Chapter 17
Ekaterina
I’m living in a beautiful dream.
Every morning I wake up pressed against his warm body, and at night, he conquers me with that unstoppable hunger.
We have breakfast together, and at dinner, he always tries to make it back on time, so I don’t have to eat alone. Unless I have plans with Oksana, in which case my security is doubled wherever I go with her.
I like seeing the effort he makes to spend as much time with me as possible.
One day, he showed up at the gallery and took me to an unplanned lunch simply because he was busy that evening and knew he would return very late. But I waited him in his bed – the place where I sleep every night now.
When he came home, even though it was past midnight, we made love slowly, between sighs and whispered endearments in Russian that found their way into my heart before I could stop them.
After his visit to the gallery, Oksana figured out who I meant when I told her I needed to find a way out of the whole Oliver situation. The next day, she came to me with questions that received the most confusing answers, but my smile and flushed cheeks confirmed every one of her theories.
I have fallen in love with the Pakhan less than two weeks before my wedding to another man, an event I don’t know how to cancel without destroying my work and the work of my late father.
Day after day, my feelings grow stronger. Even if no declarations of love are spoken, my gaze tells him everything, while his need to keep me beside him makes me believe that, in some way, he feels something for me too.
I only hope I am not wrong.
With quick steps, the big day hits me full force.
And I don’t mean the wedding I plan to discuss with Oliver once he returns to the country.
I mean my recital. An important moment, one Artem managed to give even more meaning to from the day he told me he wanted to be there for me.
He gave a different color to a day I had considered dull and stressful, making me genuinely excited for it.
Now, standing backstage in the concert hall, I look out at the people who have taken their seats and are waiting for me.
I smile, because somewhere in that hall, in the first row, should be the man who has taken possession of my heart.
Oksana peeks into the room, hidden behind a curtain.
“It’s full,” she tells me, hurrying back to me with an enthusiasm that only makes my own emotions rise higher.
Anna, the event coordinator, runs her nervous fingers through her brown hair, telling me it is time to start. But I am still waiting for the lights to dim so I can see the people in the audience.
So I can see him.
“Did you see anyone... familiar?” I ask my friend subtly, and she smiles at me like an accomplice.
“I didn’t look that closely, but I’m sure he’s there.”
I can almost see him, dressed in one of his black suits, his hair perfectly styled and his piercing grey and brown eyes making me remember every moment we spent together in the relaxation room while I played the piano.
This man has ruined my entire passion, becoming the dominant color in the world I create whenever I play. Now, every time I touch the piano keys, I think of him.
Of what he can do to me.
Of what my heart feels for him.
The spotlights dim until only a weak glow remains, meant to guide my way to the piano in the center of the stage.
At the same time, it is the moment when I can see who is sitting in the first rows.
From one end to the other, I look quickly, while Anna urges me from behind to move forward.
I blink, confused, but an enormous hollow opens inside my heart.
I look again, more slowly, at the seat I reserved for Artem, then at the ones nearby.
“Ekaterina, it’s time,” the coordinator whispers impatiently.
But I am frozen, realizing something that hurts and frightens me at the same time.
Artem is not here. His seat is empty.
Is the same tragedy happening all over again as on the day my father was supposed to come? Did something happen?
Seized by panic, the next second, I turn back, sweeping past the woman staring at me, alarmed, standing beside my friend.
“What...?”
I don’t pay attention to her, because I go straight to Dimitri, who fixes me with a worried look.
“Did something happen to him?” My voice is a mixture of fear and coldness.
“Miss Borislova...”
“Tell me.”
“I don’t know anything. Half an hour ago, he was at the club.”
I have heard something about this club, owned by the Koronov brothers, but Artem preferred not to give me too many details.
His younger brother, however, could not resist telling me it was not a club worthy of a lady like me, adding that the nature of the place mainly attracts people fond of drugs and, of course, loose women.
My lips press into a thin line, unable to hide my worry.
“He was supposed to come.”
“Maybe he’s running late. Don’t worry. If something had happened, I would have been informed by now.”
Which, for one moment, I think is even worse.
