Chapter 6
Two weeks.
Fourteen days. Three hundred and thirty-six hours.
Time in Maximilian Volkov's penthouse didn't move like time in the real world. It was thick syrup, measured not by the sun but by the click of her bedroom door.
At seven, the gray woman (Aurora called her “the Shadow”) brought breakfast. She set it down and left.
At eight, Aurora went to the music room. The door was always unlocked in the morning.
From eight to noon, she played. Bach.
The discipline he imposed after that first horrible night was inhuman. He'd been right: The Two-Part Inventions. Pieces that seemed simple but demanded absolute independence of the hands. For Aurora's crippled left hand, it was a nightmare.
He was forcing her to retrain her hand. To find new ways to create the trills, to articulate the passages. Pain was her constant companion. The Fazioli, with its terrifying purity, mocked every imperfect note.
At noon, the Shadow brought lunch. At five, dinner.
He was feeding her like a prized animal, building her strength. She no longer suffered the weakness of hunger. She had only the weakness of her captivity.
She didn't see him. For two weeks, he was a ghost. She heard the elevator hum in the middle of the night, knew he was there, somewhere in that glass mausoleum, but he left her alone.
It was a peace that felt like a ticking time bomb.
He was... cultivating her. Letting her marinate in her own rage and the torture of Bach.
On the fifteenth day, the routine broke.
She was at the piano, the fingers of her right hand aching from compensating for the left. She was in the middle of Invention No. 13 in A Minor, the most difficult piece for her, when the music room door opened.
He was there. Maximilian Volkov.
He wasn't wearing a suit. He wore the same dark, casual clothes from that night. He stood in the doorway, listening.
Aurora stopped playing. The sound died.
“You stopped,” he observed.
She said nothing. Her hatred for him was a solid thing in her chest.
“Your left hand is ten percent stronger,” he said, like an engineer evaluating a machine. “But your articulation is still lazy. You're using the pedal to hide your mistakes.”
He knew. He'd been listening. He'd been listening the whole time.
“Tonight, you'll come out with me.”
Aurora's blood ran cold. Out? Out of the cage?
“I don't—”
“You have no choice,” he cut her off. “It's the opening of the Kinski Gallery. We'll be there at nine.”
“I won't go,” she said, her voice low.
He walked to the piano. He didn't look at her. He looked at the keys.
“Do you remember your first night here?” he asked, his voice soft. “Do you remember what I did?”
How could she forget? The touch of his lips on her scars. The humiliation of being forced to play with his body pressed against hers. She shuddered, a spasm of revulsion.
“I can be... persuasive,” he murmured. “Would you prefer to dress yourself, or would you prefer that I dress you?”
She looked at her left hand, the useless claw. She was weak, but he was right. He would break her again. And again.
“What should I... wear?” she whispered, the taste of defeat bitter as ashes.
He smiled. The same cold spasm that wasn't a smile.
“I've already chosen.”
The box was on her bed when she returned to her room. It wasn't a cardboard box. It was black, smooth and heavy, with no markings.
Inside lay emerald-green silk.
Aurora pulled it out. It wasn't a dress. It was a weapon.
The fabric was heavy, luxurious. But the cut... the cut was a sentence.
It was a long evening gown, but it had only one strap. A thin, delicate strap that would rise over her right shoulder.
The left side.
Her left shoulder, the side of her neck, and—crucially—the entire left side of her face would be completely exposed.
There was no hair to hide behind. No high collar. It would be her, and her ruin, on public display.
She let the dress fall to the floor as if it were on fire.
“No. No. No.”
She ran to the bathroom, vomiting up the expensive lunch the Shadow had given her. She was shaking. This was worse than the violation of the first night. That had been private. This was a public execution.
He was doing this on purpose. He was showing her off. Look what I own. Look at this broken thing that only I had the courage to claim.
She cried. Hot tears of rage and shame.
There was no choice.
At eight-thirty, she was ready. She looked in the bathroom mirror—an enormous mirror that reflected the merciless truth.
She had showered. The Shadow had left makeup. She used it. She tried to cover the scar. But the makeup wouldn’t stick to the damaged skin. It only accentuated the puckered texture, making it grotesque—like a cracked porcelain doll glued back together badly.
The emerald-green dress was stunning. And it made the red and silver skin of her cheek look even more vivid, more raw.
And her hair. He had thought of everything. The Shadow had left pearl pins. She couldn’t leave it down. She had to pin it up. A low, severe bun at the nape of her neck.
There was no veil. There was no curtain.
It was just her. The monster in silk.
