Chapter 18
The hangover from music was worse than any hangover from alcohol.
Aurora remained on the Fazioli bench long after the echoes of the duet had died and Maximilian Volkov's footsteps had disappeared into the darkness of his private wing.
The silence he left behind was an accusation.
She was trembling. Her entire body vibrated, a piano string stretched to its limit. The phantom heat of his arm, his thigh, his proximity seemed to have seeped into her skin. She could smell him—sleep, warm skin, ozone—and it made her sick.
Hatred was her compass. For months, it had been the only thing pointing north. The only true thing in her ruined life.
Fact A: He was the monster. The arsonist. The man who bought her, violated her, and tortured her. He was the man who profited from the fire.
Hatred was simple. It was pure. It fueled her Melody. It gave meaning to Henrik Sokolov's plan.
But that night... that night had broken the compass.
What had she done? She hadn't just played with him. She connected with him.
The chemistry. The explosion of sound, the battle of wills.
Him, with his cold control, providing the perfect cage for her chaotic fury.
For three minutes, they weren't captor and prisoner.
They were... equals. They spoke a language no one else in the world understood.
A language of pain, power, and control, fought out across eighty-eight keys.
And the almost-kiss. That moment suspended in time, when she saw the Master disappear, and all that remained was a man looking at her as if she were the only real thing in the room.
She hated him for it. She hated him for being able to make her stop hating him, even for a second.
She fled the music room as if the piano itself were on fire. She ran to her room, slammed the door (useless, no lock), and retreated to the corner, curling up on the floor.
She needed the hatred back. She needed Fact A.
She forced herself to remember. The Project Phoenix. The signature. Seven days. The purchase of the land at an insulting price. Master Silveira's death.
The monster.
But then Fact B invaded her mind, uninvited.
The nightmare. The scream. POZHAR! The animal terror in his eyes before the mask of control fell back into place.
His back. The ruined landscape of melted skin. Worse than hers. Much, much worse.
The training. The Revolutionary. His sadism wasn't without purpose. He wasn't just torturing her; he was forging her. He was right. The pain was her strength. He was making her—undeniably, terribly—a better pianist than she'd ever dreamed of being.
How could these two facts exist in the same universe?
A man doesn't set fire to a building for profit and then run inside to be burned nearly to death.
A man doesn't have terrifying nightmares about a crime he committed with such cold calculation.
A man doesn't dedicate every second of his vast wealth and energy to rebuilding the talent he casually destroyed.
No. The logic didn't hold.
Unless...
Unless one of the “proofs” was a lie.
She latched onto that idea. Which was more likely to be a lie?
The scars? The ruined skin on his back was real. She had seen it. The terror in his eyes that night... she had never seen anything so real in her life. Fact B was flesh and bone.
Which meant...
Fact A. The document. The Project Phoenix.
What if...? What if Sokolov was wrong? What if the “proof” she found, and that he claimed to have, was... misleading?
No. Her head hurt. This was impossible. Sokolov was her lifeline. He was the kind face at the gallery, the warm voice on the phone. He had recognized her. He had called her by name. He had called her a heroine. He was the opposite of Volkov.
Volkov was the monster. He had to be.
If he wasn't the monster... then what was she?
Was she a confused, broken woman falling in love with her captor? The most clichéd case of Stockholm Syndrome in history?
The nausea returned, hot and bitter. No. No. The connection she felt wasn't love. It was... recognition. The recognition of a darkness in his soul that matched her own. She didn't love him. She... understood him. And that was a thousand times worse.
She stayed in her room for two days. She slipped into a torpor. The Shadow brought food. She barely ate.
She went to Hein's torture room. She endured the pain in silence. Volkov wasn't there. He'd been leaving her alone since the duet, as if he too was afraid of that connection.
She went to the Fazioli. She sat. She played scales. Bach. Liszt. The Revolutionary.
But when she tried to compose her Melody of Vengeance... nothing came.
How could she write her song of hatred when the hatred was no longer pure? When the five-note theme that represented Volkov now seemed... incomplete?
She was paralyzed.
On the third night, the silence was broken.
She was in her room, staring at the city lights, feeling like a ghost.
A buzz.
It came from the bathroom.
The phone.
Aurora's heart leapt to her throat. Sokolov.
The real world was calling. The world outside the glass cage, the world of Fact A, the world where things were simple.
She ran. The ritual. The bathroom. The locked door. The exhaust fan turned on, its white noise filling the silence.
She pulled the phone from the tampon box. The screen glowed with a new message.
Time is running out. Have you spoken to him? Call me.
Her hand trembled. She needed this. She needed Sokolov to remind her who the enemy was. She needed him to make the hatred pure again.
She called.
