34. Artem
Artem
Pyotr is waiting outside the room when I exit.
He watches me lock the door, silent but reproachful.
I walk past him toward the study and he follows, and we don't speak until the door is closed behind us. There are too many guards in the house, and I don't fully trust them.
"How is she?" he asks, as I take a seat.
"Angry."
"Of course she's angry. You drugged her and locked her up."
"She wore a wire into my house, and you were the one who gave me the needle. She's lucky I didn't put a bullet in her head."
If she were anyone else, she would be dead.
But she's my wife, and she's also na?ve. She can't see that she is being used, and while I know I'm not exactly the best person to deliver that particular message, I wish she'd listen — for once.
Pyotr moves to the window, hands in his pockets, looking out at the dark garden. "A woman locked in a room with no phone and no contact is a liability, not an asset. She has people who will notice when she doesn't reach out, or when she disappears."
"I'm aware."
"The dancers. The Nero second." He turns. "How long before one of them makes noise?"
"She's my wife, and I can decide what to do with her."
His brow raises at my words, and I know what he's thinking. I can't stop thinking it as well.
"She's becoming a liability, Artem."
"Are you suggesting I take option number two?" Silence stretches between us, and I sigh. There's more to this than Pyotr understands.
"She could be pregnant."
Pyotr is quiet for a moment. "I understand that you two have been intimate?—"
"You don't understand a damn thing, and I'm not interested in getting into it. I'm not getting rid of my wife. Not now."
He exhales through his nose, assessing me, trying to see if he can speak freely.
Apparently, he chooses to try.
"You need to cut your losses." He says it the way he says things he knows I won't want to hear — directly, without softening it, because he's long since learned that softening things with me is a waste of both our time.
"Viktor is dead. The business is transitioning.
What you came here to do is done. Whatever this is now—" He gestures vaguely at the door, at the locked room down the hall, at the entirety of the situation. "This isn't the plan."
"This was always the plan."
He shakes his head. "A child was not part of this. You don't need her to take over the organization. No one would blame you considering?—"
"She could be carrying my child," I say again. "And while I'm a monster, I'm not going to end the life of my child."
He looks at me for a long time. "She is going to end up ruining you."
"You give me too little credit."
"Perhaps, but this is already starting to spin out of your control. Nadia?—"
"Is a constant problem, and she'll remain that way. She was stupid to go to Katya. She played her hand, and she lost."
I hear how it sounds. Like an excuse.
"Keep it quiet," I tell him. "The room, the wire, all of it. Nobody outside this house can know."
"The FBI knows."
"If they had anything, they would have been swarming us."
He looks at me for a long moment. Then he nods, once, and picks up his coat. "Six weeks."
"Six."
I give her a day.
One full day in a locked room. It's not cruelty. I'm still ensuring that she has three meals a day, clothes, and even books.
Apparently, she is on a hunger strike, which is worrying the maid I've put in charge of her meals.
I roll my eyes. I'd hoped to give her space to take a breath and see reason. Instead I am here with a plate of food trying to convince her to eat.
"I hate you," she says, as I step inside.
I try not to roll my eyes at her mantra, but it is growing tiresome.
"And here I've brought you chocolate." She sneers at me and makes no move toward the plate I set on the desk. "You need to eat. I've brought your favorites."
"Screw you."
I roll my eyes and take a seat.
She stares at me. The fury is there but underneath I can see exhaustion. I try not to let the sight of it affect me. She's so different from the woman I met months ago.
"Are you going to keep me locked in here forever?" Her voice is soft.
"No."
"Just until you can confirm if I'm pregnant or not."
"Yes."
"And then?"
"You need to eat. While it's fine if you'd like to die, I'd rather my child not."
She makes a sound that has nothing warm in it. "You're unbelievable."
I lean forward, elbows on my knees. "I'm going to tell you about Irina."
The room goes still. She holds her breath. Her hazel eyes are wide.
