21. Milana
MILANA
“Fine.” Luca says as he stands. “I’m all ears whenever you feel like talking. Just to clarify, it’s the one way to speed things up here.”
He walks off with my phone while I stay frozen on the spot, stripped of my last connection to the outside world. Stripped of every shred of hope.
I thought I was fucked before, but now?
“Where are you going?” I call to him as he heads towards the front door, a tremor in my voice.
He pauses and turns to look at me. “I’m taking your phone to Benedict. I’ll be back soon.”
“And what am I supposed to do?” I’m a real jailbird now.
He blinks at me. “Stay put—”
“As if I can go anywhere!” I cut in.
“—and work on that sourdough starter,” he finishes his sentence.
Our gazes lock, mine shooting bullets, his quiet and calm, with that twinkle I’m starting to find annoying. In my continuously low-simmering rage, I didn’t register he was joking.
That doesn’t stop me though. “I’m not your fucking trad wife!” I spit out.
“God forbid! A real trad wife! Don’t despair, princess, I haven’t lost hope yet.” He shoots me a wicked grin before strolling out and shutting the door behind him, his dry chuckles seeming to echo down the corridor outside.
I stare at the empty space he’s left, our whole interchange playing on repeat in my mind.
Luca isn’t the family clown, he’s the bomb defuser.
I can see it now, Luca, as a young boy, defusing tension in his family with jokes.
He’s probably been at it his entire life.
Or did he make them just to be heard? To be seen?
Once the silence in the apartment becomes so deafening I want to scream, I pad over to the piano and rip off the thick velvet ribbon and elaborate bow, tossing them aside.
I open the lid and prop it up, inhaling the calming scent of aged spruce.
The interior is pristine and so glaringly new, my soul sighs at the beauty of the instrument.
This is special. He spent all this money on someone he doesn’t know at all, but my true colors and little cracks are already showing.
God help me, he’s going to break me open like a pistachio nut.
Shrugging off the thought, I run my fingers over the smooth lacquered wood, trying to ignore my current conundrum and bring back the magic.
Irrespective of everything going on, he is a thoughtful man.
I’ve played on beautiful pianos before, but so rarely in the public sphere that getting onto a concert stage in front of thousands would freak me out.
Being here alone, with this beautiful piano, might help me out of my funk.
As I sink down on the bench, the realization hits me.
Like Luca, I’ve also only lived a shadow life.
Hiding behind this instrument, practicing my perfect excuse.
Opening the keyboard, I stare at the keys.
They stare back. I will my fingertips to settle on them, my hands perfectly arched, praying for the notes to flow and fill the cave-like hollowness of this apartment, but I can’t get myself to do it.
My hands fall to my lap, as if they’ve gone lame.
I have no clue how long I sit there, staring into the abyss, but when male voices sound, I don’t turn back to look at them.
“Milana?”
Luca’s voice, laced with concern, makes me heave a sigh.
“Yes?”
“Jesus, you had me worried there, sitting like a statue.”
He walks over, and I glance at him. Another man is following in his footsteps, tall, glaringly handsome with unkept dark hair that curls and falls over his high brow.
“I’m fine,” I say as I stand and turn toward them. “Benedict, I presume?”
“Just Ben if you like,” he says, holding out a hand for me to shake, as his gaze soaks me up like a dry sponge. “Nice to meet you, Milana.”
“Likewise.” Meeting people is going to become a rare treat. Have no fear, I’ll find my way out, I just have to play along for now.
“This is for you,” Luca says, holding my phone out to me.
“And what have you boys learned?” I ask, feeling like it’s my turn to stir up the shit.
“Classy burner phone you have,” Luca says with a smirk. “Where’s the real one?”
I laugh. “Go ahead, raid my things. This is all I have.”
A phone with nothing but a few essentials.
I scrubbed it before leaving Russia and scrubbed what was left once locked up in Ivan’s compound.
Just the essential apps, and a few contacts, every single one memorized.
I can walk out of here with nothing. Ivan.
Yuri. Masha. Nobody else mattered anymore. Nobody else would phone me.
“Are we done here?” I ask, wanting to leave for the peace and quiet of my room.
“Why don’t you play us something?” Luca suggests as he walks over to the kitchen.
In my mental and emotional state, I can’t even do it for myself, let alone for an audience. “I don’t feel like performing. I don’t feel like earning anything right now.”
“Jesus,” he mutters. “How about dinner? I won’t let my wife starve.”
There is a new tone of authority in his voice, telling me he won’t take my shit when it comes to food.
“Should be here in a minute,” Benedict says, and right on cue, there’s a knock on the door. He heads over and reappears with a stack of pizza boxes, calling out a thanks to whoever did the delivery.