He answered on the first ring.
“Aurora. For God's sake.” Henrik Sokolov's voice was a mixture of relief and sharp frustration. “Three days. Why haven't you contacted me?”
“I... I couldn't,” she whispered, clinging to his voice like a life raft. “He's...”
“He what? Did he hurt you?” The concern in his voice was a balm.
“No. He... he's training me. Intensely.”
“Training?” Sokolov scoffed. “You mean torturing. Don't forget what he is, Aurora. No matter how much he tries to polish you, a monster is still a monster.”
Yes. Yes, that was it. She needed to hear that.
“Time is running out,” he said, his voice becoming practical, cold.
“The Gala is in less than a month. The Orchestra is finalizing its program.
If you're going to be the surprise soloist, he needs to announce you. He needs to start preparations. Have you spoken to him? Have you convinced him to let you perform?”
Aurora closed her eyes. The image of the duet. His hand on her lip. His scent.
“I...” she hesitated. The word was stuck.
“Aurora?” Sokolov's voice became sharp. “What's the problem?”
“It's... complicated,” she whispered.
“'Complicated'?” he nearly spat the word. “What's complicated? The man burned your career and your face for money. He's keeping you prisoner. He's using you. There's nothing 'complicated' about it. It's simple. He's evil. We're going to stop him. Are you... hesitating?”
The accusation hung in the air.
“No!” she said, too quickly. “I'm not hesitating. I just...”
She had to know. She had to test.
“He has scars.”
The silence on the other end of the line was absolute. The hum of the fan seemed like a roar.
“What?” Sokolov's voice was low, careful.
“Scars,” she said, the words tumbling out. “Burn scars. On his back. Worse than mine. Much worse.”
Another pause. Longer. Aurora held her breath. What would he say?
Finally, Sokolov let out a breath. But it wasn't a sigh. It was... a laugh. A short, dry, disbelieving laugh.
“My God,” he said, and there was a hint of dark admiration in his voice. “The bastard.”
“What... what does that mean?”
“Don't you see, Aurora?” he said, that conspiratorial ally tone returning full force. “This doesn't exonerate him. It condemns him!”
“I don't understand.”
“It's poetic justice!” Sokolov said, his voice gaining strength. “The man is so arrogant he set the fire himself, or personally supervised it. And he got caught! Caught in his own trap! He tried to play God and the fire bit back. This changes nothing.”
Aurora's mind reeled. She hadn't thought of that.
An incompetent arsonist.
“It only proves he was there,” Sokolov continued, his logic relentless. “He was there, overseeing his crime, and it went wrong. And what did he do? He left you there to die while he ran to save his own pathetic skin. He's even more of a coward than I thought.”
The image clicked into place. It made sense.
It made horrible, perfect sense.
Fact A and Fact B weren't contradictory. They were part of the same ugly story. He started the fire for money, and his incompetence marked him.
And the nightmares? The screaming?
Of course. He wasn't having nightmares about the crime. He was having nightmares about the pain. The fear of being burned. The panic of his own arrogance backfiring.
The hatred returned.
It wasn't the pure hatred from before, but something uglier. Contempt.
The man she'd thought was an evil genius, a calculating demon... was just a greedy idiot who'd burned himself.
And the connection? The duet?
He wasn't forging her for some dark, artistic purpose. He was just... obsessed. Obsessed with the only other person in the world who understood the pain of fire. He was “fixing” her because she was a reflection of himself.
She wasn't his partner. She was his broken mirror.
“Aurora? Are you there?”
“Yes.” Her voice was steady now. The ice was back.
“Does this change anything for you?”
“Yes,” she said. “It makes everything easier.”
Sokolov let out a sigh of relief. “Good. Good. Now, the plan. You need to talk to him.”
“I will,” she said. “Tomorrow.”
“No more hesitation?”
“No more hesitation,” she said, and she meant it.
“Good girl. I knew you'd see the truth. This man... he has to pay. For what he did to you. For what he did to Master Silveira. For what he did to himself.”
“He will,” Aurora said.
“Hang up. Stay safe. And get him to put you on that stage.”
The line went dead.
Aurora turned off the phone. Put it away. Turned off the fan.
She left the bathroom and walked to the glass wall of the living room. The storm had passed, leaving the air clean and the city glittering like broken glass.
Sokolov's explanation was perfect.
So why... why did a small voice in the back of her mind, a voice that sounded like that perfect duet, whisper that it was... too easy?
She shook her head, forcing the doubt to shut up. It didn't matter. The hatred was back. Confused, yes. Stained with contempt and pity. But it was there.
She would return to the music room. She would finish her Melody.
And she would make Maximilian Volkov put her on that stage. It would be her final performance.