"If you eat."
Her eyes narrow, but she takes the tray and places it on the bed.
I watch as she takes a bite of the cookie I brought her, closing her eyes slightly.
She chews slowly before swallowing, and it's like the dam has broken — she starts to eat with controlled gusto.
She was hungry, despite all her protestations to the contrary.
"You said I didn't get to know about her."
"I changed my mind."
"Why?"
"Because if you are going to do things like run to the FBI, you should have all the answers. That way you can understand how dangerous your position is."
She chews quietly, then swallows. "Tell me."
So I do.
"Irina and I were born into great wealth. My great-grandfather was one of the few aristocrats who managed to change sides and keep his money during the Revolution." I smile. "And my grandfather grew that wealth by lending favors."
I shake my head as I consider what befell the fortune in just one generation. "Unfortunately, my father was good at ending up owing people."
"Like Viktor?"
"Yes, like Viktor." I take a breath, wishing I'd thought to bring alcohol.
I've never told this story in full, for a reason.
"He owed Viktor several favors, and even more to some of the oligarchs, who sold those secrets to Viktor.
I didn't realize how bad it was. At that time I'd left Moscow, joined the service?—"
"Intelligence?"
"Not at first," I tell her, not expanding further. "When I came back, I learned Irina, my younger sister, was being married off to Alexei Morozov. And if you knew Alexei, which you did, you'd know how bad that was."
Irina had screamed and cried in fear when she learned who her husband would be. Alexei's reputation was so bad it had made its way all the way to Russia.
"She didn't want to marry him?"
"Irina wanted to join a convent."
Her brows shoot up.
"Or become a teacher." I smile as I think about my sister. "She was a dreamer, and she dreamed of getting away from our father more than anything. The last thing she wanted was to be married to a psychopath who was well-known to enjoy dismemberment."
Katya inhales sharply. "Keep eating," I order.
She rolls her eyes but listens and pops a piece of bread and butter into her mouth.
"I tried to convince Viktor to take something else from my father, but the lieutenants were getting worried about Alexei's unpredictability. Viktor didn't want to be perceived as weak, as having made a bad choice when he elevated him, and he thought a wife would tame him. I suggested you?—"
Katya's hazel eyes go wide. She wanted honesty, and she's going to get it. "After all, why should my sister be sacrificed for the greatness of an organization that our family had nothing to do with."
"I would have been a teenager. A child."
"It wasn't my problem. I was there to save my sister."
She swallows. "That's disgusting."
"More than Viktor doing the same thing to my sister? Irina was only a few years older than you and much more sheltered."
"You are all horrid."
"I won't argue against that."
"What did my grandfather think of your suggestion?"
"He didn't take kindly to it. I think he became more set on Irina because of it."
"Is that why you targeted me? Because Viktor was an ass?"
"No. I'm not quite that petty."
She snorts.
"Irina went through with it, and I let it go. The family was on the line, and she begged me afterward to just drop it. I think she was scared of what Alexei would do."
"So you listened to her?" Her brows knit together in confusion.
"No." There's a thick coat of guilt on my tongue, and it tastes acrid.
"I came to New York a year into her marriage.
My father told me she was pregnant. When I arrived, she had been in bed for three days.
I wouldn't leave until I saw her—" I inhale sharply.
I've seen and done terrible things in my life, but I'll never forget seeing my sister that last time.
"I forced my way into her room. She was chained to the bed, bleeding terribly.
" Irina's large blue eyes looking up at me, disassociated, will haunt me until I die.
The second set I'll see will be Katya's — the look on her face the night I pulled out the sheets from our first time.
"Alexei had beaten her so badly she miscarried. That knowledge broke her. She tried to slit her wrists with a broken teacup. Instead of getting her help, he locked her in her room, chained her to the bed, and let her rot."
Katya pushes her croissant away. I expect her to look at me with wide, sad eyes. Instead I see accusation.
