33. Sofia
SOFIA
The key turns in the lock.
I lift my head from the piano.
For a second, I think it’s Damir. The door opens, and Marina steps inside with a tray in her hands. She pauses when she sees me sitting there, one hand still resting on the keys, the other pressed flat over my stomach.
“Thank God you’re here,” I say, standing too quickly. “Someone locked the door.”
Marina looks at the door. Then at me. Then down at the tray. “Good afternoon, madame.”
I stop halfway across the room.
Madame. The word hits harder than it should.
“What did you call me?”
She walks to the small table near the window and sets the tray down. Her movements are careful. Too careful. The spoon is placed beside the bowl, the napkin folded once, the cup turned so the handle faces me. She doesn’t look up. “Mr. Volodin asked that you eat.”
“Marina.”
“Your lunch is still warm.”
“Why was the door locked?”
“I don’t know, madame.”
I walk closer. She reaches for the teapot, but her hand slips slightly on the handle. Porcelain clicks against porcelain.
She hears it. So do I.
“You do know,” I say.
She pours tea anyway. The cup fills too high. A little spills into the saucer.
“Careful,” I say softly.
Her hand stills. For one second, her face cracks. Then it’s gone.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“For the tea?”
She presses her lips together.
I look at the tray. Soup. Bread. Fruit. Tea. A meal for someone who is expected to stay where she is put.
My throat tightens. I turn toward the door and walk to it. I put my hand on the handle and try it. It moves now.
I look back at her. “Will it open after you leave?”
She says nothing.
I laugh once, quietly. “Right.”
Her eyes lift to mine. They are wet. I hate that, because I need her to be cruel.
Cruel would be easier. Cruel would let me hate her properly.
Instead, she stands beside the table with both hands clenched in her apron, looking like someone has placed a knife in her hand and told her to call it service.
“What happened?” I ask.
She looks toward the door. That one look is enough.
Someone is outside. Or someone could be.
I lower my voice. “Did Damir order this?”
Marina’s eyes close for half a second. My stomach drops.
“Why is he punishing me?” I say. “Because I’m carrying his child?” I don’t mean to say the words, it just slips out.
Her eyes widen. “You’re pregnant?”
“Forget I said anything,” I say.
“I’m sorry it has to be like this,” she says.
This is absolutely maddening. “What? What do they think I did?”
She grips the apron tighter. “Please eat,” she says.
I look at her. She looks at the bowl. I don’t move.
Finally, she whispers, “Please.” It’s not an order but a plea.
“For me?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer. Her eyes flick to my stomach.
I go still. “You know.”
She flinches. The room feels smaller.
My hand moves to my stomach on its own. The baby is still nothing I can feel, but suddenly everyone in this house seems to know about it before I have even figured out how to breathe around the word.
I hear Marina take one step toward me. Then stop.
“I’m going to my room,” I announce.
I don’t expect her to follow me, but she does. She closes the door behind me as I pace the length of my room.
None of this makes any sense. Is Damir really that upset to be a father? Is that why he’s punishing me? Is he really the monster he always claimed to be, and I simply misjudged him before?
“Sofia,” she says, and this time her voice breaks around my name. “Eat a little.”
I turn back. She’s not looking at my face anymore. She’s looking at my stomach, then the bowl, then the door, as if each one is part of a problem she has not been allowed to solve.
I sit. Marina moves quickly, pulling the chair out for me, then stopping herself before she touches my shoulder. She stands beside the table, hands clasped in front of her.
I pick up the spoon. The soup smells good.
I taste nothing.
Marina watches me take one mouthful. Then another. Only then does she breathe properly.
I put the spoon down. “Tell him I ate.”
She looks at the bowl. “You barely ate anything.”
“Tell him,” I repeat.
Her jaw tightens. For the first time since she entered, she looks angry.
“I will tell him,” she says.
She picks up the tray, even though most of the food is still there. At the door, she stops. Her fingers hover near the handle.
“Marina, will you tell me what’s going on?” I say.
“They think you’re a liar,” she says before she slips out.
For half a second, she is my Marina again. Then her eyes move past me, to my stomach, and whatever order she’s carrying comes down between us.
“I’m sorry, madame,” she says.
The door closes. The lock turns.
I stand there staring at it. Then I walk to the tray and throw the cup against the wall. Tea runs down the wallpaper. No one comes.
That is how I know they expected it.
By afternoon, Damir comes.
He doesn’t knock. The door opens, and he steps inside with two guards behind him. They remain in the hall. He closes the door, but I hear the lock stay ready, as if the whole room has been turned into a polite cell.
He looks at the broken cup first. Then at the untouched food. Then at me.
I’m sitting by the window in yesterday’s dress because no one has brought me clothes except what they choose, and I refuse to ask.
“You must eat,” he says.
That is all. No hello. No explanation.
No apology for walking out when I told him I was pregnant.
I look at him. “Where were you?”
His face gives nothing away. “Working.”
“Try again.”
“Sofia.”
I stand. “No. Don’t say my name like that and expect me to calm down. Why is my door locked?”
His jaw tightens. “For your safety.”
The words hit exactly where they are meant to.
“Right,” I say. “You think I’m a fool?”
His face remains passive. “On the contrary.”
I frown. What’s that supposed to mean?
“Do you think it isn’t yours?”
His eyes flash. “Don’t ask me that.”
“Then answer one of the other questions.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. You won’t.”
His silence is confirmation.
I look down at my stomach. There’s still nothing to see. I place my palm there anyway because suddenly I need to feel that at least one person in this room is with me.
