Chapter 05
Anya
“You’re smaller than I expected.”
The woman in black sizes me up from the top of the staircase. She’s the first person all night who’s looked at me like a human being—not merchandise, a problem to be solved, or some fascinating zoo exhibit.
She looks to be in her early sixties, but she’s nothing like the frail grandmothers who used to pick up their granddaughters from Yegorov’s dance school.
Her posture is rigid, formal, austere. Her white hair is pulled into a bun so flawless it almost hurts to look at, her dress doesn’t have a single wrinkle, and her hands are clasped in front of her with the calm of someone who’s at home—because, let’s be honest, this is her house.
She’s the kind of woman who handles everything through sheer force of will. That much is clear. There’s no sweetness in her expression, but there’s a meticulous attention to the details that matter—like whether my fiancé has eaten dinner.
She called him Maksimka. Could that be his name?
“My mother always said that,” I finally respond.
Something flickers across her face—an almost-smile tugging at her lips—that vanishes so fast I think I might have imagined it.
“Olga,” she says, but doesn’t extend her hand. “I run the house. Who runs everything else, you’ve already met.”
“Anya.”
I wait for her to ask. About the name the Masked Man calls me.
About the arrangement. Or even what a woman like me is doing walking into a house like this in the middle of the night with nothing but a worn backpack on my shoulder.
It’s what anyone would ask. It’s what my mother would have asked, in that acidic tone of someone who’s already made up her mind before hearing the answer.
Olga doesn’t ask anything. She just gives me one more up-and-down look, turns, and starts climbing the stairs.
I understand immediately that I’m supposed to follow her, and I do, unnerving as it is.
In less than ten minutes, I’ve decided this woman deserves my respect.
And I’m not the kind of person who respects—or, God forbid, follows in silence—anyone in under ten minutes.
It took me months to respect Dr. Mirinov.
And he’d just reconstructed my knee with pins, screws, rods, and a whole lot of patience.
It took me years to respect the first teacher who told me I had real talent, because I suspected she wanted something from me.
That’s how it works in my world—nothing comes for free.
My new fiancé’s skull mask, designed to intimidate enemies, didn’t shake me one bit. This slender old woman with white hair and iron posture broke through my defenses in three sentences flat.
This seems like an excellent omen for what’s to come.
After a brief tour of the common areas—the house is really more of a mansion—dinner is served. The eight-seat table feels far too large for just one plate.
Olga sets the meal in front of me: a deep red beet soup with a piece of dark bread on the side. I don’t comment on the empty chair at the head of the table, but the message is clear: the man who bought me today doesn’t care enough to share dinner with me on my first night here.
I know this test. My mother pulled a version of it every time I danced too well.
When I was twelve, I won the solo of Clara—the first real role of my life.
At the city school’s year-end recital, I floated home.
I still had my stage makeup smeared with sweat, and my mother didn’t say a single word—just set dinner on the table for her and my father.
Two plates, as if no one else existed. When I asked, she didn’t even look up.
“I thought stage princesses didn’t eat poor people’s food.
” I stood in the kitchen doorway, waiting for her to give in. She didn’t. Neither did I.
It was strange—she resented me whenever I did well, but treated me even worse when I was mediocre. That was her game. Shutting me out, hoping I’d crack. Hoping I’d beg for her attention. Beg to be part of that family.
I went hungry that night, but I didn’t do what she wanted. I never begged to be let in anywhere.
I look at the empty chair across from me, holding back a mocking laugh.
“An empty chair isn’t going to break me,” I whisper.
I lower my head and start eating slowly, keeping a steady pace—not showing that I’m starving, nervous, or, God forbid, trying to fake delicacy.
Maybe it’s paranoia, thinking every move I make is being watched and judged, but that’s how I’ve lived my whole life.
At home, I was never good enough for my mother.
In ballet, I had to be flawless, or I’d be replaced by the next girl hungry for my spot.
I finish the soup and push the plate away, ready to get out of here. Olga must have a sixth sense—or was she watching me?—because she appears immediately.
“The soup was good, then,” she comments without looking at me, collecting the plate and heading toward the kitchen.
“It was excellent.”
“Hmm.”
And that’s it. But the corner of her mouth lifts, and this time it takes a little longer to fade. I note that millimeter too. I think I’m starting to understand how Olga works. She doesn’t say much. But she shows plenty to anyone perceptive enough to notice.
And I am. Maybe that’s my only advantage here.
After dinner, she takes me upstairs and opens a door.
“The master’s bedroom.”
I freeze in place, but she leaves me alone before I can ask anything.
The master’s bedroom.
Not my room or our room.
His.
It takes me a second to absorb what that implies: I’m going to sleep here from now on. Then I look around. The master’s bedroom says absolutely nothing about him.
I was expecting a lair. Some kind of altar to violence with weapons, skull masks, and whatever other cold, intimidating things you can imagine. The Man in the Mask isn’t exactly warm and fuzzy, so of course I don’t find fluffy colorful pillows scattered around. But what I see is strangely ordinary.
King-size bed in the center of the room, gray sheets stretched with military precision, each corner folded just right—Olga’s work, for sure. A closed door that probably leads to a closet and bathroom. A leather armchair that looks strangely decorative near the large window. That’s it.
I walk slowly through the room, getting used to the space, counting steps and identifying each small recess, the way I used to do on stages before performing.
