32. Milana
MILANA
“His name keeps on coming up, doesn’t it?” Luca says with a weary sigh. “This Chertnikov.”
I nod. “He is black mold.”
I’ve told him the worst from my perspective. But I haven’t told him the worst from Annushka’s. I’ll have to, because otherwise, there’s no point. He won’t get the urgency or the reason why I’m so desperate. The danger she’s in, and that only at a few months old.
“Is this all of it, princess? Or only the tip of the iceberg?”
“The tip.” The rest is worse. So much worse. “I don’t know where to start.”
“Okay.” He raises his brow slowly, bracing himself. “How about starting with telling me how the photos I scrubbed off the internet for Ivan fit into the picture? Blackmail?”
God, those photos. The biggest red flag on the planet, but I was unaware Dimitri took them. Imagine where we would be today if I’d caught on and seen him for who he was before everything turned into a dumpster fire.
“Yes. Dimitri took them. At the time, I didn’t know about any of his plans, that he was Chertnikov’s puppet.
But Ivan and my dad got wind of a coup planned against the Petrov Bratva.
” I swallow my pride for falling into Dimitri’s trap, having vowed a million times I will never be so blind and gullible again.
“We didn’t know Chertnikov was behind it because he wasn’t on anybody’s radar, not in that way.
We knew about him, as you do in Bratva circles, but not like this.
” My mind flashes back to those crazy weeks when Ivan insisted I leave.
He was grappling with so much, uncertain about everything, and made hasty decisions.
“Ivan smuggled me out of his compound and back to Russia because he thought I’d be safer there than here, hiding out with Masha who is the one person who has managed to evade the Bratva for years.
He didn’t want me caught in the crossfire here, or worse, be the last Petrov standing. ”
“And were you? Safe? You were pregnant. Alone.”
“I wasn’t alone. I had Masha.” She’ll be steadfast, my rock and anchor, until the last breath in her body.
“At the time, I wasn’t sure about the baby.
I only suspected I could be pregnant after Ivan forced me to leave.
Papa had suffered his strokes, and the Petrov Bratva’s position was suddenly very dire.
It was a crazy time. Ivan left me no choice, and I had to wait it out in Russia.
I never bothered to take a pregnancy test. I never told anybody. And Dimitri…”
I’d realized something was off, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. If only I could tell Ivan, but Dimitri and I were a secret, so I stayed quiet. Ivan would probably have killed him for messing around with me in the first place, being so much older than me.
“You never told him about the baby, did you?”
“Dimitri? No.” I shake my head. Thank God my sixth sense kicked in.
“He didn’t even know about Ivan’s plans to get me to Russia.
Thank God. I left, and it was a clean break; I never spoke to him again.
He didn’t know where I went. It was only once I realized Dimitri messed with my contraception, swapping my pills for fake ones, that his betrayal started to sink in.
” I shudder even now as I recall how that reality hit me, but it was only the start.
I never thought his greatest betrayal would be as the undercover coup leader.
“I felt so stupid to have trusted him, but contraception was his idea in the first place. In fact, he insisted on it. Now I know why.”
I quiver at how close a call it had all been, and Luca reaches for me and squeezes my arm. I let him, because the floodgates are open now and I need his comfort.
“Never again,” I whisper, not bothering to hide the agony in my voice. “Never again will a man manipulate my body so he can have a baby to hold as collateral over my head.”
He pulls away, and I immediately miss his warm touch. Always so gentle. Even now, so caring.
“I totally get your trust issues,” he says, shifting in his seat.
Yes, I was a stupid, naive, and idiotic woman for trusting a man.
Things unfolded here over months while I sat in Russia, far away and helpless.
Time slowed down and I could replay everything that happened over the four months we were together.
I saw how I got played, and my betrayal of Ivan, of Papa, surfaced soft and slippery like algae, ruining the whole pond.
And then those photos dropped.
I drag in a haggard breath at the memory. At adding to Ivan’s load. At my situation that I could control only by keeping quiet about being pregnant.
“Here’s the thing, Luca,” I say, a tremor in my voice. “I couldn’t tell him about the baby, because in the normal world, nobody would ever use a baby as collateral, but in our world, a child can become a weapon in the hands of the wrong men.”
