The door opened once more, and this time, a thin gentleman in a black dress coat appeared. He was shaking his head and muttering to his wife, clearly believing she’d fallen off her rocker for good. She hid behind him, her apron grasped in her hands.
When his gaze found me, he froze like he’d just seen a ghost.
I forced a smile. “Zdravstvuyte—” Hello.
The woman ran.
“I’m Alexei Mikhailov’s daughter . . . Mila,” I said hesitantly, hoping he spoke some English because I was a massive failure to my heritage.
I’d given up the desire to study Russian years ago since Papa always claimed it was a waste of my time, so I’d only learned what I knew from Ivan and Borya. That included the bare basics, vegetables, and curse words.
A sliver of relief crossed the older man’s expression, and then he let out an awkward chuckle. “Of course, of course. You gave us quite a scare there.” He stepped back and gestured me inside. “Come in.”
With my freezing hands in my pockets, I stepped into the house and turned to take in the foyer. I stilled when I caught him sticking his head out of the front door and looking both ways before shutting it. Was I about to be the next star on Russia’s version of Forensic Files?
“This cannot be good,” he muttered, shaking his head and hobbling past me. “Vera, kofe! We drink instant in this house. Hope you do not mind.”
“Of course not.”
I hated coffee, but I’d drink five cups if it got me a few answers.
“Come sit down, girl.”
I set my bag on the floor and took a seat on a faded floral-print couch, while he took the armchair across from me. A crackling flame in the fireplace filled the room with much-needed warmth, and books and knickknacks littered every available shelf. The space was cluttered but comfortable in a lived-in way.
Vera placed two cups of coffee on the wooden table between us, watching me with big eyes, before she disappeared from the room like hellhounds were on her heels.
I stared at her retreat. “Is there a reason she’s terrified of me?”
He waved a hand. “She is superstitious.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You are Tatianna’s spitting image. We did not know she had a child. Well, we knew, but we thought you passed away shortly after birth. Problem with the lungs, your papa told us.”
I always knew my mother had died young, but the only reason I knew her name was because the one time Papa ever got drunk, he told me I looked too much like his Tatianna. I often wondered if that was why, as I became older, he spent less and less time with me.
“My lungs are fine.”
“I can see that,” the man said with a chuckle and sipped his coffee. “What brings you to our neck of the woods?”
“I’m on a mission . . . of sorts.”
He hummed with disapproval. “Have you not heard the phrase, ‘Curiosity killed the cat?’ You are just like your mother. Some things are better left in the dark.”
I’d never heard so much about my mother in my entire life than I had in the last few minutes. Finally, I was getting some answers. And, apparently, more questions.
“Why would my papa tell you I died?”
He frowned. “Is it not obvious?”
No, it wasn’t obvious. Nothing about this was.
I opened my mouth to ask more—
“Now, enough about that. I thought your papa might have sent you, but I can see now, he has not.” He set his coffee cup down. “You must go. It could not be a worse time for you to come here alone.”
Why did everyone think I needed a babysitter? “I’ll be fine. I know how to take care of myself.”
“No one knows how to take care of themselves against D’yavol.”
The Devil?
“Up you go, now.” He stood with a wince and rubbed his knee. “I like living too much to harbor you.”
“I can’t leave yet,” I insisted, getting to my feet. “I’m not sure why you think I’m here illegally, but I promise, I have my papers.” I knew Russia was a little medieval, but, God, did they really execute people for such a small offense as harboring a harmless girl?
“Pah. I’m not talking about the government, girl, but D’yavol.”
I stared at him, realizing I might be speaking to a crazy person.
“I’m agnostic,” I said dumbly.
He shook his head and murmured something unintelligible.
My gaze found Vera in the doorway staring at me like I was a piece of furniture that had just moved itself.
They were both crazy.
She dropped the apron she was wringing in her hands and disappeared again. To find her sharpest meat cleaver probably.
“Why is your wife terrified of me just because I look like my mother?”
He eyed me as if I was the strange one. “You do not just look like your mother.” Moving to the fireplace, he pulled down a white sheet that covered a portrait above it. “Girl, you could be her.”
The woman in the picture was frozen in time, leaning against a grand piano. She must have been painted decades ago, but she could be me standing here today. The long blonde hair, the almond shape of her eyes, the tall and elegant form, and the alabaster skin that would never quite tan.
