Chapter 4
The car was silent. It glided through the S?o Paulo night like a specter, sealing them off from the outside world. The tinted glass transformed the city lights into distant, unreal blurs. Aurora Vitali sat upright, body rigid, her thin coat a joke against the cold leather pressing into her back.
Each second stretched out her new reality.
The man beside her, Maximilian Volkov, didn’t look at her.
He read reports on a slim tablet, the bluish light casting cold shadows across his granite face.
He could have been an executive heading home after a day at the office, not a kidnapper who had just bought her life.
The memory of the fire and the certainty that he was the man in the doorway... hatred rose like hot bile in her throat. She was trapped in a car with the demon who had orchestrated her ruin.
They didn’t go to a residential neighborhood. The car slowed and entered an underground tunnel, emerging into a polished concrete garage so clean it looked like a laboratory. No other cars—except for two more identical black sedans parked at precise angles.
“Get out,” he said.
It wasn’t a request. The driver was already outside, holding her door.
Aurora got out, her legs trembling. The air in the garage was cold, filtered, smelling of fresh concrete and ozone.
Volkov guided her toward a set of brushed steel elevator doors, never touching her. He pressed his thumb to a black glass panel. A low hum, almost inaudible, and the doors slid open.
The elevator interior was lined with dark glass. When the doors closed, the silence was so complete she could hear blood pulsing in her ears. No buttons. Only the panel where he’d placed his thumb. The elevator began to rise.
And rise.
And rise.
No jolt, only a sensation of weightlessness, a smooth and relentless acceleration that made her stomach flip. She caught their reflection in the dark glass. Herself—small, disheveled hair hiding her face, looking like a sewer rat. Him—tall, imposing, his suit like armor.
The elevator stopped without warning, the movement ceasing as smoothly as it had begun. The doors opened.
No hallway. No entrance hall.
The elevator doors opened inside the apartment.
The first thing that hit her was the space. And the light.
The apartment... no, it was a penthouse. It had to be. It took up the entire floor. Where her cramped apartment was defined by peeling walls and mold, this place was defined by the absence of walls.
The entire north and east sides were glass, floor to ceiling.
And below them, the city spread out like a carpet of broken diamonds. Car lights—millions of them—crawled like luminous insects. They were so high up that the constant roar of the city was muted, reduced to a pressurized silence.
The floor was white marble, so polished it looked like frozen water. It reflected the city lights, making it feel like she was walking on the night sky.
“Take off your coat.”
Volkov’s voice cut through the silence.
She flinched, clutching the thin coat. It was her tattered armor.
He watched her, impatience tightening his mouth into a thin line.
“It’s dirty. It’s wet. Take it off.”
She took it off. The cheap, damp wool felt like a sin in this environment. She held it in her hands, not knowing where to put it. No coat rack. No entrance closet. Nothing.
The furniture was sparse, brutalist. A massive sofa in a gray so dark it was almost black looked like it had been carved from stone. A glass and chrome coffee table. That was it. The rest was space. Empty, cold, oppressive.
No photos. No books. No knick-knacks, no rugs, not a single plant. It was a place where life didn’t seem to happen. A mausoleum in the sky.
Volkov took her coat, holding it between thumb and forefinger as if it were contaminated. He dropped it on the floor beside the elevator.
“A maid will take it to be burned.”
Aurora shuddered. Burned. The word hit her like a slap.
“Where... where am I?”
“Home,” he said, and started walking.
She followed him, her worn shoes making a pathetic sound on the marble. The apartment was freezing. The air conditioning pumped air so filtered it had no scent at all. The smell of cabbage and mold from her building seemed, in retrospect, almost human.
He led her down a hallway that seemed to stretch forever, the bare white walls lit by recessed lights casting a clinical glow.
He opened a door.
“Your room.”
It was three times the size of her entire apartment. A king-size bed covered with a white comforter, perfectly smooth, stood in the center. More glass walls, this time facing south. A closet larger than her room at the Silver Swan.
He watched her as she took it all in.
“The bathroom is there,” he pointed. “Clothes are in the closet. You’re going to shower.”
She turned to him, anger bubbling up. “I don’t—”
“You have no choice,” he cut her off, his voice calm. “You smell like the place you came from. I won’t allow that in my home.”
He stepped closer. She backed away until her back hit the cold glass wall. The city glittered at her feet, a dizzying reminder of how far she was from the ground.
He didn’t touch her. He just stopped in front of her.
“You’re here for a reason, Aurora. You’re not a guest. You’re an asset. And my assets are kept clean.”
He extended his hand. An open palm.
“What?” she whispered.
“The phone.”
The panic, which the hatred had kept at bay, came back in full force.
Her cell phone. It was an old model, prepaid, with a cracked screen. It was useless. She barely had money to add minutes to it. But it was hers. It was her only connection to the world.
“No,” she said, a reflex.
“Give it to me.”
“It’s mine.”
“Nothing is yours.” His voice was icy silk. “I bought your debts. That means I own your future. Do you think I’m going to let a piece of your miserable past interfere with that?”
She gripped it in her jeans pocket. It was her last bastion.
Volkov sighed, a sound of pure annoyance. He wasn’t going to fight her. He wasn’t going to rip it from her.
“You can hand it over, or I can have a security guard hold you while I take it. The choice is yours. But know that if you force me to do that, it will be... unpleasant.”
Tears welled up. Tears of rage and helplessness. She was a musician. Her hands. The idea of a security guard grabbing her, hurting her...
Trembling, she pulled the phone from her pocket. The cracked screen looked obscene in the perfect light of the room.
She handed it over.
He took it. His fingers brushed her hand—the good one. His skin was cold.
