Chapter 40
NINA
“You’ll never be enough for him.”
This is psychological warfare. I hate to admit that it’s working. I try my best to forget who Polina is referring to, her tone dripping with venom.
If I think about Art or Ava, I’m going to break down.
And that seems to be exactly what Polina wants, her lips curling every time I tremble. It’s incredible that the icy blonde harpy in front of me is responsible for the love of my life.
A shiver runs down my spine, not just from Polina’s cruel words. The room is an ice box. I’m trying not to shiver, but I’m only wearing a nightdress that does nothing to keep out the cool air.
Her heels click on the cold polished concrete. She’s wearing a black fur coat. We’re somewhere under the Estate, I think — the basement cold and echoing, lit by a bare, swaying lightbulb that gives everything a harsh, shadowy light.
When I woke up, I was here, being tied down by a team of Polina’s guards. I didn’t waste my energy trying to fight them off, given I was outnumbered four to one. Art has increased security in our wing of the Estate, but obviously it hasn’t been enough if a team of guards could take me from our bed.
The guards line the walls, still watching my every move, even though I’m tied so tight I can’t move.
The haze of whatever they gave me to keep me asleep is slowly fading from my brain, and I try to assess the surroundings. I don’t know where they’ve taken Ava or Art, but I’m trying not to think about it. Because if I let myself worry about them, I’m going to be paralyzed with fear.
I need to keep my head clear and focus on how to get out of here.
I take a deep breath and let the rage I feel for Polina heat the blood in my veins. It’s my only source of energy right now.
Rage is good. Rage can fuel me, can help me think of a way to escape.
I’m tied to a chair, the ropes chafing against my wrists and legs.
Polina circles me like a wolf looking at its prey, her blue eyes just as cold and dead as a predator.
She still has faint bruises under her eyes from when I broke her nose.
I can’t imagine that Art is a product of any part of her, even if his blue eye is the exact crystal shade of hers.
Trapped in a basement with Art’s ice queen mother trying to taunt me. I’ll give it to her, five years ago this would have worked.
Hell, two weeks ago it would have worked too.
But not today, Polina.
“You think you have what it takes to be the queen of this family?” She spits at me. I don’t flinch, I just keep glaring at her.
“Look at you. Weak. You don’t know the first thing about what we do here. He hasn’t taught you a single thing about how the Bratva works.”
I won’t give her anything to feed on.
I keep my mouth shut as she taunts me. Mocking my weight, my freckles, even my job, which is laughable. I know that Polina’s never worked a day in her life — a Bratva daughter through and through, who lived in a world where her value was in the marriage she could make.
She did well, becoming a Petrov, but she couldn’t follow their one core rule: loyalty. She went behind Art’s father’s back, and ultimately that’s what got her offside with Bratva. No respect for the family. To Vanya, the family comes above all else.
She can tell me I’m na?ve and uninformed all she wants, but I see right through her.
This is what I focus on. Polina and her twisted history. I try to figure out why she’s brought me here, what she wants from this situation.
The exhaustion is starting to get to me. The relentless taunting. The way she somehow knows my every insecurity about my relationship with Art. It’s time to go on the attack. Unless I can distract her, she’s going to break me.
I soften my voice and say the first thing I’ve said all morning — if it’s still morning. There’s no way to know. My throat is parched when I try to speak, and I realize I’m becoming dehydrated.
“Do you know what I did? After you turned me away that afternoon, five years ago?”
Polina tilts her head. “You cried in your car. Because you’re–”
“No.” I let out a laugh, which descends into a painful coughing fit.
Oh, I’m definitely dehydrated. My voice comes out as I dry rasp, but I keep speaking.
“I drove back to Missouri. I went to my family. And you know what? They were so awful that it made you pale in comparison, Polina. You have nothing on an alcoholic father and a mother who’s so dead inside she couldn’t care enough to stop him hurting us too.
I hoped someone else would protect me. But they wouldn’t. They couldn’t.”
I’m revealing more than I should, but I’ve been awake for hours without food or water, I don’t know where my daughter is, and I’m desperate to prove Polina wrong.
Something sparks in her cold eyes. “What a perfect pairing. The boy whose mother never loved him and the girl whose father abused her.”
She starts to shake with silent laughter, looking like I’ve just handed her a present.
“What makes you think you deserve a love you’ve never had before? And what makes you think that Artyom can give it to you? It’s absurd. You’re like two people who’ve never made a fire trying to figure it out. It won’t work, sweetheart. He’s not coming here for you.”
The suggestion is poisonous and I can’t stop it from running wild through my mind. I must have been here for hours, and no one has showed up yet…
No.
He’ll be here.
He has to be here.
I can’t think like this. I push my doubts down deep and focus on what I need to know. Why is Polina doing this? She’s lost, Denis is gone. I wasn’t the one who killed him.
Polina circles me again and I dig my fingers into my palm.
We were so close to having everything. I fell asleep in my husband’s arms, and I didn’t want to go anywhere. Polina had to rip us apart again, just when it finally felt like we might be able to make things work.
The tears spring in my eyes but I won’t let them fall. I have to stay strong.
For my family.
I try a different tack.
I start to laugh and I find that I can’t stop.
“Give me my child, you bitch.”
Polina’s mouth purses and I know that I’m winning. She thought I would beg. She thought I would doubt myself.
Instead I know Art didn’t sell me out like this.
“Only someone who never cared for her own child would underestimate me right now. Maybe if you’d ever loved someone, you would know why I know you won’t win.”
“I did love. I loved Denis, my whole life. And your husband–“
“Your son.”
“–killed him like it was nothing. For no benefit. For revenge.”
I shake my head. It’s getting harder to speak, my mouth parched. “Art never does anything if it’s not worth his time. If your husband was as innocent as you say, Art never would’ve killed him.”
I descend into a coughing fit that rattles painfully in my throat.
“You think you know him? You don’t understand a thing about this family. About what it means to be a Petrov.”
“Is this because of him? Denis?”
My voice rasps in my throat, every word becoming more painful.
Polina’s face twists, her mouth turning down at the corners. She lunges for me at the chair in the center and grips my jaw. “Don’t speak about him.”
Her face is wild, her blue eyes wide and panicked. That hit a nerve.
“You really did love him, didn’t you?”
There’s a cracking sound that rips through the room. One of the guards yells out.
The ceiling appears above me, the sole lightbulb painfully bright.
Pain blooms from a dull throb at the back of my head.
My temples ache, my vision becoming hazy. I try to shake my head and needles shoot down my neck.
I try to suppress the sob, but it comes out as a kind of wail.
One of the guards hauls me back upright, the room spinning back into focus and I realize what happened. Polina pushed me back. Straight onto the concrete floor.
Hot liquid drips down my back in a sticky rush. I know it’s my own blood, but I can’t feel the pain anymore.
The room is coming into softer focus now, the harsh light fading away.
Polina is murmuring to one of the guards. It looks like he’s trying to calm her down, but that’s got to be my imagination.
“You weren’t supposed to do that.” The masculine voice is deep and commanding. He sounds like he’s scolding her. “She has to stay in one piece.”
Confusion registers faintly, but my brain is turning so slowly that it takes a few minutes to register.
These are Polina’s guards who kidnapped me from my bed this morning. They’re hardly going to scold her for cracking my skull open.
Sleepiness takes me over, and one of the guards rushes in front of me, shining a torch in my eyes. “You’ve really done it now, Polina,” a voice says, the words floating through my brain in slow motion.