13. Veronica
VERONICA
I wake up in a bed wide enough to lose someone in, its headboard is carved with the kind of ancient allegories that men like Orlov commission to remind themselves they have taste.
The sheets are silk, the color of unripe peaches, and the duvet settles over me with the soft, total weight of a burial.
The room—if you can call something this size a room—is a museum of white marble with veins of grey twisting through the stone like hairline fractures.
The walls are paneled in something expensive and lacquered, intercut with mirrors framed in so much gilding it looks like they robbed Versailles for parts.
There’s a chandelier overhead, the kind you see in palaces or expensive hotels and each crystal teardrop catches the morning light and throws it in a hundred directions, all of them blinding.
The windows are dressed in curtains the color of a dried scab, rich and heavy and decadent. I think they’re meant to evoke old money and opulence, but I only see blood that’s had time to crust over like the cut on my chin.
I sit up and take stock. My wrists are red and raw—they must have tied me up after I passed out.
They’re free now, but that means nothing because there’s nowhere to go.
The door is cracked open. The real lock is the pair of shadows stretching just outside the threshold—men with guns, the human equivalent of a deadbolt.
On a table beside the bed, a tray waits for my attention.
The silver has been polished to a mean gleam.
The fruit in a matching silver bowl is perfectly arranged, and a stack of toast sits nearby waiting to be slathered in the handmade jam that sits nearby.
A glass of orange juice so perfect it looks dyed is covered by a paper cap.
Hotel breakfast. Perfectly manufactured.
I think about eating. I think about how hungry I am. My body wants salt and fat and sugar, but my stomach is a fist. I want to dump it all onto the floor.
Instead, I leave it.
My ribs ache when I breathe, and my shoulder aches. The cut on my elbow is scabbed over, but the skin around it is red, angry. I touch it and wince. The ache is almost a comfort. Proof that what happened was real.
A faint chemical smell clings to my skin. Smoke from the safehouse, the stench of burning insulation and old wiring, it sticks to me in a way that makes me wonder if any amount of soap will be able to erase.
I’m alive. That’s the surprise.
I push back the duvet and swing my legs over the edge of the bed. My toes don’t touch, and I have to almost jump down. My breath hisses between my teeth as my bare feet hit the cold marble.
Whoever brought me here had undressed me, taken my clothes away, and put me to bed.
The nightgown is the same blushed peach color as the sheets, and the fabric feels expensive.
Painfully expensive. I have to push away the shiver that creeps over my shoulders at the thought of being undressed by strangers while I was passed out.
I cross the floor and lay my hand on the handle. It opens two inches before something fleshy and unyielding—a man’s shoulder—fills the gap.
I close the door again. I listen for the click of a latch. There isn’t one.
I lean against the door and lean my head back against the door.
My gaze slides around the room. Above the fireplace there is a large painting of a half-naked woman in a garden.
Her gauzy shift is as pale as her face, and her full lips are painted an obscene shade of red.
I wonder if the Orlov family is as obsessed with mythology as my father is.
She’s probably some minor goddess on her way to be violated by a vengeful god.
I want to sleep, to collapse back onto the bed and let the pillow drown me, but the adrenaline in my system won’t allow it.
Instead, I press the back of my head against the heavy wooden door and count backward from a hundred, the way I did as a child when my father would lock me in my room to “compose myself.”
He’s probably been on all the news programs already. He’s probably had his aides prepare a statement about his daughter’s tragic abduction, alongside an exhaustive list of all the sacrifices he’s made for Novarra over the years he’s been in power.
If I close my eyes, I can hear the cadence of his voice, the rehearsed sorrow.
I want to laugh, but the sound would come out hysterical.
A knock, three light taps, breaks the cycle of memory.
I stumble away from the door as it opens, and three women file into the room, each one more nondescript than the last: white uniforms, soft shoes, hair in tight buns.
They move with a practiced choreography that says this is not the first time they’ve washed and dressed a hostage.
One carries an armful of towels, one a tray of toiletries, the last a set of clothes draped over her arms—a dark blue dress and matching ballet flats.
They don’t greet me, they don’t ask permission, and they do not introduce themselves. They simply start—one moves into the bathroom and begins drawing a bath, while the other two lead me to the vanity and push me into the seat. So my hair can be brushed with indifferent strokes.
I let them. Fighting is a luxury for people who think they can win.
When the bath is ready, I’m escorted to the bathroom, which is at least as large as my childhood bedroom, which was not small. The tub is freestanding, a claw-footed structure that seems deep enough to drown in, set on a dais of white-and-grey marble.
The steam turns the air syrupy, and beads of condensation trace paths down the gold-leafed fixtures and the ornate, grotesque mirror above the sink.
I want to slip under the surface and let it fill my ears, my nose, the hollow place in my chest where my memories of Sergey and Mikhail live.
Instead, I drape my arms over the lip of the tub and stare at the ceiling, at the dizzy geometry of the chandelier overhead, glass drops sweating with the same fever as the rest of the room.
The bedroom door opens again. No knock this time.
Orlov enters in a suit so black and perfectly tailored that I wonder for an insane moment if he was sewn into it. He doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t even slow as he glides past the threshold and snaps his fingers once. The three women attending me hurry out of the room.
In less than a second, it’s just us: the monster in his own house, and the girl he bought for breeding.
Viktor Orlov is beautiful, but in the same way a razor blade is beautiful—clean, and cold; the edges honed to a perfect nothing.
