Chapter 4 Daria
Daria
I refuse to leave my daughter alone with a man who might be here to kill us.
That’s why Kira is bundled into her warmest coat and trudging beside me through the Saturday-morning frost toward the women’s shelter where I volunteer every weekend.
She doesn’t complain about the early hour or the cold. She never does. My daughter has inherited my ability to adapt to circumstances beyond her control, and I don’t know whether to be proud of that or heartbroken.
“Will Miss Natalie be there today?” Kira’s breath forms tiny clouds in the frigid air.
“She should be.”
“Good. She said she’d teach me how to make friendship bracelets.” Kira skips ahead a few steps, then turns to walk backward so she can face me. “Do you think Pyotr would like a friendship bracelet?”
I suppress a snort before I reply, “I don’t think he’s the friendship bracelet type, malyshka.”
“Everyone likes friendship bracelets. That’s why they’re called friendship bracelets.” She spins back around and continues skipping. “I’m going to make him a green one, because green is the color of his favorite dinosaur.”
I don’t have the heart to tell her that the man sleeping in our spare room isn’t someone she should be making crafts for.
Kira has latched onto Pyotr with the desperate enthusiasm of a child who’s never had a father figure, and I don’t know how to protect her from the inevitable disappointment when he leaves.
Or worse, when he decides we’re guilty.
The shelter is a converted warehouse on the industrial side of the city.
Its brick facade is covered in cheerful murals painted by former residents.
I’ve volunteered here since I arrived in St. Petersburg three years ago, sorting donations and helping with childcare while women rebuild their lives after escaping situations too similar to my own.
The director, a formidable woman named Valentina, greets us at the door with a huge smile. “Daria! And little Kira! We’ve missed you.”
“I was here last weekend,” I point out.
“A week is too long.” Valentina ruffles Kira’s hair. “Natalie is in the craft room setting up for the children’s activity. Why don’t you go help her, lapochka?”
Kira doesn’t need to be told twice. She races down the hallway, her boots squeaking against the linoleum floor.
“You look tired,” Valentina comments once my daughter is out of earshot.
“I’m always tired.”
“More tired than usual.” She studies my face with the keen perception of a woman who’s spent decades reading the signs of abuse and fear. “Is everything alright at home?”
I force a smile. “Everything’s fine. Just some family issues.”
Valentina doesn’t push, but I can tell she doesn’t believe me. She’s seen too many women make the same face while insisting everything was fine. Still, she respects my privacy and points me toward the donation room, where boxes of winter clothing need sorting.
I lose myself in the work for a while, separating coats by size and checking for missing buttons or broken zippers. The repetitive task soothes my racing mind, giving my hands something to do while my thoughts spin in endless circles.
Bogdan’s expectation looms over me like a guillotine blade. Spy on Pyotr and deliver information about Dmitri’s plans, or my ex-husband will make good on his threat to take Kira away.
But can I spy on a man who was trained to detect surveillance?
Pyotr watches everything. He notices everything. He probably counted the number of times I blinked during breakfast this morning.
During my break, I slip into the empty staff room and pull out my phone. My finger hovers over Polina’s contact before I press call.
It rings four times and goes to voicemail. Again.
“Hey, it’s me,” I say after the beep. “Just checking in. I know you’re busy saving lives and all that, but it would be nice to hear your voice. Call me back when you get a chance. Love you.”
I hang up and stare at the phone, willing it to ring.
My older sister is a trauma surgeon at one of Moscow’s best hospitals, and she’s the only family I have left who isn’t tangled up in Kozlov business.
Our parents died when I was twelve and Polina was fifteen, and we were passed among relatives until we were old enough to escape on our own.
Polina escaped into medicine. I escaped into music. And then I escaped into a marriage that turned out to be its own prison.
It’s been three weeks since she returned one of my messages. That’s not unusual—Polina has always been fiercely private, and her schedule at the hospital is brutal—but something about this silence feels different, like she’s not just busy but actively avoiding me.
I tell myself I’m being paranoid. Polina has her own life and problems. She doesn’t need her little sister calling every week to unload her drama.
But I can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong.
The rest of my shift is filled with donated clothing, screaming toddlers, and cups of weak coffee that do nothing to ease my exhaustion. By the time Kira races toward me with a glitter-covered piece of construction paper in her hands, I’ve almost forgotten about the man waiting for us at home.
Almost.
“Mama, look! I made a picture for Pyotr!” She thrusts the paper at me, practically vibrating with excitement. “It’s a T. Rex with feathers! Miss Natalie helped me with the glitter.”
The T. Rex in question is a lopsided green blob covered in so much glitter that it sparkles like a disco ball. Red feathers—or what I assume are meant to be feathers—stick out at odd angles from its body. It’s objectively terrible and absolutely perfect.
“He’s going to love it,” I tell her, and I hate that I mean it.
We bundle up and trek back home through streets that have grown even colder as the afternoon fades toward evening. Kira chatters the entire way about friendship bracelets and volcanos and whether Pyotr has seen a real dinosaur skeleton at a museum.
