Chapter 51
My movements are not slow when I burst through the front doors of my home. After a gruelling plane ride recounting all the events of the past and what happened in Rome, I grew more and more agitated until my thoughts were centred on only one thing: arriving in Moscow.
The more I spoke, the more convinced I became that Lev and Dimitri missed something when they went through his office. Papa was a user, and Serafina was too easy of an in to the Cosa Nostra. A connection forged by blood no one could deny him of, and not that I believe he wanted anything to do with her; he wouldn’t have turned away such an easy tool. That’s all people were to him—commodities.
Deep down, I feel there’s proof that he acknowledged her somewhere hidden.
While it changes nothing now, it’s time to uncover all of Papa’s secrets and hidden agendas. To stop running from his past—and my future.
My Elite follow behind, Dimitri calling out, “Where are you going?”
The one place I said I’d never go.
I turn down the hall and head for the large door that was once so intimidating. It always had me straightening my clothing, smoothing my hair, and fixing my expression before entering. It concealed the monster inside until he emerged to hunt his prey.
My hand hovers over the ornate, metal handle. I’ve never entered without permission. Even with him no longer around, it feels strange to walk in without it. More so, to willingly enter the room I’ve avoided for the past two years.
“Vanessa.” My cousin’s voice is right behind me. His hand touches my shoulder in what’s meant to be reassuring, but I flinch away. “We’ve already gone through everything.”
“I know. But…but I need to now. You must have missed something that mentioned Serafina.”
“And if there isn’t?” Anastasia inches beside me. “What then?”
I guess I’ll move on.
“Then nothing. But I need to look.” My hand clenches tighter on the handle and I push it down an inch. As one, three bodies step closer. “Alone,” I tell them in a commanding tone. “It’s time I finally go in here. I’ve avoided it long enough.”
Without another thought, without allowing doubt to take over, I jerk the handle the rest of the way down and push the door open just enough I’m able to slip inside. My back presses the door shut and I remain there, waiting until three pairs of feet walk away.
Once they finally do a few moments later, I open my eyes— when did I even close them? —and my breath whooshes out of me.
“Enter.”
I do right away because even taking a few more deep, bracing breaths will consume too much time—in his opinion, anyway—and it’ll annoy him. It’s simpler to not irritate him, for my own welfare.
Papa stands from behind his desk after I shut the door. A finger crooks toward him and he commands, “Come.”
I hate when he talks to me like I’m a dog.
Wrenched from the memory, I have to remind myself he’s no longer here. Yet, as I stare across the room at his large wooden desk, I can still see him, like a reflection. The same stance, with his fist pressing into the desk’s surface. The same flat expression. It’s all the same, and my legs buckle.
He’s not here. He’s not here. No matter how many times I repeat it, it doesn’t feel enough. Not as the vision of him coming around the desk, the memory of that specific day, returns.
“I hear you insulted our guest. He was quite displeased with his purchase.” Papa grabs my chin and tilts it up, to better study me like I’m an animal to be bought.
Or sold. Because that’s what happened yesterday. Sold like I was one of the many poor women the Bratva forces into employment. Although, employment might be a stretch of a term for what happens to them.
“I didn’t insult him.” My refute will probably anger him further, but being forced to spread my legs and have my tears lapped rather than wiped, my body destroyed rather than worshipped, pisses me off more.
Papa’s brows lift and he releases my chin. Blood rushes back to the area, making the skin tingle. “He claimed you refused to thank him.”
“Thank him?” My scoff could probably be heard from the next room over. “Thank him for raping me?”
Slap!
Papa pulls his arm back while my mind rushes to catch up. It’s certainly not the first time he’s hit me, and it won’t be the last.
Yesterday, it took hours for my body to stop shaking. Hours to finally open the door and let Dimitri inside. My cousin helped me into the shower and even stood outside the door in case I needed anything, but it wasn’t enough to rid the feeling of him. His scent imprinted itself in my nose. His touch tattooed my body with a feeling I’ll never get rid of. His cock forever a shadow of losing my virginity.