His hair is dark, but silvering at the temples, and he wears his age like a bespoke accessory.
His hands are elegant and unscarred. If there’s anything soft about him, I can’t see it.
He lowers himself into a velvet armchair opposite the tub, crosses one leg over the other, and steeples his fingers under his chin as he looks at me. The silence lasts exactly as long as he wants it to.
“You didn’t touch your breakfast.” His voice is neutral, soft as the steam.
I raise my chin. “I’m not hungry.”
He smiles, the way a person smiles at a clever pet. “You will be. Hunger is unavoidable.”
He lets the words settle, then tilts his head. “Do you know what time it is?”
“No,” I say.
Graceful hands brush a speck of invisible dust off his pant leg. “Four hours until the ceremony.”
He doesn’t say wedding. He doesn’t say vows or bride or any of the words little girls are supposed to dream of. I wasn’t the kind of child who daydreamed about weddings, but even if I had been, this would be the opposite of every possible dream I might have had.
He regards me with a curious patience, like I’m a puzzle box he knows will eventually open.
“Your father sends his regards,” Orlov says.
“He wanted to come himself, but the press would notice his absence.” He smooths the line of his cuff, a small and precise gesture. “He sends his gratitude, as well.”
I stare at him. “For what?”
He seems almost surprised at the question. “For the opportunity,” he says. “For the arrangement.” He leans back, and the velvet chair sighs under his weight. “Your father understands what it means to be useful. He knows how to trade value.”
My skin is hot from the water, but I feel the cold sinking in beneath it. “What do you want from me?”
He considers, as if the answer could possibly be complicated. “I want a future, of course,” he says. “A dynasty. I want to plant my flag so deeply in Novarra that no one will ever dig it out. You are the best vessel to carry those plans to their conclusion.”
A vessel.
I look down at my knees, just visible beneath the glassy water. My hands are pale and pruned, nails trimmed short, knuckles chafed red from the chaos I’d been trapped in. I imagine the memory of Mikhail and Sergey, blood and fire and the taste of them still on my tongue.
I imagine them dead. I hope it was quick.
I look back at Orlov. “And when you have your dynasty?” I ask. “What happens to the vessel?”
He shrugs, an elegant lift of his shoulders. “The same thing that happens to any tool once it has served its purpose. You will be comfortable. Provided for. But no longer necessary.” He says it with cold matter-of-factness.
I nod once. It makes sense. It’s almost a relief to hear him say it out loud. No more rumors.
Orlov stands in a smooth movement. He approaches the tub and looks down at me. There’s no hunger in his gaze, only calculation. He examines me as though inspecting the raw material of a future asset, something to be molded, broken, or replaced.
His fingers stroke down my cheek and stop under my chin, tilting my face up toward him. “If you behave,” he says, “there will be no need for further unpleasantness.”
“If I don’t?”
His eyes linger on mine. “Then there will be.”
He turns away, but I’m not done. “What happened to the others?” I ask.
He stops. “Others?”
I keep my voice calm. “Your other wives. I know you’ve been married before.”
He is silent for a moment, then turns back. This time, there’s a flicker of real amusement around his mouth. “You’re smarter than your father suggested,” he says. “Or perhaps just more curious.”
“Curiosity is a survival instinct,” I say, and then wish I hadn’t. The words come out thin, like a door I meant to slam that only drifted shut.
He laughs, low and genuine. “That is an excellent answer, Veronica.” My name on his lips sounds like a threat. “You will find that curiosity here is best exercised with caution.”
He checks his watch. “You have one hour to prepare yourself. If you require anything, the staff will bring it. The ceremony is at six.” He glances at my wet, naked body as though taking inventory, and then leaves, the door shutting with a whisper.
The steam is thicker now, blurring the sharp lines of the world. I slide deeper into the water, my face just above the surface. I don’t cry. Crying is for before, for the girl who thought there was an exit in the safehouse, a route to anywhere but here.
I hear my father’s voice in my head: “Sacrifice is a privilege.”
I hear Sergey, laughing darkly. I hear Mikhail’s silence…
I sink below the water and close my eyes. The water closes over my face and the world goes quiet.
Down here, there’s nothing. No Orlov, no ceremony, no four hours. No silk sheets the color of something rotting slowly. Just the muffled pressure of water against my eardrums and the faint, faraway groan of the pipes inside the walls.
I count to ten. Then twenty.
Then I surface, gasping, and the world rushes back in—steam and chandelier light and the faint smell of something floral in the bath oil that someone scattered in without asking me. I press my wet hair back from my face and stare at the ceiling until my breathing evens out.
Four hours.
I don’t know how long I’ve been in the water when I hear it—the sharp crack of gunfire, muffled but unmistakable. Then shouting, the kind of urgent chaos that means something has gone very wrong.
I sit up straight, water sloshing over the edge of the tub. My heart hammers against my ribs as more shots ring out, closer now. The sound is different from the ambush on the highway—this is inside the house, echoing through marble halls.
The door bursts open and one of the uniformed women rushes in, her face white, her bun coming undone.
“Get out,” she hisses, grabbing a towel. “Now!”
I scramble from the tub, water streaming from my body as she thrusts the towel at me. More gunshots, louder, followed by the crash of something heavy falling.
“What’s happening?” I ask, but she’s already pulling me toward the bathroom door.
“Men broke in,” she says, her voice wild and hoarse. “Armed. It’s an attack?—”
My mind races. Not Orlov’s men. Which means?—