There’s nothing personal here. No photos, no artwork on the walls, no books, no picture frames…
nothing. Nothing to help me figure out who this man is—the man I’m marrying tomorrow.
The man whose name I don’t even know.
Everything here is functional. Charger, lamp, a glass of water on the nightstand. It’s a room that could be dismantled in minutes, leaving no trace of whoever lived here.
Suddenly, I understand that this says much more about him than it appears to—and unfortunately, I recognize this scenario.
My room in Vysotsk had nothing on the walls either.
For years, I told myself it was because everything was temporary.
That I’d be leaving any moment. It didn’t make sense to hang things in a place I hadn’t chosen to live, a place I hated with every bone in my body.
It was a lie. And I knew it was a lie the second each of those phrases crossed my mind.
The truth is I simply didn’t want to put down roots there.
Or rather, I didn’t allow myself to—and with good reason, as today made perfectly clear.
Every picture hung on a wall, every plant positioned to catch the light, every picture frame is a mark, a promise of permanence.
I didn’t want to stay there. There was no sense of belonging for me in that house, in that city.
Maybe he lacks that too.
“What nonsense.”
I scoff at myself under my breath. I came here expecting to find my monster’s lair, and here I am trying to humanize him, to identify with him. It’s foolish to want to see myself reflected in the man who bought me without even asking.
You wanted out and you negotiated your own terms.
The voice of my conscience chides me. Not even my own head will let me have a little self-pity. How wonderful.
I push away all these ridiculous ideas. It’s easier to keep seeing him as a monster, because I know how to fight monsters.
My mother, abusive artistic directors, sneaky colleagues sabotaging me, chronic pain after the accident…
Those are the monsters I’ve lived with my entire life.
But there’s one I’ve never faced. And I’m afraid of what it might show me: myself.
I have no idea what I’ll find when I see my ugliest side reflected in the mirror.
I take off my coat and toss it on the untouched armchair, looking around one last time before giving in to exhaustion.
I don’t change clothes to sleep. There wasn’t room for much in my escape backpack, and pajamas didn’t make the cut.
The leggings and t-shirt I was wearing under the wool cardigan and heavier coat will do for the night.
I don’t know if my fiancé has a favorite side of the bed, and I don’t care. I choose the one that appeals to me most: the side closest to the door.
It’s just an old habit. Marking entrances and exits. The first thing you learn when ballet stops being a hobby and becomes a career is stage positioning. And the most important rule: always know your way out.
I’m half lost in that limbo between awake and asleep when I notice movement and the soft sound of the door opening.
I tried to stay awake, maybe in some failed attempt at rebellion.
I don’t want it to seem like I’m too comfortable here.
But at the same time, it’s impossible not to relax when this enormous bed wraps around me after such a stressful day.
I hear footsteps moving through the room. Not as loud as I’d expect from a man that size. But not as silent as he’d like, I imagine.
The Man in the Mask moves through the dark, heading toward the closed door I haven’t explored yet. He opens and closes it carefully. I was right—it’s a bathroom. I hear running water. It’s strange to think that the man showering in the next room is going to be my husband tomorrow.
Damn, it’s even stranger that I don’t know his name!
Fuck, I haven’t even seen his face.
I force my eyes open, but it costs too much. I’m exhausted. My mind, though, won’t stop working, as if it’s my last line of defense, ready to save me if something happens. Something like the six-foot-three wall of muscle deciding to climb into my bed.
His bed. I correct myself mentally.
I breathe deeply, searching for calm inside a head that’s spinning while my body has practically shut down.
I don’t know what he wants from me. Not tonight, not with this whole marriage thing.
My experiences so far have been unsatisfactory, to say the least, but I’ve never been forced into anything.
I have no idea what to expect, so I calculate what to do if his hand reaches for me in the dark.
In my groggy head, I’m already planning what to do for every inch of mattress that dips closer to me. But when the shower stops running and the door slowly opens, I’m caught off guard.
The mattress doesn’t sink.
The bedroom door opens and closes again, with the same exaggerated care as before. And then… nothing.
The room is empty, with only the sound of my breathing echoing off the walls. The king-size bed feels strangely empty and cold—I’m squeezed into one corner while its owner chose to sleep somewhere else.
I open my eyes in the darkness. Wide awake now.
He left. He showered in his own bathroom, checked to see if I was asleep, and walked out of his own room just to avoid sharing the bed with me.
He went to sleep in some other room in this enormous house, or whatever it is men like him do in the middle of the night.
Either way, he’s not here. He had everything: the room, the enormous bed, and the bride he bought all set up and sleeping.
Yet he preferred any corner of this stone mausoleum over lying beside me.
And the worst part? I should be relieved. But I’m not.
I spent the entire trip thinking about this, behind every word we exchanged.
What does he want in return? Because men like him don’t spend a fortune settling the debts of scum like my father without wanting something back.
In my head, I was going to figure out the answer today, the moment I got here.
But all he gave me, with all his care not to bother me, not to wake me, was: nothing.
A big fat nothing.
Tomorrow I’m going to marry this damn man who treats me like a frightened animal. This faceless, nameless man. And the most disturbing thing about all of this wasn’t the skull mask, the mansion of a house, the stern housekeeper, or the shooting range in the garden. No.
The most disturbing thing was that I was upset about lying in a fucking empty bed.