19. Sofia
SOFIA
By the next morning, I have arrived at a conclusion.
I am an idiot.
Not in the charming, impulsive, heroine-of-my-own-life way. Not in the fun way where I make one questionable choice and it becomes a story Anya and I laugh about over drinks later.
No. I am a spectacular idiot.
I am incapable of making normal mistakes. Other women send a rude text to the wrong person. I invite a Bratva Pakhan to my wedding and accidentally marry him.
I spend half the morning pacing my room.
The other half, I spend glaring at the dresses Marina has left for me as if they personally betrayed me.
They hang in the wardrobe, soft and elegant and expensive, all in colors that make sense now.
Cream. Gray. Ivory. Deep blue. Clothes chosen for another woman’s body, another woman’s life, another woman’s husband.
Elena. Her name sits in the room with me.
I don’t wear any of them. Instead, I put on the least offensive thing I can find: black trousers from a pile of new clothes someone must have bought yesterday, a plain white blouse, and a long dark cardigan that thankfully doesn’t smell like old cedar, ghosts, or marital trauma.
I tie my hair back. Then I untie it.
Then I tie it back again because apparently, I am now the kind of woman who expresses emotional collapse through hairstyles.
Damir doesn’t come to breakfast.
Good. I don’t want to see him. If I see him, I might ask why he let me wear Elena’s dress.
If I ask, he might answer.
If he answers, I may find out something I don’t want to know. Or worse, he may not answer at all. That’s more likely.
So I make a plan. Plans are good. Plans are practical. Plans are what intelligent women make after realizing they have married a man everyone treats like a locked room with a pulse.
I spend time playing with Maksim to distract myself.
Soon days become weeks, and weeks become months in Volodin House, though I can’t decide whether that makes me safer or only more settled in a place I still have no right to call home.
Damir doesn’t force himself into my room again, but he doesn’t stay away either.
He appears at breakfast, in corridors, in the music room where the piano sits like proof that he listens too closely.
Some nights I want him. Some nights I hate him for making me want anything inside a house I didn’t choose.
When I do want him, Damir takes me into his arms and kisses me until I forget where I am. He’s twice my age, and boy does he have stamina. My cheeks warm just at the thought of his pulsing cock inside of me. He takes me for hours, sometimes, when he wants to.
Maybe I’m a coward, but I don’t bring up the business with his dead wife.
By the time the ninth week ends, I know two things clearly: I am drawn to my husband, and I still need to know whether I can leave him. I’m close to something dangerous, so of course, I have to leave. Even if it’s for a little while, just to clear my head.
The first part of the plan is simple. Get out of the house.
The second part is more complicated. Don’t die while getting out of the house.
The third part is a little vague, but I feel confident that once I’m outside the cliffside murder castle, inspiration will arrive.
At eleven, Marina comes in with coffee and a breakfast tray I didn’t ask for.
I look at the tray. Then at her.
“No.”
She sighs. “You need to eat.”
“Do I?”
“Yes.”
“Has anyone medically confirmed this?”
“Sofia.”
I narrow my eyes. “You are becoming less afraid of me.”
“I was never afraid of you.”
“That is rude.”
Her mouth twitches. She sets the tray on the table anyway.
I wait until she pours the coffee because I am angry, not suicidal, then say, “I need a phone.”
Her hand pauses for half a second.
There. That tiny hesitation. The whole house is built out of tiny hesitations.
“A phone,” I repeat. “Not my phone.”
“It’s safe,” she says, not meeting my eyes.
“That’s not what I asked.”
Her eyes move to the door, then back to me.
I lower my voice. “Marina.”
She looks at me.
“I need to call Anya,” I say. “I haven’t spoken to anybody outside this house in weeks, almost two months now. I’m going crazy, please.”
“You can use the phone Mr. Volodin gave you.”
“Yes, I can, and maybe he can listen in while she tells me whether my hair looks nice and whether I should start taking up cliff-diving as a marital escape strategy.”
Marina’s mouth tightens, like she’s trying not to react. “I don’t know if he listens,” she says.
“That’s not comforting.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She hesitates. That’s all the opening I need.
I step closer. “Please.”
The word tastes strange. I don’t use it often. Not because I’m proud, though I am. Because in my world, please is usually decorative. Men hear it and decide whether it amuses them.
Marina hears it. That’s different.
Finally, she says, “Your things are in the security office. They were brought from the church.”
“My purse?”
“Yes.”
“My old phone?”
“If it was inside.”
“Can you get it?”
“I shouldn’t.”
“No one in this house should do half the things they do.”
“Sofia.”
