Chapter 10
ANYA
When Viktor leaves, I take the sandwich. It doesn’t matter now. There’s no point in a hunger strike or making Viktor pay. Mikhail is going to kill everyone in his path until he gets to me. Once he finds me…
No. I won’t allow myself to go back there. I’ve spent enough time enduring his torture in real time. I don’t need to revisit in my mind.
Not that that stops the dreams. The first night after our conversation, I only wake up in a cold sweat. My heart is pounding and I have to remind myself that I’m not in Mikhail’s mansion. I’m in a safehouse somewhere in Brooklyn. He’s closing in, but he doesn’t have me yet.
The second night, I’m woken up by a guard because I’m screaming in my sleep. I tell him it’s fine. It’s just a nightmare. I ask him to promise not to tell Viktor about this. He’s a young man, and he still has kind eyes. This job hasn’t beaten the humanity out of him yet. He promises not to tell.
Another week goes by, and the pattern becomes the same. Every night, the guard wakes me up screaming. He starts anticipating it. He brings me a warm glass of milk or a bottle of water to help calm me down. He brings me a night light. He doesn’t tell Viktor.
I know he doesn’t, because Viktor never asks about my new sleep terrors. I don’t know how he sleeps through them, but I don’t worry about the logistics. He’s in the dark, and my guard, Andrei, keeps me safe at night. He’s the only person in this damn house I’m starting to trust at all.
After the second week, I ask Andrei to sneak me caffeine supplements.
He isn’t sure about it. He doesn’t want to get in trouble, which is understandable.
I promise him it’ll be our secret, though.
I’m too afraid to sleep. He seems to understand that, at least, and starts sneaking me caffeine pills at night.
I stay awake. I pace. I devour books until my eyes are too heavy to stay open. The second I start to drift off, though, the caffeine zaps me awake. That works for about three days until I feel so off the rails that even Viktor starts to notice.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asks one day over breakfast. “You seem even more on edge than usual.”
“I’m fine,” I spit back, although I’m starting to see things that aren’t there.
I have the most awful hallucination when I go up to my room. I hear a lock slide into place and forget where I am. The sound is so real and so familiar, it makes me break out into tears.
“Please,” I say, banging on the door. “Please don’t leave me in here.”
I pull on the handle, and the door easily opens. It’s not locked. That wasn’t real. The daytime guard stares at me with some concern before I slam the door in his face.
Staying up is clearly not working. I ask Andrei to bring me sleeping pills. Maybe they’ll help me to get through the night without any dreams.
I’d agreed to marry Mikhail under some duress. Papa said it was a strategic alliance. He said it would be good for both of our families, and would bring us protection that we couldn’t dream of.
Ultimately, though, it was my mother who convinced me to go through with it.
“You have to understand, my darling, that your father is going to leverage marriage to you as a reward one way or another,” she told me the night I returned from the apartment. “If you don’t marry Mikhail now, you may end up with someone much worse.”
I couldn’t imagine anyone worse. I didn’t think such a person even existed.
But I knew she was right. There were surely worse men.
Older men, creepier men, men who weren’t even the slightest bit attractive.
I understood then that, no matter what, my father controlled my future.
Choosing Mikhail gave me, at least, some semblance of autonomy.
Father was thrilled when I finally agreed. Then, he had all my things packed up and shipped to Mikhail’s mansion. I thought I would have more time. I thought I wouldn’t have to live with him until after the wedding.
“You have to get to know the man,” he told me. “This is the best thing for you.”
It didn’t feel like the best thing. I wanted more time to get used to the idea. I wanted more time to mentally prepare myself.
Mikhail came to collect me like I was a prize. He smiled at me, told me he was happy I’d come to my senses, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. I should’ve realized then that he was a psychopath. I should have called it off right then and there. I should have listened to my gut.
His house became my personal hell. When we arrived, he showed me to the room that would be mine.
I was grateful, at least, that he didn’t immediately move me into his room.
When I went inside, though, none of my things were there.
I knew my father had sent them all over, but the closet was full of new clothes.
“Where are my things?” I asked, turning on him.
“You have new things now,” was his simple answer.
It unsettled me, but I rationalized it. I was his fiancé now. It was a new era of my life, so it made sense that he would want me to have new clothes. I would have to learn how to dress like a pakhan’s wife now, not a pakhan’s daughter.
My first morning, a woman came to collect me at five in the morning. The sun wasn’t even up yet, but she told me Mikhail wanted to keep me on a strict schedule. She wouldn’t share the schedule with me, though. She told me that she would take care of bringing me wherever I needed to go.