And Dimitri’s hands were definitely the wrong ones. He might have fathered her, but I will never let him touch her pure soul with his filthy, murderous paws.
Luca nods, pensive, but when he looks at me again, his eyes have taken on a dark sheen, as if he is starting to get the picture. But I’ve only shown him glimpses.
“Tell me. You better tell me everything, princess.”
For all that he shows constraint in his body, he has read between the lines, showing me more of the man I’ve married—intuitive, shrewd, and in tune with the realities of living in a criminal ring.
Anybody would be a fool to underestimate him, especially with how he controls all the emotions that must be firing through him right now. He is used to containing himself.
“I am trying to,” I breathe out, a hand on my heart. “It’s hard, I just need time.”
He leans in, squeezes me tight, and it feels right, opening up to him like this.
Luca might be many things—stranger, doppelg?nger, Mafia, spy—but he has shown me he is safe.
He feels safe, and I haven’t felt safe in months.
Even with Ivan, I was on guard, trying to protect my brother from my secrets and their long tail of repercussions.
“Dimitri thought he could blackmail me with those photos into coming back, not knowing where I was hiding. Our affair started in Russia, where we met by chance, though in retrospect, I could see there was nothing accidental about it. When I came back to the States, he was at the compound, in the barracks, and we picked up where we left off in Russia, albeit in secret. But the photos? Those he took in Russia.” I bite my lip, remembering the freedom I used to have.
How we’d met up in hotels as Dimitri had secrets of his own.
I was one of them. “So he tried via Ivan to get to me. I don’t know at which point Ivan’s trust in Dimitri started to waver; it could have been then, who knows.
But it was just a matter of time. Once I left for Russia, I had no idea what happened on this side. ”
I blow out a deep sigh, gripping my knees.
I was trying hard not to lose my mind in Russia.
Plagued by uncertainty, my foolishness, Papa’s illness, my lies by omission to Ivan.
Would he have ever forgiven me if he found out?
He’d have wanted to kill Dimitri all over again and I’d gladly have looked on.
“Where did you go?” Luca asks then, breaking into my thoughts. “How did you live?”
“You know how I lived,” I say softly, reaching for him. If someone would understand, it would be this man, who seems to have lived his whole life in his brother’s shadow. “I was in hiding. With Masha.”
“What do you mean, in hiding?” His tone has gone cold, and his hands have curled into fists on his thighs.
“I slipped into her apartment as soon as I arrived—” I break off, recalling the dead cold of night, the thick coat with the fur-rimmed hood that hid my face.
The scarf I’d wound around my mouth to make sure I was as incognito as I could get.
“I didn’t leave that apartment for eleven months. I couldn’t risk it.”
I was pregnant, scared, and the news from Ivan over the months just made it clearer: nobody could know.
“You locked yourself up for eleven months?” Luca drops back onto the bed and cups his hands to his face. “Jesus.”
I let him be, and for a good minute, he just breathes into his hands. Then he sits up again, and I can see it in his eyes. Incredulity. How can someone live like this? But I did. I had to.
“You know what it’s like. This”—I wave at his room, at the luxury I’ve been plunged into, the vast living spaces, the piano, the views— “is so easy in comparison. Ivan’s place, our childhood home, is Eden compared to Masha’s small apartment.”
I chuckle, but it’s to ward off tears. I had something to live for, something to keep safe. For all that this baby is Dimitri’s child, she’s also mine. She’s firstly mine, and I wanted her.
“To think Masha tolerated me there for so long. With that upright piano, playing constantly just to kill time, the baby growing, moving, first just a flutter. Then more. Finally kicking. Loving certain pieces so much it was as if she was trying to dance.” I sob, the emotions bursting out of me.
“As if she was dancing for joy in my belly.”
I clutch my hands over my empty womb, wishing Annushka was still inside me, safe, just the two of us together. Now she’s a secret tossed into a deep lake and the ripples are finally showing up on shore.
“Oh, fuck, princess,” Luca groans as he pulls me to his chest. “This is why you can’t stand playing that piano.”
I nod, trying to breathe, suddenly unleashing all the heartache I’ve bottled up. A requiem is the only thing I’ve managed to play ever since.