Chapter 17 - Ilana
The paintings were good. Too good.
I stared at them lined along the wall of the art room, colors alive, bold, luminous in a way I hadn’t managed in years. I could see what I had accomplished and how light was breaking through the shadows. Gold threaded through darkness, and pieces that spoke of hope clawed out of fear.
Anyone else would have been proud. I already knew Avgust was.
He had been praising all my pieces for days now and talking about a gallery opening once I had enough paintings.
I hadn’t stopped him, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted all of that.
All that attention and praise. Especially when I was toiling through one of the most difficult times of my life.
I felt restless.
My chest buzzed with unease, like a warning I couldn’t really silence. No matter how much I painted or how much I poured myself into color and movement, my thoughts always circled back to the same impossible truth. Avgust and my brothers cannot exist in the same future.
And yet they did. Already. In my mind, at least.
A few days had already gone by since the dinner, and Avgust formally introduced me to his family.
I missed them. The warmth of a family that had accepted me without a single question was more than I could have asked for.
Yet there was still no progress on anything else.
I slept in Avgust’s arms every single night, but the guilt was growing stronger with every passing day now.
I knew something he wanted to know, yet I was keeping it from him.
I took off my painting apron and kept it aside, stepping out of the art room into the deserted corridor. I made my way to the kitchen, looking for Marta, and found her right by the door.
“Marta!” I called out.
“Yes, Miss Ilana?” Marta asked, turning around with a warm smile on her face.
“Have you seen Avgust?”
“He went out a few hours ago. He wanted to tell you, but you were absorbed in your painting, and he did not want to disturb you, so he told me instead.”
“Alright, thank you.”
My heart thundered loudly in my chest. I hadn’t found another chance of going to Avgust’s office since the last time.
I still discussed things with him, and he was happy to tell me everything he knew and discussed it all with me, but I needed to search for things in his absence as well.
I might find something that could stop my life from falling apart the way it was threatening to fall apart right now.
I made my way to his office and walked inside the unlocked room.
“Please let there be something that can be useful.”
I checked the files but could find nothing.
His laptop was open, and the screen glowed, but there was nothing on it I hadn’t already seen.
I could see notes scribbled in sharp, decisive handwriting, but nothing of consequence.
He was trying to find my family, and he was not getting any closer to them.
He had nothing. No first names or confirmations, or recognitions.
It made me feel relieved but guilty at the same time.
Because it meant that danger hadn’t disappeared. It was only waiting.
I was just about to leave when I noticed a drawer at the far end of the room that had not been closed fully.
I opened it and noticed a burner phone kept inside.
It was smaller, darker, and unmarked. My pulse jumped.
I stared at the phone for a long moment, then finally picked it up and dialed the number, which was stored in my memory like a scar.
Fyodor.
He picked up the call on the second ring.
“Fyodor speaking.”
“Brother,” I whispered, his voice sending a shiver down my spine. I did not know if it was relief or anger.
“Ilana?” His voice was sharp with disbelief. “Where the hell have you been!?”
Her throat tightened. “I’m fine.”
“You just disappeared and sent us that creepy text from a strange number, which blocked all of us whenever we called,” he snapped. “Kliment’s losing his mind, and Nico’s furious. Come home at once,”
“I need you to tell me something, Fyodor. And I need you to be honest,” I said, my mind only looking for one answer.
“What is it, Ilana?” he sounded concerned.
“Tell me if all of you are somehow linked to the Bratva? Do you have contacts with the dark side of things? Or are we just plain old hoteliers with nothing like this staining our business?”
There was a long pause, which was enough for me to know.
I had not been imagining it. All of it was true.
Fyodor sighed through his nose. “We are not having this conversation over the phone, Ilana. Come home, and we will talk about it in detail. In fact, where are you? I will come get you myself.”
“No,” I shook my head, even though I knew he could not see it. “We are having this conversation right here and right now. Tell me the truth.”
“I said—”
“Tell me,” I demanded, voice breaking. “Or I will hang up the phone and never call any of you again.”
There was another pause. Much longer this time.
Fyodor exhaled. “You were never supposed to find out about any of this, Ilana. We have kept the truth from you for years now. I have no idea who told you what and where you are right now, but this is not something any of us wanted to expose you to.”
“So it’s true.”
“It’s complicated, Ilana.” He sounded dejected.
