Milana
We’re back on the road, my chest tight. Luca is buckled up beside me and pulling two semi-automatics from the brown envelope. They look like the one I fired back in Boston, heavy and menacing. Now he holds a small phone in his hand, also from the envelope.
“What’s that?”
“A satellite phone, one authorized by the Russians. You can’t just waltz into this country with any old shit and think it’s going to work; they block your signals.
Benedict is connected to us via a string of other apps that can’t be traced, or so he says.
Let me send him a message to see if it works. ”
We continue in silence as he connects with Benedict.
It’s almost eight o’clock. Annushka could be in bed.
I haven’t contacted Masha yet, but she knows we have a ‘rehearsal tonight at eight.’ Some of our arrangements have been clear, some hazy.
Ever since we left Boston on this rescue mission, my messages to her have been coming from my old phone, now in Benedict’s hands.
We did everything we could to make sure if someone is tracking me, they won’t suspect the status quo has changed. Nobody knows I’m here.
Thank God.
“There,” Luca says, shooting me a smile. “Now he can track us. We won’t get lost.” He puts the phone in the center console between us. “Don’t lose that, okay? Keep it in your coat pocket or slip it in the baby bag as soon as you can.”
“Okay.” I’m not planning to get lost or for anything to go wrong tonight.
We drive into one of the older neighborhoods in Saint Petersburg with its classic architecture, and when we’re a few blocks away, I shoot Luca a look and a nod. “Benedict can let her know we’re almost here.”
“Drive past first. Let’s check out the lay of the land.”
“Okay.”
One more delay, but I get why he is cautious. My arms ache with an emptiness that’s haunted me for months, with a yearning I can’t describe. I just want to hold her, hug her to my heart. Run and hide in that Rapunzel tower where nobody can find her, hurt her, use her.
Luca messages Benedict, who in turn will send Masha the instruction to open for us.
“We’re in her road now,” I say as I turn into the empty street. The first real cold of winter keeps people indoors. It’s dark and miserable with mist floating in from the river. I do not relish going out in weather like this with my baby.
“Is that the one van?” Luca asks as we drive past a black van that doesn’t really fit in the setting unfolding before us.
“Yes.” I don’t look, having spotted it already. Closer to the entrance, there is a similar van, this one white but covered in dirt.
“They’ve been observing her since you left?”
“Yes, pulled up days after I left. First the white one, then the other one stationed here.”
“Hmm. Listening in on her apartment and conversations. They’ll definitely know she’s had a baby.”
“That secret is out now. Irrespective of what Varya told them.”
They’ve tapped into her apartment, through the roof or neighboring apartments, who knows how.
It just takes a fake plumber to set this in motion, and Masha chattering away to Zoe in baby talk, plus all the crying going on is a dead giveaway.
I swallow at the lump in my throat. Masha has played this game for so long, keeping these devils at our door at arm’s length by pure will and fortitude.
“The question is who do they believe fathered the baby?” I say. “And that’s the cursed center of this whole mess.”
“Does Masha have a partner, a boyfr—?”
“No,” I say, cutting him off, impatient. How long is it going to take for Benedict to reach Masha and for Masha’s response to reach us? “Since her abortion and fallout with the Bratva, she’s been an outcast. Plus…you’ll see why. Whatever you do, don’t stare at her, she hates that.”
In fact, Masha has melted into the background, her whole life seemingly evaporating like water in the summer’s heat. All I have left of my best friend is a shell. A soul trapped in a body she no longer wants.
He turns in his seat to stare at me, upping the tension in the car.
“What aren’t you telling me, Milana?” he asks, his hand on my arm. “You better tell me everything you left out, or else…”
Or else what? I pull off two blocks away from Masha’s apartment and turn off the car. Tremors are running through me, the moment too big.
Dimitri. Annushka. Masha. Chertnikov.
I’m here.
I got what I wanted.
I’m back in Russia. I’ve used my husband in my own despicable way, but when I first formulated this plan, I had no idea what type of man I’d be getting married to. Turns out Luca is the best of men. Easy to trust. Happy to shoulder my burdens and laser-focused on making them go away.
Luca.
The man who held me so tenderly this morning as he caressed my skin.
A heavenly way to wake up, like a dream but it’s real.
He’s my safe haven, and I want to be his—this man who nobody has ever seemed to love for him alone.
He doesn’t allow himself anything, just living for what he needs to do as his brother’s doppelg?nger.
He doesn’t trust himself to be loved for who he is.
Why else would he shatter us apart like he did this morning, with cruel words after what we shared?
Now his thumb caresses my wrist, his touch as gentle as always. I shouldn’t, but I can’t stop comparing Luca with Dimitri. Dimitri with Luca. How the one spun a spider’s web from the outside in, slowly circling around us until we were caught in his web, unaware he was trapping us along the way.