“I need one private call.”
She looks toward the door again. Then she exhales. “Ten minutes.”
I almost hug her. I don’t, because that seems unfair to both of us before she commits the crime.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet.”
She leaves. I drink the coffee while waiting because anxiety and caffeine have a toxic but dependable relationship. By the time Marina returns, my heart is beating too fast and my plan has evolved from vague to insane, which is generally how my best plans begin.
She gives me my phone without a word. I take it like a sacred object.
It’s dead. Of course.
Marina also hands me a charger.
I take back every questionable thing I have thought about this house. Marina is an angel trapped among armed men.
The phone turns on after a few minutes, immediately flooding with missed calls, messages, panic, threats from numbers I don’t recognize, and one voicemail from Anya that is mostly “Sofia, answer the phone or I will commit a felony.”
I call her.
She answers before the first ring finishes. “Tell me you are alone.”
“I am alone.”
“Are you actually alone or murder-house alone?”
I glance at the door. “Murder-house alone.”
“So not alone.”
“Probably not.”
“God. Fine. Speak like we’re discussing shoes.”
“I hate the shoes here.”
“Excellent. Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Oh my God, I was so scared you were like dead or something,” she says. “Where were you so for the past few weeks?”
I see flashes of Damir and me having sex.
I clear my throat. “Just caught up.”
“Are you lying?”
“Not about that.”
“Sofia.”
“I’m fine.”
“Fine is what women say right before they dissolve into mist.”
“I’m not dissolving. I’m plotting.”
A pause.
Then, very quietly, “Good.”
I close my eyes. Just hearing that helps. Not because Anya can fix everything. She probably can’t. But because she has known me longer than this nightmare has had me, and there’s a part of me that only feels real when someone from before says my name.
“I need out,” I say.
“I know.”
“Not forever. Maybe. I don’t know.” I press a hand to my forehead. “I need space. I need to think somewhere that doesn’t contain his dead wife’s dresses.”
“His what?”
I close my eyes harder. “Long story.”
“I hate long stories when they involve dead wives.”
“Same.”
“Okay.” Her voice sharpens, becoming practical. “My cousin can help.”
“The one who helped me getting the invite to Damir?” I say.
“Arman, yes,” she says. “But he’s also helpful in other ways.”
I frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Listen, you just need to find a way back to the city,” she says. “He’ll take care of everything.”
When I don’t say anything, she says, “Sofia, did you hear me? Can you convince your husband to let you out of the house?”
I have had very poor luck with choosing recently.
“Yes,” I say.
Anya is quiet for a moment. “Are you sure?”
“No.”
“Good. Certainty is overrated.”
“I regret everything.”
“You don’t regret everything.”
I think of Damir’s mouth. His hands. His ring.
His face when he saw me in Elena’s dress.
His body over mine, inside mine, careful when he could have been cruel.
“I regret enough.”
Anya softens. “Then get out long enough to breathe.”
A sound comes from the corridor. My body goes alert.
“I have to go.”
“Tonight,” Anya says. “I’ll text details.”
“Don’t use names.”
“I know.”
“And Anya?”
“Yes?”
“If this goes badly—”
“No.”
“But—”
“No. We’re not doing tragic speeches before lunch.”
My throat tightens. “Fine.”
“Good. Also, for what it’s worth, I still think you’re insane.”
“Comforting.”
I end the call before my voice can betray me.
For the rest of the day, I act like a petulant child. I don’t go down for lunch. When Marina brings a tray, I thank her, wait until she leaves, and don’t touch anything except the coffee.
By dinner, I’m in the study.
Not his study. A smaller one off the east hall with more windows, fewer maps, and a locked cabinet that looks deeply interesting. I sit in a leather chair by the fireplace with a book open in my lap and don’t read a single word.
I have chosen the room deliberately. It’s public enough that no one can accuse me of snooping. Private enough that Damir will know I am avoiding him. Near enough to the corridor that I can hear footsteps if he comes home.
Not that I’m listening. Obviously.
The book is in French. Something old and tragic and full of people making worse romantic decisions than mine, which is comforting until I remember most of them die.
At some point, the house changes.
It’s subtle. A shift in movement downstairs. The low sound of men greeting someone. A door closing. Footsteps with a weight I recognize before I can hate myself for recognizing it.
Damir is home.
My fingers tighten on the book.
I don’t look up when he enters. There is no knock. He fills the doorway in a black suit, one arm still bandaged under the sleeve, his face controlled, his gaze moving over the room once before settling on me.
I turn a page. Upside down, probably. I hope he doesn’t notice.
He notices. I can feel it.