“It’s always complicated when someone is lying or becoming involved in illegal businesses,” she whispered, finding strength within her own self. She had never talked to any of her brothers like this before, but she no longer cared.
He cursed softly. “Kliment knows what he’s doing.”
“That’s not an answer, Fyodor.”
“He is protecting us, Ilana,” Fyodor said.
“All of us. He has been protecting us since day one. Do you not remember Russia and our childhood? Do you not remember how difficult our lives were before the first hotel? We were scraping by, Ilana. We were always one bad month away from losing everything. This, what we have now, is power and stability and the luxury of not being afraid of anyone ever again.”
“So Russia was Bratva too? We have been involved in it since the very beginning?” I asked, unable to believe my ears.
“How do you think we expanded our business into something so big, Ilana? We were making you believe it was all clean, but it wasn’t.
It practically couldn’t be. We had to get some help from other sources, and no one was ready to help us except the Bratva.
They helped us grow into what we are today, Ilana. ”
My stomach turned.
“All of you let me believe that it was clean,” I said. “You let me think that it was a miracle and the money was a loan we returned later.”
“We did what we had to do, Ilana,” Fyodor said, defensive now. “For family.”
“I was your family, and you let me believe this was all because of our hard work and luck. I was family, and you kept me in the dark about everything. You told me we were expanding in Miami when you only came here to gain territory and get Bratva power. You uprooted my entire life for your own personal gain.”
“Who said that to you?” Fyodor asked, his voice on edge.
“Said what to me?”
“That we have come here to gain territory and expand power.”
“I am no longer a gullible little child, Fyodor. I understand your motives.”
“Ilana, who are you with? You cannot have left out of your own will. Tell me where you are, and I will come get you right now.”
“No,” I replied, “I don’t want to come home or to see you. Stay where you are and don’t you dare come looking for me. If I want to come home, I will come home myself. But the sad thing is I don’t even know where home is anymore.”
“What do you mean? Your home is with us. Forever.” Fyodor said, sounding concerned.
“I mean, did any of you even try to look for me? Did you try to find me? When I disappeared, did any of you wonder where I was or how I was? Or did any of you even notice I was gone until that message arrived from me? And even after that, none of you bothered, did you?”
“Ilana, that is not true,” Fyodor sighed.
“We looked for you. We obviously could not have gone to the police with a complaint, given our reputation, but we had our men and our contacts swarming all over the place. We are new here, so we could not have launched an all-out search, but we have been trying our best.”
“Well, your best clearly wasn’t good enough because you were unable to find me.”
I was growing bitter with every passing second, but I didn’t care.
“Ilana,” Fyodor tried to say something, but I didn’t let him finish.
“Stay away from me and don’t try to find me.”
I ended the call before he could say anything else and sat in the office, keeping the phone in place.
My hands felt cold as I tried to come to terms with what I had just discovered.
The slow climb over all those years, the new apartments, and the quiet comforts I had never questioned had all been soaked in blood disguised as safety. None of it had been real.
I barely registered the sound of footsteps until Avgust was standing in the doorway.
“Hey,” he said softly.
I flinched despite myself.
He crossed the room in two strides, crouching in front of me, hands warm and steady as they framed my knees.
I could see concern in his eyes, and that only made me feel guiltier.
I knew everything now. Every little bit of the truth, and yet I was keeping it all from him.
I was hiding something so significant about my identity from the one man who trusted me enough not to hide anything from me.
“What’s wrong, Ilana?” he asked, sensing my mood at once.
He had become scarily good at reading my expressions.
“I am just tired.” It wasn’t even a lie.
His eyes searched my face, sharp and gentle all at once.
“You’ve been pushing yourself too much.”
I nodded.
He brushed his thumb beneath my eye, lingering. “You don’t have to carry everything alone, you know? If I can share everything with you, you can share everything with me, too. You cannot keep your thoughts concealed in your chest forever.”
My chest ached.
If only you knew, Avgust.
“You are right,” I whispered, leaning into his touch, letting him pull me closer into his chest. I hid my face in the folds of his coat as he held me, pulling me down on the floor and placing me in his lap comfortably.
I wanted to tell him. I wished I could tell him everything, but I wasn’t ready yet.
I wasn’t ready to watch him go after my brothers and for any of them to die.
I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the eye if someone died because of me.
I was very angry with my brothers, but I still loved them. They were family after all, and they had given me a good life. So for now, the truth needed to stay buried. And that scared me more than anything else.
It was only a matter of time till Avgust found out.