I take my phone from my bag and open the messages app with hope, praying for some sign from him, an explanation, anything that might save my heart from being shattered into a thousand little pieces.
But what I find turns my soul to dust.
A message from an unknown number is waiting for me, but it contains only a photo and a short text. And in the photo is Artem, with a blonde beside him, dressed in a very short red dress, smiling at him seductively.
Even so, it is the attached message that crushes any illusion I might still have that the photo means nothing.
It means something.
Unknown number: Meet the woman he’s been keeping as his mistress for years
I can barely swallow past the knot in my throat, but my eyes sting as tears blur my vision.
My naivety begs me to cry, but there is still a part of me that grits its teeth through the pain.
With a dry, ironic smirk, I turn the phone toward Dima and show him the picture, which Oksana sees too before start cursing like a sailor in Russian.
“Yeah. He’s really busy,” I tell the man. He frowns, his gaze darkening.
“That can’t...” He murmurs, confused. “Who
sent you this picture?”
“I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter anymore.” I throw the phone back into my bag.
“Ekaterina, please,” the organizer urges me,
growing more and more agitated. “You need to go onstage.”
Beside me, Oksana carefully strokes my arm, her eyes a mixture of pain and outrage.
“Maybe it’s edited,” she says, trying to soothe me.
Dima, his face almost furious, tries to defuse the situation too.
“Focus on the performance, and he will probably show up, if he hasn’t already. I’ll try to find out what that picture is about, because something isn’t right.”
My shoulders drop, but disappointment has already begun carving its way into my soul, sinking in painfully deep.
It’s impossible not to suspect that Artem simply decided he no longer wanted to come, that he had something more important to do than be here for me.
He was with that blonde.
“I don’t care anymore, Dimitri,” I say, walking toward the stage. “He’d be better off not coming at all.”
It takes a lot of effort to force a false smile onto my face, but every step I take beneath the spotlight tears another piece out of me. By the time I sit on the bench, I am hollow and empty of any hope.
If something serious had happened to him, Dima would have been the first to know. But it was clear that even he knew nothing about his own Pakhan, except that he had been spending time at that club.
The place where lifestyle is entirely different from the one I can offer him.
Where drugs make people hear songs unlike the ones played by my piano, and vulgar bodies offer him the chance to amuse himself however his black soul desires.
What the fuck am I talking about? “Soul”?
When did I forget that Voron is a monster who does not possess that human feature?
My hands tremble, and I almost feel like laughing at the irony of this moment. A pianist with shaking fingers before a recital she must perform in front of several hundred people.
No pressure, Ekaterina.
Anyway, the entire charm of this evening has gone straight to hell, replaced by yet another painful memory.
I draw a deep breath and come dangerously close to deciding that this will be my last concert. I don’t think I can go through this kind of pain again.
And disappointment.
But since I am here, the moment reminds me of the final song of a wounded swan, bleeding on the inside, wanting nothing more than for silence to find her and make her forget about everything that hurts.
I begin to play, letting go of the false smile, but I change the program from the start. The first piece should have been full of joy, but I move straight into Chopin’s sorrow, with Prelude No. 4.
And I keep it that way until the end of the performance, moving through every piece in shades of gloomy gray, finishing with Ludovico Einaudi’s Experience.
The piece I played for Artem, but which now feels like a farewell song.
With every second that passes painfully through me, I realize I let myself carried away by a false illusion, thanks to a man who just had a carnal desire and took what he wanted without caring about my heart.
I was the little secret of the most dangerous Pakhan, until another woman’s pleasure became more important to him than a moment that meant everything to me.
That’s what you get for letting your guard down and give free rein to feelings you knew from the start were forbidden and wrong.
Now they are replaced by the image of Artem being touched by another woman.
I don’t even know how I get through the recital.
Piece after piece, my soul weeps through the sorrowful notes I release instead of useless tears. When anger seizes me, I change the tone of the rhythm, but I return again to the sad melodic lines. I pour every pain inside me into the mournful colors of the music.
Only when I press my fingers to the keys, to create the final sounds, do I think of the people who will probably boo me and unleash the harshest criticism of tonight’s performance in the coming days.
A complete failure, born from a moment of pain.