I rotate my jaw, letting my eyes drop to the floor to avoid pissing him off when I’ve made my point. It’s our pattern. He demands, I fight back, I lose, we move on. A system we’ve perfected.
“You will not speak to me that way, doch '. You will cherish what was given to you yesterday, and you will learn your fucking place. Now go. Write a letter to Boris, begging him for forgiveness. Maybe then, we can all move forward.”
Move forward? That’s joke number one. There’s no moving on from this. This is something I’m forced to live with for the rest of my life.
He wants me to plead with my rapist…I can’t even put into words how fucked up that is. I don’t need his forgiveness for voicing my true feelings. He needs mine for his actions.
I never wrote that letter. In fact, despite spending all week on edge, Papa never brought it up again, so I assumed he forgot.
The present comes back into focus and the image of Papa looming in front of me dissipates. It’s like I’ve waved my hand through the air, except I never moved, and he was never here.
This is why I refused to enter his office before today. Why I transformed another room into my office.
My feet are heavy as I stride across the burgundy carpeted room, passing walls of shelves stocking books I doubt Papa ever cracked. A built-in bar is to my right, a few alcoholic options untouched from his last use. A gathering of four small glasses are also there, and I imagine him pouring drinks for business partners before planning world takeovers and sending them to kidnap women and children.
Everything he’s done, everything he was, it’s no surprise what happened to the Mancinis. He never understood limits because he never had any for himself. A person’s rights didn’t matter if it furthered his own needs. He was selfish. He was everything a villain is.
I reach his desk. His chair is half pulled out, likely from when Lev and Dimitri went through this place, but I tell myself it’s from the last time he sat in it. Everything in this place echoes with his last touch.
I feel like I’m watching myself from the outside as I slide the chair out farther and settle into the seat, like he had countless instances. My palms rub over the desk’s rich wood, my nails tracing the edge of the desk pad, picturing him signing contracts on it.
The top drawer would be the one he’d open to retrieve a pen to sign those very documents. I can recall all the times I was in here, watching him use the heavy metal writing utensils. Then, I imagined myself in his place as Pakhan, using those very pens as I signed my own deals.
Now, I’d rather sign in my own blood than touch his pens.
I tug open that same drawer, scanning over the handful of them, most of which are adorned with his name. I pick up the nearest one: silver with a black inscription that’s partially faded. He used this one the most, and while I never questioned what made it his favourite, I now wonder what his reasoning was. Everything Papa ever did had a purpose behind it, even choosing a pen out of the numerous.
I drop it back into the drawer, shut it, and open the larger one beneath. It’s empty, likely from when Dimitri and Lev scoured through.
Memories of Papa are packed within this entire room, but it’s those memories I must embrace. To think like him. To imagine everywhere he’d possibly hide mention of the Italians, if there’s anything.
I slam the bottom drawer shut and get to work.
Three hours later, a tsunami has gone through Papa’s office.
I embraced every memory of all the times I’ve been in here. Every time he yelled at me. Every command given. Everything . I used them all to push through the heavy emotion—grief, I think—that clung like an unwanted weight on my shoulders. For everything my hands touched, I wanted to curl up and cry. To be the little girl who used to look up to her papa before reality kicked in and I was forced to see who he really was.
His desk has been completely emptied of anything Lev and Dimitri left behind. The drawers have been tossed to the side so I could inspect the furniture’s base for secret compartments. His books are strewn on the floor, each one pried apart and fanned, hoping something would fall from them, but feeling less and less hopeful with each book.
I’m two glasses into Papa’s rum from his sidebar when the door opens and my cousin’s head pokes through, eyes widening as he takes in the mess.
I hold my glass up in greeting, the effects of alcohol making my movements arduous and sluggish. “Hey! I’ve been redecorating.”
“I see that.” He slips through the small opening he’s made himself but remains by the door. “Any luck?”
“None.”