“They have one in Moscow,” she informs me. “Masha went with her family last summer. Can we go to Moscow to see the dinosaurs, Mama?”
“Maybe someday.”
“You always say that.”
“Because someday is always maybe.”
She considers this for a moment, then nods as if I’ve said something profound.
When we reach the apartment, I smell it before I even open the door. Something savory and rich, like onions caramelizing in butter. My stomach growls despite my anxiety.
The apartment looks different inside. Cleaner. The stack of dishes I left in the sink this morning has vanished, and the counters sparkle in a way they haven’t since I moved in. Even the perpetual puddle beneath the kitchen faucet—the one caused by the leak I’ve meant to fix for months—is gone.
Pyotr steps out of the bathroom with a wrench in his hand. “The faucet washer was worn. I replaced it.”
I stare at him, unsure how to respond. “You fixed my sink?”
“It was dripping.”
“It’s been dripping for months.”
He shrugs his massive shoulders and replies, “Now it’s not.”
Kira pushes past me and runs straight to Pyotr, waving her glitter catastrophe in the air. “I made this for you! It’s a T. Rex with feathers!”
Pyotr crouches to her level, and something in my chest constricts. He’s so big, and she’s so small, and he handles the glitter-covered paper like it’s something precious rather than a craft project made by a five-year-old with too much enthusiasm and not enough fine-motor control.
“This is very detailed.” He studies the disaster with apparent seriousness. “I can see that you put a lot of work into it.”
“I did! Miss Natalie said I used more glitter than anyone else in the whole shelter.”
“I believe it.”
I watch the interaction with a knot in my stomach. The way he’s crouched at her eye level, giving her his full attention. His scarred hands hold her artwork so carefully, and his voice softens when he talks to her, losing the cold edge that makes my spine stiffen.
He’s good with children. This terrifying man who could snap bones without breaking a sweat is gentle with my daughter in a way that makes my heart ache and my body respond in ways I refuse to acknowledge.
I notice the way his shirt stretches across his back when he leans forward. The flex of muscle in his forearms as he points to something on Kira’s drawing. The strong line of his jaw when he turns to look at me, catching me staring.
Heat floods my cheeks, and I quickly look away and head into the kitchen.
“There’s soup on the stove.” Pyotr straightens to his full height. “I wasn’t sure when you’d be back.”
He made soup. He fixed my sink, cleaned my kitchen, and made soup.
I don’t know what to do with any of this.
Dinner is a strange affair. Kira dominates the conversation with stories from the shelter, detailed explanations of every dinosaur in her collection, and questions about whether Pyotr likes glitter.
I eat my soup in near silence, too aware of the man sitting across from me and the way his presence fills my tiny kitchen.
After dinner, I put Kira to bed with her usual routine—bath, story, lullaby—and then I’m left alone in the apartment with Pyotr Fedorov and no idea what to say to him.
He retreats to the spare room, and I hear the murmur of his voice as he makes a phone call. He’s probably reporting to Dmitri, telling my cousin whether I seem guilty or innocent or somewhere between.
I take a seat on the piano bench and let my fingers find the keys in the darkness.
Chopin’s Nocturne in E-flat major. The piece I always play when my mind won’t quiet, and my heart won’t stop racing.
The soft, melancholy music fills the apartment, and I lose myself in it the way I always do.
My fingers subconsciously know the notes, and my body sways with the rhythm.
For a few precious minutes, I’m not a woman trapped between two predators.
I’m a musician playing the only thing that makes sense in a world that stopped making sense years ago.
When the final note fades, I sit in silence and breathe.
Then, I hear footsteps retreating down the hallway.
He was listening. Standing there in the darkness, listening to me play.
I don’t know how that makes me feel.
To make matters worse, later that night, I dream of Bogdan.
He’s standing in Kira’s bedroom, lifting her sleeping body from the bed while she cries for me. I try to run to her, but my legs won’t move. I try to scream, but no sound comes out. He carries her toward the door, and she reaches for me with those small hands, sobbing “Mama, Mama, Mama—”
I wake gasping, with my heart pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat.
A shadow fills my doorway, and I nearly scream before I recognize the silhouette. Pyotr. Standing there in the darkness, watching me.
“What are you doing?” My voice is hoarse.
Instead of answering, he moves past me to the window and checks the locks, running his fingers along the frame as if testing for weaknesses. Then, he crosses to the other window and does the same thing.
“They’re secure,” he explains. “Go back to sleep.”
And then he’s gone, retreating down the hallway as silently as he appeared.
I lie in bed staring at the ceiling until dawn, unable to sleep or stop thinking about the man in my spare room.
He heard me having a nightmare and came to check on me. He made sure my windows were locked.
I should be terrified. He’s here to determine whether I’ve betrayed my family. He could be the one who ends my life.
But when he stood in my doorway, I didn’t feel afraid.
I felt safe.
And that scares me more than anything else.