Thanks indeed. The need to cook has been taken off my hands. Not that the expectation was ever there.
“Hungry, princess?” Luca asks, pulling a bottle from the wine fridge. “I decided not to subject you to my rubbery chicken breasts.”
Nice. They read my messages to Masha. And found nothing. Not as smart as they think they are, after all.
“Do you want some wine?” Luca asks as he rummages through a drawer for the corkscrew.
It’s early for dinner, but the day has been messy and I’m starving. “Yes, please.” As I walk to the kitchen, I’m burning to check my phone, but hold back.
We sit down in strained silence at the dinner table, Luca pouring chilled Pinot Grigio, Benedict opening the pizza boxes and reaching for some kitchen towel to serve as napkins.
We don’t bother with plates—men—and eat in silence.
The pizza is so delicious, I want to stuff my face.
Between Luca and Benedict, they seem to be inhaling slices, so there’s no need for conversation.
“She messaged you, by the way,” Luca says between a sip of wine and selecting another slice. “Masha.”
There’s no stopping me now. I unlock my phone where it’s been lying on the table like a time bomb and open Masha’s message chain.
Heard today that Varya might be fired. She got called in by the Maestro after rehearsal.
The pizza slice slips from my hand. Varya’s been called in? By the orchestra’s Maestro...which means she’s been taken for interrogation. She might talk…she might get killed. By the Bratva.
I’m worried who they’re going to boot next. They’ve been playing really badly lately, after the summer break.
I decipher her message: shit’s been going down over the summer, and people are missing in action.
My stomach turns, sour with the wine, bile rising. Masha. What if Varya talks? They’ll make her talk, and then they’ll come for Masha. She could always be next.
But they won’t touch her again. Surely not? She survived the first time. She’s one of the walking reminders amongst the women in the Bratva: do as you are told, or—
Those first messages were sent half an hour ago. Now another message pings:
She was such a great help with the new musician.
A break before she starts typing again.
Thought I’d let you know. Everything else is fine.
I lean back in my seat, fear pulsing through my veins, my heart beating so fast, a cold fever seeming to spread through me.
“Princess?”
“I’ve eaten too much, too fast,” I whisper. “The mushrooms…I— Sorry. Excuse me.” I get up and make a beeline for my room, before Luca could ask me the true meaning behind Masha’s coded message.
“She isn’t okay,” Benedict’s voice sounds in this horrid apartment as I rush toward my bedroom. “And it isn’t the pizza.”
“Nope, she hasn’t been okay for a long while.”
What does he even know about that? And they’re talking about me as if I’m not even in the room.
“Plan to do anything about it?”
“Wait for her? To come to me? Trust me?”
“We don’t have time.”
Neither do I.
I close the door and lean against it, blocking them out. I take deep breaths, unscrambling the shock of Masha’s news. I’m quivering, my legs about to cave. If they’ve taken Varya, chances are we’re really running out of time. If she talks—
I’ll have to tell Luca something, just broad strokes. Whatever it is, this can’t go on. I have to do something, say something. As I fling the door open, mind made up but no clue how to give just the right amount away, Luca is there, hand raised to knock.
We stare at each other in mutual shock at finding each other right there, the barrier between us suddenly gone.
“Can you wire Masha some money? Please. She needs cash.” To run, just like I need to run. To help Varya if she ever comes back alive. Enough money for both women to disappear.
He drops his hand, but there’s no hiding the concern in his eyes.
“Sure…except you’re going to have to tell me why.
There are sanctions. Everything is ring fenced, and the last thing we can afford is to draw the Feds’ attention.
Just like your brother—” He breaks off, steps closer, and steadies me with a hand on my shoulder.
“Why is Ivan not helping you, Milana? Why did he block your funds?”
I have to give him something, a nugget of the truth.
I take a deep breath. “It’s the coup. Chertnikov.
The whole fucked-up mess in Russia. He’s scared I’ll go there and get taken hostage, become leverage he can’t fight, but Masha—” I break off, swallowing my real fear for both women.
“Masha is in hiding. They might come for her, and then— And then, it will be on my head if they hurt her.”
“How much?” he asks, and I almost break down in relief when he doesn’t probe deeper.
“Ten thousand dollars, at least? That would get her moving. A hundred thousand would enable her to leave Russia.”
“Jesus,” he says, but nods. “Amounts like that won’t go under the radar, but we’ll figure out how to do it tonight.” He turns to look at his brother. “We can’t leave a trail, Ben.”
His brother just nods, and all I want is to collapse in Luca’s arms, so grateful he’s here, willing, and not asking a thousand questions.
I might be barred from doing anything, but at least he’ll do this for me.