet move automatically. I’m not overstimulated. I’m not overthinking. But it feels like I am. Like I’m reaching a ten or even an eleven.
I need to find her. I need to make sure she’s safe.
Before I go out, I do one more check on the kids. Leon must have woken because Babulya is humming a lullaby to him as I linger outside their room. She’s grown awfully attached to the children. She spares me a smile, and I give her a nod before I continue down the hall.
I don’t bother with a car. Instead, I slip one of the keys from the rack and take a motorbike.
The sharpness in the evening air clears my head just a little, and the sound of the engine humming beneath me soothes me slightly.
But it doesn’t do anything to banish the worry that’s formed a lead brick in my stomach.
I just need to see what she’s doing. That she’s okay.
And convince her to take someone with her next time.
The rink is farther than I thought. An older building on the edge of some deserted strip mall. One of the building lights is burnt out and the parking lot is dim.
I enter the building.
She’s there.
Alone.
The lights are low, just a few beams hitting the ice. Her auburn hair is tied up on top of her head. She’s standing at the edge, her skates laced up tight. The outfit she wears hugs her body.
A green dress.
Sparkly.
And so damn familiar…
I blink hard.
Tinkerbell.
She connects her phone to the speaker and then steps onto the ice.
I don’t have to wait for the music to start to know what song will play. It’s soft, classical, something with a piano and strings. It soothes me like it has for so long. It pulls me in—and so does she.
From the back of the rink, I watch her soundlessly. Her body glides like a dream, every line of her graceful and impossibly fluid. She turns, spins, leaps.
And it’s a routine I know so well. I can predict each next move and when the jumps are because I’ve watched the video so many times. And I can’t believe I’ve finally found the girl I’ve always wondered about.
My breath catches. The triple toe loop, perfectly timed with what I know is the violin. Her glide into a fast spin. The way her whole body flicks right before she jumps like she’s a firework igniting.
I step closer, entranced.
It’s...her. The girl from the video I’ve watched more times than I can count. The girl whose identity was an enigma. The one video that calms my mind when the world spins too fast. When my brain can’t process anymore and I need calm. When I need silence.
It’s her.
Avelina.
Fuck. I don’t even know what to do with this information now.
She lands the final spin and comes to a graceful stop in the center of the ice. Then she collapses onto the ice, hands bracing herself, chest heaving. She stays like that. I don’t know for how long, but my worry that she’s hurt herself moves me out of the shadows.
She slowly lifts her head. And she spots me.
I don’t move.
Nor does she.
And for a brief moment, we’re frozen in time. The silence stretching between us.
Then I push forward, walking toward her, not speaking until I’m at the edge of the rink. I’m not even sure what I can say that’ll make sense. “It’s you…”
She blinks. “What?”
“The video,” I say, like that’ll explain everything. “Fuck... For years I’ve watched it to...to help. The same routine. The same music. The same Tinkerbell outfit. It’s you.”
Avelina swallows, and an unreadable expression crosses her face.
She glides toward me, her skates making a soft scratching noise on the ice.
“You’ve...seen my routine?” she asks quietly.
“It was a closed competition. I mean, I know someone recorded it, and it got online somehow and got a lot of views at one point.” She smiles sadly.
“I remember the day that video was taken. It seems like a lifetime ago…”
The silence beats between us. “I saved the video. And I know every step and move by now.” I admit. “It helps... It just helps.”
She looks at me with a strange look, and my heart hammers in my chest. Did I mess this up? Does she think I’m some fucking weird stalker now? “You’ve memorized my routine?”
“Every second.”
We stare at each other for a moment before her eyes shimmer with a soft sheen of tears. “Skating used to make me feel alive. Feel invincible. Feel like I was flying. But that joy is gone now. And it’s gone forever. That...that girl doesn’t exist anymore.”
My brow puckers. I’m looking right at her. Of course, she does. “She does.”
“No. Not like that.”
I shake my head. “What I just saw tells me she does.”
Her gaze lowers. “It feels like a different life.”
“Maybe it is,” I say. “But it’s still yours.”
She steps off the ice. I want to reach out. To pull her toward me. But I don’t. Instead, I grip the railing by my side.
“How’d you even find me, Viktor?”
“I’m good at what I do.”
Her brow arches as her lips tug up. Not quite the beaming sunshine I’m used to, but it still manages to make my body feel tight, an unknown emotion skittering through me. “Noted.”
“You shouldn’t come alone, Avelina.”
“It’s just for a couple of hours.”
“It’s not safe. And I want—” I clear my throat, unsure how to even say this. “I need you to be safe.”
She doesn’t say anything, just sits on the bench to unlace her skates.
As I stare at her, studying her, all I can think is that it really is Tinkerbell from the video. And it all makes sense...or it makes more sense than it did. That lightness I feel around her.
I feel something when I’m watching her and when I’m with her.
Whatever it is, I want more.
And I want to be found normal. To be found complete and not different than the world. And when she looks at me like this, I almost believe it. Can almost dare to hope someone would accept me as I am.
Almost.