Dimitri’s expression pinches in apology. “There might be nothing to find.”
I’m aware, but it doesn’t shake the feeling Dimitri’s wrong. Every book, every useless drawer has been another reminder I might be searching for the invisible, but the sensation never cooled. While Papa was uncomplicated, there must be something .
“I know,” is all I tell Dimitri to avoid going into detail.
He scans my nearly-empty glass and where I kneel in the centre of the room, amidst a mess similar to that I created in Zeno’s room.
I wonder if Zeno cleaned it up yet. How many hours has it been since leaving Italy?
“How many of those had you had?” Dimitri’s question tugs me out of my wandering thoughts.
“Just two. Made it easier.”
He nods slowly. “Yeah, well, I’m just checking on you. The others are worried what being in here for so long’s doing to you.”
I roll my eyes, feigning indifference. “Only a strong irritation toward the room’s last occupant.” With the mere thought of that man, I chug the rest of the amber liquid down and stand—albeit, unsteadily and without grace—to pour more. “Want one?”
He shakes his head. “Given the situation with Italy, I’d rather stay sober. It hasn’t even been a full day since retrieving you so we don’t know what they’ll do.”
Ah, a day. Thanks, cuz.
I kick aside discarded books to make a path from me to the sidebar. “You mean my husband?” My face screws up with the mere mention. Thinking about everything that had happened in Italy has momentarily been locked away in another part of my brain while I focus on this task. “He’s smart, so he won’t strike soon. He’ll wait for time to pass and us to lower our guards.” How do I know? He waited two years after I became Pakhan to come for me. The man doesn’t work quickly.
Dimitri leans against the wall beside the door and crosses his arms. “Despite your explanation on the plane, I still have questions. Though,” he scans the room, “I’m getting now isn’t the ideal time.”
I salute him with my glass before dropping it with a quiet thud onto the bar. “Yeah, not really.”
“Then I’ll leave you be, and come back later.” He shrugs off the wall and turns for the door, pausing to add, “If there’s still nothing by then…maybe it’s time to give the search up and live with the fact he didn’t have anything noteworthy.”
I wave him away, not to be rude but with a determination that there’s something. Some hidden document I’ve yet to uncover. Something to put every piece about Papa’s past together.
The door shuts behind Dimitri and I focus on pouring another glass of liquor to help me get through this. And when I say focus, I mean, really focus, blinking through the blur tinging the edges of my vision as I grip the bar with one hand and steady the other for a clean pour.
It’s with that same blurred vision I spot what I didn’t earlier. Maybe it’s the drunken mindset putting the room in a new light. Maybe it’s exhaustion creeping up and I’m simply imagining what I think I’ve discovered.
Still, I rest the bottle to the side and push all empty glasses out of my way to brush my fingers over the discoloured wood. Not discoloured like it’s faded with age. More like, against the dark oak, the very apparent lighter walnut is a section that doesn’t quite fit.
I stroke over the wood, not sure what to make of it. Did a piece of the bar break at one point and Papa had it replaced with a different kind? That seems too messy for him and his care regarding the mansion’s upkeep.
On my next stroke, I press harder. Not sure what I’m expecting, but driven by hope and wonder and?—
Click.
“No fucking way.” My whisper is a mere breath, heard only by myself, and not the centuries of Pakhan souls still haunting the room.
With the distinct click, the walnut bit rises enough I’m able to get my fingers around it. I rest the wood panel off to the side while lifting higher onto my toes to peer inside, even as I carefully and slowly slip my hand into the opening.
My fingers brush against something leather and skinny but also hard. I grasp it, pulling a book out. Not a book, I soon realize, turning it over in my hand and flipping open the front cover. A journal. One entirely filled with Papa’s handwriting.
A journal, hidden away from any who could find it. A journal where he wrote all his thoughts and secrets.
Got you.
I take the journal and my freshly poured drink to an empty space on the floor and settle in for what I’m sure will be the most fascinating read of my lifetime.