Damir sees the movement. Something moves across his face. Pain, maybe. Anger. I don’t know anymore. “You need to eat,” he says again.
I almost laugh. “You locked me in a room and came here to discuss toast?”
“I came to make sure you are well.”
“No, you came to make sure I am contained.”
His face hardens.
“Is this what happens now?” I ask. “I become another thing in your house that must be watched?”
“No.”
“Then open the door.”
He doesn’t move. There is my answer.
I nod once, because if I keep speaking, I will beg, and I refuse to beg him after everything. “Leave,” I say.
His expression changes. “Sofia—”
“Leave.”
For a second, I think he will refuse. Then he steps back, opens the door, and walks out.
The lock turns again.
I don’t throw anything this time. I sit on the floor beside the bed and press both hands over my stomach.
The next days blur.
Marina brings food and calls me madame. Sometimes her hands shake when she pours tea.
Sometimes she leaves extra honey because she knows I like it.
Sometimes she looks at me like she wants to say something, then remembers whatever threat has been placed over her head and leaves before kindness becomes dangerous.
Damir comes every day. Sometimes morning. Sometimes night. He asks if I ate. He asks if I feel pain. He asks if I slept. He asks if I need the doctor.
He doesn’t answer my questions.
I stop asking on the third day. That seems to trouble him more than the arguments.
The doctor comes twice. She checks my blood pressure, asks about nausea, tells me I need food, water, rest, and less stress. I almost ask her if she has a prescription for not being imprisoned by a man who may or may not believe I’m part of some plot no one will explain to me.
I don’t. I let her do the tests. I let Marina bring soup.
I let Damir stand near the wall, looking at me like he wants to come closer and doesn’t trust either of us with the distance.
On the fourth day, Damir finds the lunch tray untouched. He stands over it for a long moment. Then he looks at me. “You must eat.”
I’m sitting by the window, wrapped in a shawl Marina brought and I refuse to admit I needed. “You said that already.”
“You are pregnant.”
“I noticed.”
“This is not only about you.”
I turn my head and look at him.
His face tightens immediately, as if he realizes the mistake, but it’s too late.
“No,” I say quietly. “Apparently nothing is about me.”
“Sofia,” he says.
“Get out,” I say.
He doesn’t. Instead, he takes the tray himself, brings it to the small table beside me, and sits opposite me. I stare at him. He picks up the bowl of soup, dips the spoon, and holds it out.
For a second, I genuinely don’t know whether to laugh or stab him with it.
“I’m not Maksim,” I say.
“No. Maksim eats when he is told.”
My mouth opens.
He looks at me. I look back. And for the first time in days, something almost alive moves between us. The memory of us. The part that used to argue before everything turned cold.
I hate that it hurts.
I take the spoon from him. “If you ever try to feed me soup like an invalid again, I will pour it into your lap.”
“You need strength to do that.”
“Then I should eat.”
“Yes.”
I hate him.
I don’t. That’s the problem.
I take three spoonfuls because the baby is not responsible for my pride. Damir watches every one like a man observing a treaty being signed.
Then a knock comes at the door. A guard speaks from outside in Russian.
Damir stands at once. His entire expression changes.
I put the spoon down. “What is it?”
He looks at me, and for one second I think he might actually answer.
Then he says, “Stay here.”
I laugh. It comes out flat. “Where else would I go?”
Something passes through his face. He doesn’t respond.
The door locks behind him.
I stand and go to the window. Below, the front courtyard is suddenly full of movement. Two cars are at the steps. Men run toward the garage. Nikolai crosses the drive with a phone to his ear. Irina appears from the side entrance, her face white, holding Maksim against her chest.
Damir comes out seconds later, moving fast. He takes Maksim from Grigori without hesitation, one arm under the boy’s legs, the other around his back. Maksim’s head falls against Damir’s shoulder.
Something is wrong. Very wrong.
Damir carries Maksim into the first car.
The door slams, and the cars tear out of the courtyard.
I stand frozen at the window.
Maksim.
Little Maksim with his wooden horse and serious face and ridiculous military negotiations.
My hand goes to the door before I think. I pull the handle. It opens.
For a moment, I simply stare.
Unlocked.
For the first time in days, the door is unlocked. I step into the hallway slowly, half expecting someone to appear and order me back inside. No one does.
The guards who usually stand at the end of the corridor are gone.
I walk farther. The hallway is empty.
Not quiet in the normal way. Empty in a way that feels wrong. Doors are open that are usually shut. One of the side tables has been knocked slightly crooked. A glass lies on its side near the stair landing, water spread across the floor.
Everyone left in a hurry.
Or everyone who mattered.
I go down the stairs. No one stops me.
The entrance hall is deserted except for one maid rushing across the far corridor with towels in her arms. She sees me and freezes, then looks away quickly and disappears through a service door.
My stomach tightens. I should go back.
I don’t.
I move through the house like a stranger, past the dining room, past the sitting room, toward the smaller corridor that leads to Damir’s study. My heart is thudding loudly now, not because of escape, but because something has cracked open and I don’t know what I’m walking into.
At the corner, a floorboard creaks behind me.
“Sofia.”
I turn. Grigori stands at the end of the corridor.
He’s not smiling.
His shirt is untucked on one side, his face pale, his hair disordered like he has been running his hands through it. In his right hand, held low against his thigh, is a gun.
The sight of it stops me cold.
“Don’t worry, darling,” he says, closing the distance with slow, quiet steps. “It’s just me.”