And then there is Luca, not wanting to trap me in any way, instead searching for a way to get Annushka out of Russia, to get us both to freedom.
What else would this man do for me?
Offer his life on a platter.
“Milana.” His urgent tone slices through my jumbled thoughts. “If we’re walking into a trap—”
“No. It’s just Masha. The Baykovs were against everything Chertnikov did. Her parents tried to dismantle his power and were killed for it. Chertnikov took over their operations, forcing Masha into his fold.”
And now, her plans are to end things once and for all. It’s time to tell him everything, so he finally knows what we are really stepping into. How close to the bone we are cutting this operation with Chertnikov and his henchmen.
“Forcing her? How?”
I suppress a sigh. Luca comes from a family with only sons, and it shows.
The Scaleras are only now catching on to what it means to have women around.
“There’s a ninety-nine-percent chance Chertnikov thinks Dimitri fathered this child with Masha.
Dimitri was here in Russia for a few weeks nine months before her birth.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Chertnikov told him to find her and make her submit to a Chertnikov again. ”
“Make her submit to a Chertnikov? Again? What the fuck? Why?”
“As a test. For one, it’s the way of their world. Control. Submission. Making examples of people. Dimitri had to prove himself worthy, as a son. Worthy of inheriting the Chertnikov legacy. I mean, if you think about it, as an illegitimate child, you’d be obsessed with proving you were worthy.”
“I get that,” Luca says. “The coup—"
“Yes. In business, he’d prove himself by arranging a coup to take over the Petrov Bratva.
” I swallow, the next part a stone in my stomach.
“As for the family honor…what better way to restore it than to father a child with the woman who shunned the family? A child fathered by a Chertnikov would cement their hold on everything Baykov. It’s a tale as old as time. ”
He leans back, and his cold fingers slip from my wrist. “What aren’t you telling me? What do you mean by shunned the family?” he bites out.
My hands slide down the steering wheel, where I’ve been gripping it to death. My fingers are stiff with cold, but it isn’t from the outside. It’s from this horror I have to share.
With a last deep inhale, I brace myself.
“The one she refused? The one who said he’d change her mind for her?
It was Pyotr Chertnikov. His eldest son.
When she refused him, even worse, got an abortion when she got pregnant by rape, everything went into this tailspin.
” I check my tears, my teeth cutting into my bottom lip.
“The writing was on the wall for her. She was hiding, but they found her, beat her up to the point where they knew she would just survive. As a final blessing, they doused her with acid.”
Luca sinks into his seat, cupping his hands to his mouth. He murmurs something, the words making no sense, until he turns to me. “And these are the people we’re dealing with?”
“I know I should have told you before, but you wouldn’t let me go, you wouldn’t let me come to Russia alone—”
“Damn fucking right,” he says, anger tightening his jaw, and I want to shrink away, knowing he deserves to be angry. “You don’t go into war without knowing everything you can about the enemy.”
“I know.” I take a shaky breath, shoot him a glance. “But I was so scared you might call the whole thing off if you knew exactly what sort of people we’re dealing with.”
His eyes soften then, and he blows out a breath. “Princess, if you’d told me, I would have been even more determined that Chertnikov needs to be wiped off the face of the planet.” His expression darkens again. “If that happened to you—"
“I was so lucky. I’m the one who got away,” I whisper, the ache in my heart ripping up my throat.
There’s no sugarcoating this now. “Once upon a time, we were just two girls, best friends, swimming in a lake in the summer. Looking back, my future could have been a carbon copy of Masha’s if it weren’t for Papa’s obsession with getting us out of Russia, away from this world where obsession over power leads to this… this mess.”
“Fuck. If I’d known…” He shakes his head, but this isn’t real for him yet. Only once he’s seen Masha, will he truly understand the danger and depravity we’re facing.
“If you’d known, then what? You’d bomb the vans? Shoot everything to bits? You can’t, Luca. Annush—Zoe, Masha, they will be caught in the crossfire.”
I lean back, suddenly exhausted. I wish we had a night at a hotel to rest, but I don’t dare lose any more time here in grabbing my daughter and getting the hell out of Russia.
The satellite phone blinks with a message. Luca picks it up and reads the small screen. “She’s ready.”
“Are you ready?” I ask, reaching for the ignition button again, knowing I’ve put all my faith in a woman Luca still doesn’t trust. I’ve given him no choice.
“Yes. I’m ready to kill some Russians.”
“Don’t be so eager. If everything goes right, we’ll walk out of here without a hair out of place.”
“Ah, princess. We’re here to ruffle some feathers, and you know it. With what I know now, I don’t care if I watch them boil alive.” He sends a message on his phone. “The party’s starting, and this time around, there are going to be fireworks.”