"It's not the same," I say, before she can.
"Because you haven't physically beaten me?"
"Because I wouldn't."
She laughs. Full body, nothing warm in it. She's mocking me. "So Irina was in a bad marriage and killed herself? And you, what? Decided to try your hand at it?"
"I decided to get revenge. First on my father. Then on your grandfather."
There's a beat. I can see the wheels turning in her head. "Did you…" She shakes her head, unable to bring herself to say the words.
"I heard Irina killed herself because Alexei didn't love her." The words come out in a rush, as though she isn't able to stop them. Her cheeks pinken slightly.
She's not comfortable victim blaming, and yet?—
"Did Nadia tell you that?"
My voice stays level. I don't perform grief. There's no performance left in me tonight.
"What did she say? That my father killed her family? That I gave the order?"
A small movement in her jaw. Confirmation. "Not exactly. She said you killed them because they were traitors."
"Nadia has a bone to pick with me."
"Because you hurt her family."
"Her parents died of natural causes."
Her eyes go wide. "She said?—"
"She lied. She blames me for something terrible that happened to her sister."
Katya waits, so I continue.
"Her family worked for my father. Her sister—" I pause.
Not for effect. Because the next part requires the specific care of a fact that has been misshapen by grief into something larger than it was.
"Her sister was infatuated with my father.
My mother died when we were young, and Viktoria and Nadia's father was… well…he was soft."
"Soft?" she asks.
"Poor. Kind. When Viktoria looked at my father, she saw a real man."
"And your father?"
"Was more interested in gambling money away than young women. He told her to find someone else — harshly and publicly." I hold Katya's gaze. "She came to my bed, and I—" I wince.
"You slept with her?"
"I did. I was a stupid boy, and I didn't realize how she would handle my rejection afterward."
"It was bad?"
"They found her three weeks later. She'd taken her own life, though Nadia doesn't agree. She believes that I killed her, or my father did, to hide an affair."
Katya is very still. "Why does she believe that?"
"Nadia was a child. She needed someone to blame.
My father was a reasonable choice — he was not a good man, and the things she accused him of were consistent with the things he actually did.
I won't defend him." I pause. "But he didn't kill her sister.
And I was a stupid kid who didn't bother thinking of the consequences. "
The silence stretches.
"She's been following you for years," Katya says. Not quite a question.
"Yes."
"Because she blames your family."
"Yes."
"And Alexei. She was embedded in his organization?—"
"To get to me. Yes. She used Irina to get close to Alexei to build a case against me — for what, I have no idea.
Before Irina, I never did anything that was…
illegal." On paper, anyway. "She was there when Irina died, Katya.
She was in the building. She could have helped her.
She knew what was happening. And yet, she didn't."
The words sit in the room.
I watch her absorb them. I watch her turn them over the way she turns everything over — carefully, with the precision of a woman who has learned that the wrong conclusion is more dangerous than no conclusion at all.
She's not going to believe me because I said it.
She's going to sit with it and test it against everything else she knows and arrive at her own judgment.
I know this about her.
It's one of the things I?—
I stand.
"I'm not asking you to forgive me," I say. "I'm not asking you for anything right now. I'm telling you the truth because you deserve it. What you do with it is yours."
I move to the door.
"Artem."
I stop. Don't turn around.
"Why did you really keep Viktor buried here?" Her voice is quiet. "You could have sent him back to Moscow. It would have been easier for the transition. The old guard would have preferred it."
I stand there for a moment with my hand on the door frame.
"Because Moscow is dangerous for you, and despite what you might think of me, I don't enjoy putting you in danger."
I leave before she can say anything.
I lock the door.
I stand in the hallway for a long time, listening to nothing, and I think about a girl who wanted to be a nun, and a woman locked in a room thirty feet away who deserves better than everything I've given her, and the six weeks I've just bought myself to figure out if there's any version of this that ends with her choosing to stay.
I don't know.