He was waiting in the living room, his back to her, gazing out at the city. He wore a tuxedo. A perfect cut that made his shoulders look even broader.
He heard her approach. He turned.
His gray eyes swept over her, head to toe. He didn’t smile. He didn’t compliment her. He simply assessed her. His gaze landed on the exposed scar on her face, and a spark of dark satisfaction ignited in their depths.
“Perfect,” he murmured.
He stepped closer, and before she could recoil, he raised his hand and ran his thumb across her cheek, wiping away the makeup she’d applied.
“No,” he said, his voice firm. “Don’t cover my investment.”
He extended his arm.
“Let’s go.”
The Kinski Gallery was a cube of glass and white steel. It was the kind of place where silence was purchased. The air smelled of expensive champagne and old money.
Hundreds of people were there. Women in jewels worth more than Aurora’s old building. Men in suits that whispered power.
When they entered, a silence fell.
It was brief, just a collective intake of breath. And then the murmurs began.
Aurora felt it. Like a million needles on her skin.
The stares.
They didn’t look at her with lust. Or even with interest. They looked at her with a mixture of horror and pity. They saw the expensive dress, the impossibly powerful man on her arm, and they saw the aberration he was displaying.
Volkov seemed to feed on it. He held her arm firmly, his thumb brushing her elbow, guiding her through the room. He was a king displaying his most bizarre war trophy.
“Maximilian, darling!”
An older woman, dripping with diamonds, approached. She air-kissed near Volkov’s cheek, her eyes never leaving Aurora’s face.
“What… lovely company,” the woman said.
“Aurora Vitali,” Volkov said, his voice a soft thunder. “A musician. My new protégée.”
Protégée. The word was an obscene lie.
Aurora kept her eyes down, staring at the white marble floor. She focused on breathing. In. Out. The hatred for him was the only thing keeping her on her feet.
He dragged her from group to group. He introduced her. He displayed her. And each time, she felt a piece of herself die.
After what seemed like an eternity, a man in a gray suit, with the severe face of a politician, approached and pulled Volkov aside.
“Maximilian, we need to discuss the Riga shipment,” the man said, his voice low and urgent.
Volkov looked at Aurora. He parked her next to a wire sculpture that looked like a nightmare.
“Stay here,” he ordered. “Don’t move.”
And he walked away, swallowed by the crowd, his broad shoulders a beacon of power.
Aurora was alone.
For the first time in weeks, she was more than ten feet from him. And, for the first time, she was in public.
The relief was so intense she almost felt dizzy. But it was instantly replaced by panic. She was exposed. Alone. The stares were more intense now that her protector-monster wasn’t there. She could hear the whispers.
“…what happened to her face?” “…burned, obviously…” “…Volkov. He has such… predatory tastes…”
She closed her eyes. She wanted to disappear.
“Miss Vitali?”
The voice was… warm.
It wasn’t Volkov’s cold baritone. It was a soft, polite tenor, with a slight accent she couldn’t identify. Perhaps French?
She opened her eyes.
The man standing before her was the polar opposite of Maximilian Volkov.
Where Volkov was darkness, this man was light. He was perhaps a bit shorter than Volkov, but still tall. Sandy-blond hair, slightly wavy. Surprisingly gentle blue eyes. He had an easy smile, almost sad. And most importantly: he was looking into her eyes, not at her scar.
“Sorry to bother you,” he said, his smile deepening slightly. “But I couldn’t believe it. It’s really you. Aurora Vitali.”
She blinked, shocked. Someone... recognized her?
“I... yes.”
“My name is Henrik Sokolov.” He extended his hand.
She hesitated. He was waiting for her to take it. Slowly, she offered her right hand. He took it, not squeezing, but holding it gently. His touch was warm. So different from Volkov’s cold grip.
“I’m a huge fan,” he said, his voice low, conspiratorial. “I had tickets for Vienna. I was going to fly out just to see you play. What happened...” his face grew serious, his blue eyes filling with a sympathy that completely disarmed her. “...was a tragedy. A tragedy for the music world.”
Tears welled in Aurora’s eyes. It was the first kind word she’d heard in... years.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He released her hand but didn’t step away. He leaned a little closer, creating an intimate bubble around them.
“Forgive my boldness, Miss Vitali...” he glanced over his shoulder, in the direction Volkov had disappeared. “...but what is a monster like Maximilian Volkov doing with someone of your talent?”
The word hit her. Monster.
He said it. He saw it. He saw the same thing she did.
“He’s...” she began, but didn’t know what to say. He bought me? He owns me?