First, she brought me down to the dining room, where there was a plate with a lone sliced grapefruit waiting for me. Next to it was a protein shake. I looked at the woman in surprise.
“What is this?” I asked her. “Surely he doesn’t think he can tell me what to eat.”
“Mr. Grinkov expects you to maintain a strict diet,” she said robotically, like she was reading off a cue card. “He wants you to lose at least fifteen pounds by the wedding.”
“Excuse me?” I shouted at her. “That’s not going to happen.”
I was so offended, I couldn’t control my rage. One thing I’d never worried about was my body. I knew I looked good. I was curvy in exactly the right places, and strong. My weight was perfect as it was. I saw through this all as just an attempt to control me, and I raged against it.
“Mr. Grinkov has instructed me to tell you that if you refuse to eat the meals that are made for you, no other food will be provided.”
I stared at this small woman with so much malice. She was just an employee, I was sure, but she spoke to me like she ruled me.
Instead, I went into the kitchen and wrenched open the refrigerator. It was empty. I turned to the cabinets, opening each one. They were also devoid of any food, though there were plenty of cups, plates, and silverware.
“No,” I said, turning on her. “This isn’t happening.”
“You have twenty minutes to eat, then you’re due in the gym to work out with a personal trainer.”
“I’m not doing that,” I said firmly.
“This will go much better for you if you simply agree,” she said coldly.
I found out soon what she meant by that. Every time I refused to do something or talked back to Mikhail, I was dragged back to my room and the door was locked from the outside. This went on for weeks. He was trying to break my spirit, to make me comply to him.
“Ms. Malenkova,” a voice says, pulling me out of my memories.
I look up to see sweet Andrei standing there, with a bottle of water in his hand.
“I brought you some water,” he says with a wink.
As he hands me the bottle, a pill falls into my hand. It’s different than the caffeine pills, so I know he’s gotten me what I’ve asked for.
“I hope you sleep well tonight. If you need me, I’m right outside this door.”
I nod and shut the door, taking the pill as soon as the door is closed. I feel my body start to relax and I collapse on top of the bed. Finally, I have a dreamless sleep. It’s glorious. I sleep for sixteen hours, which apparently worries Viktor. Good. Let him worry.
Another week slips by without much incident. Life in the safehouse becomes incredibly boring and mundane, but at least the nightmares are gone. Viktor finally gives up trying to speak to me after I continue to shut him out. At least he’s a fast learner.
Andrei brings me a sleeping pill every night, though he never brings me more than one. He says he’s not going to let me accidentally overdose. He’s willing to help me, but not enough to lose his job.
On week four, I start to feel sick. I think it’s just the stress that I’m not experiencing in my nightmares. The idea of being dragged back to Mikhail terrifies me more than anything else possibly could, though I’ll never let Viktor know that.
I wake up throwing up for several mornings. I think almost nothing of it until Andrei wishes me a happy Valentine’s Day. Then, I realize that I’ve been here over a month and haven’t gotten my period. Shit. Shit, shit, shit!
I try to calm myself down. I’ve been under a massive amount of stress, after all. It could be that and nothing else. There’s probably nothing to worry about. Besides my psychotic fiancé finding me and forcing me to marry him.
Now isn’t a good time for uncertainty, though. I need a plan, and I think Andrei just might be my only chance at finding out the truth. I write out a very detailed list for him and slip it to him when he comes on the night shift.
“I need you to get something that isn’t on the list, though,” I tell him quietly. “There can’t be any record that you got it for me.”
He nods patiently and manages not to look too shocked when I tell him exactly what I need and exactly where to find it. I skip my sleeping pill that night, which leaves me feeling like shit the next day. I idle uselessly around the house until Andrei finally brings me everything I asked for.
I tell Viktor that I asked for him to bring me some things, just so he won’t be suspicious if he sees Andrei bring me the bag on camera. Viktor just nods and says he’s glad I trust someone in the house. That’s one landmine I don’t have to worry about stepping over.
When Andrei finally brings me the pregnancy test, I rush to the bathroom to take it. I keep it concealed among the box of tampons and pain reliever I also asked Andrei to buy. Men get so squeamish around that stuff, it’s almost too easy.
I pee on the stick and wait the necessary three minutes, all while praying that the test comes back negative. It doesn’t. Of course it fucking doesn’t.
I wrap the test in a tampon wrapper and throw it away. None of the men will go anywhere near it, which is some comfort at least. Maybe the only comfort. Because I can’t be pregnant. I can’t have Viktor’s baby.
I go back to my room and stare at the ceiling for a long time, considering my options. I can’t be pregnant. I can’t bring a baby into this fucked-up world. A baby is a huge vulnerability, and I can’t afford any vulnerability in my life right now.