He looked at the pathetic device for a second. Then, with a casual flick, he threw it against the glass wall.
The sound of plastic and glass shattering was shockingly loud in the silence. The phone broke into three pieces, which fell to the marble floor. Dead.
Aurora gasped, as if he’d stabbed her.
“No outside world,” he said, his voice calm, as if nothing had happened. “No friends. No contact. You’re here. You’re mine. That’s all you need to know.”
He turned.
“Shower. Put on the clothes. I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”
He left, closing the door behind him with a soft, final click.
She stood there, trembling, staring at the remains of her only connection. The last thread tying her to her old life had been cut. She was in a glass tower, miles above the world, and no one knew she was there.
She was completely and utterly alone.
The rage from the fire, the hatred for the man in the doorway... solidified. It was no longer a hot feeling. It was a core of ice in her chest. She would destroy him. She didn’t know how, but the man who watched her burn and who now caged her would pay.
She went to the bathroom. It was bigger than the Silver Swan. Black marble, a shower that looked like a glass chamber, a bathtub deep enough to drown a man. She turned on the water. The pressure was deafening.
She undressed and stepped into the hot water, scrubbing her skin as if she could tear off the smell of the bar, the smell of her old life, the smell of fear.
Twenty minutes later, exactly, the bedroom door opened. He didn’t knock.
She was standing in the middle of the room, wearing what she’d found in the closet: black silk pants and a gray cashmere blouse. The clothes were ridiculously soft, expensive, and felt like a costume.
He nodded, as if she’d passed an inspection.
“Come.”
He led her back through the hallway. The silence of the penthouse was heavy. It was the silence of a vacuum.
He stopped in front of a set of double doors, made of a black wood that seemed to absorb light. He opened them.
Aurora stopped breathing.
The room was dominated by it.
It wasn’t a Steinway. It wasn’t a B?sendorfer.
It was a Fazioli. A Fazioli F308, the largest concert grand piano in the world.
It was black. Not a normal black, but a black so deep and polished it looked like a piece of solidified night. It was positioned in the center of the room, facing another glass wall that looked out over the pulsing horizon of the city.
It was the most beautiful and terrifying thing she had ever seen.
She stepped inside, as if in a trance. The musician in her, the part of her he hadn’t managed to buy or burn, was weeping.
“You recognize it,” he stated, not a question.
“It’s… it’s a Fazioli,” she whispered.
“The best,” he said, walking around the instrument, his hand tracing the perfect curve. “Four pedals. Custom-made. The wood came from a specific forest in Italy. The same one Stradivarius used.”
She moved closer. She could feel the power emanating from it. It was a weapon disguised as an instrument.
Her good hand rose, trembling. She wanted to touch it. She needed to touch it.
“You destroyed her,” she said, her voice low, filled with her new icy hatred. She looked at her left hand, the scarred claw. “You gave me this…” she gestured to the piano. “…after making sure I could never play it properly again.”
He stopped on the other side of the piano. The black monster of ebony and ivory between them.
“I didn’t give you this to be pretty, Aurora,” he said. “I brought you here to work.”
He gestured to the bench.
“Sit.”
She hesitated.
“Sit.”
She sat. The leather bench was cold. The keys were perfect. The ivory (or whatever they used now) felt alive under her fingers.
With her right hand, she played a single chord. A C major.
The sound.
The sound made her gasp.
It wasn’t the sound of a piano. It was the sound of a cathedral. Rich, complex, crystalline, and so powerful she felt it vibrate in her bones. It wasn’t the dead, muffled sound of the Silver Swan. It was the sound of perfection.
And it was torture.
She looked at her left hand, the crippled hand. How could she profane this instrument with that… thing?
“You will play,” Volkov said, standing behind her now. She could feel the heat of his body, though he didn’t touch her. His presence was a physical pressure. “You will play every day. You will practice until your good hand bleeds and your bad hand remembers how to obey.”
“And why?” she asked, her voice full of venom. “What’s your game? You destroy me, then you buy me, lock me up, and give me the best piano in the world? Are you insane?”
He placed his hands on the polished wood of the piano, on either side of her. He was effectively caging her against the instrument.
“I’m not insane. I’m a collector,” he murmured, his voice near her ear. She flinched, her hair brushing her face. “I heard you play, years ago. Before the fire. You were fire, passion. Brilliant, but undisciplined.”
He leaned in, and his warm breath hit the scarred skin on her cheek. She froze.
“The fire took your arrogance. Poverty gave you rage.” He traced the scar on her face with the tip of his finger, a touch as light as a moth’s wing. She shuddered violently.
“You’re a broken work of art, Aurora. And now…” he said. “I’m going to fix you.”
He straightened.
“The rules are simple.” His voice returned to its cold, businesslike tone. “You don’t leave this apartment. The elevator only works with my fingerprint. You don’t speak to anyone. The maids are instructed not to speak to you.”
He walked to the door.
“You have this room. And your bedroom. Nothing else. You will eat what is brought to you. And you will play.”
“And if I refuse?” she asked, her voice trembling with rage.
He stopped at the door and looked at her, sitting at the most expensive piano in the world. The perfect monster.
“You remember option A?” he asked calmly. “The gutter? Pawning everything forever? I can always send you back. But…” he added, and a glimpse of something dark passed through his gray eyes. “I’m a man who gets what he wants. I’d prefer not to have to… force you to play.”
He closed the doors.
The click of the lock echoed in the silent room.
Aurora was alone.
She looked at the piano. The perfect instrument. Her new prison. The tool of her torture.
She raised her left hand, the useless claw. And slammed it against the keys.
A dissonant, horrible, shrill chord echoed through the penthouse, a scream of pain and hatred against the glass walls and the indifferent city below. The cage was locked.