The similarity was so uncanny, goose bumps rose on my arms. She’d looked just like me, yet I didn’t know the simplest things about her. I stared at the portrait until the burn in my heart and the backs of my eyes faded.
“She was a sight, I’ll tell you that.” He rubbed his chin. “But beauty like that is a blessing and a curse . . .” His eyes settled on mine, something heavy and resigned filling them. “It always ends up in the wrong hands.”
A sense of foreboding trailed down my spine. My overactive imagination cast a scene through my head: me, kicking and screaming, while the devil carried me down to hell.
I swallowed the lump in my throat.
I found it odd they kept my mother’s painting on the wall but covered it with a sheet like the beginning of too many haunted house films. Though, maybe Vera just didn’t like to dust.
“When did she die?” I asked.
“Not long after you were born, if I remember right. She got sick and could not get better. This was her home. Your papa could not part with it, so Vera and I take good care of the place for him.”
“My father didn’t live with her?”
He pursed his lips, contrite. “No, girl, your papa was married.”
And there it was. The secret family.
Or, maybe I was the secret.
Was that why he told people I died? So he could live his comfy life here, without me getting in the way?
In the end, I knew that wasn’t true. Papa had been around for more holidays than he was away—until this past year at least.
But knowing he kept something like this from me, that I might have siblings and other family I’d never had a chance to meet . . . The pain hit me in the chest so hard I had to focus on something else, or I wouldn’t be able to breathe. I forced my gaze back to the portrait, noting the dress that had to be from the eighteenth century.
“Why is she dressed like that?”
His eyebrows rose. “You do not know? Your mother was an opera singer. A very . . . beloved one at that. People will remember her, and that is why you need to go home.” He grabbed my bag and ushered me to the door.
“I didn’t even get to drink my coffee,” I protested.
“You do not want the coffee; you want secrets I cannot tell you. Go home, wherever home is, and do not come back.”
“Do you know where I can find my papa?”
“Probably Siberia,” he muttered, opening the door and letting the frigid air in.
Siberia?
“Why would he be—?”
“I do not know of his whereabouts or his number these days, or I would have already alerted him of your presence.” He threw my bag onto the porch.
“Are you sure I can’t stay here?”
“I like my head where it is now, attached to my neck.”
I blinked. “Is that a no?”
He pushed me out into the cold.
“Wait,” I breathed, spinning around. “Can you at least call me a cab?”
He scowled. “I might as well phone D’yavol topick you up.”
I stared at him, thinking I should probably refrain from drinking the water here.
He shook his head. “Go home, Mila.”
Once again, the door slammed shut in my face.
MILA
As the deadbolt locked into place, I wondered what happened to good ol’ Russian hospitality. They hadn’t even offered me anything to eat. Practically blasphemous, I’d learned from growing up in a Russian household, especially from a couple who seemed very in touch with their religious side.
With the weight of my papa’s secret sitting heavy on my heart and the obvious fact I wasn’t welcome here, a pathetic part of me wanted to listen and just go home. But if I returned now . . .
I’d dream.
I’d wonder.
I’d carry on existing.
And I wanted to live for a change. Just for a few days. Before The Moorings sucked me back into its passionless hole. Before I married Carter Kingston, had two-point-five kids, and drowned in social luncheons, pastel-colored cardigans, and ropes of pearls.
The iron gate swung back and forth in the icy breeze.
Squeeaak.
Clank.
Squeeaak.
Clank.
I slipped my duffle bag over my shoulder, put my numb hands in my pockets, and started to walk in the hope of finding some form of transportation. It was so cold I’d get into a cab even if the devil himself was driving it.
Jet lag and lack of sleep pulled on my muscles. I hadn’t gotten more than a minute of shut-eye on the plane, mostly because the two terrors sitting beside me were little-boy versions of the Energizer Bunny.
Fishing my cell phone out of my pocket, I turned it on for the first time since I landed in Moscow and found thirteen missed calls and five voicemails from Ivan.
Someone was being a bit dramatic.
I read the texts I’d received from a couple friends and a few from Carter confirming our date at eight, reconfirming it, and, after I missed it completely, hoping everything was all right.
I’d stood him up.
I should feel guilty, but my chest was light, taking in breaths easier for the first time in years.
There was nothing particularly wrong with Carter. Our relationship was amicable, maybe, if I reached a little, even nice. But when it came down to it, the last time his lips were on mine, I spent the entire kiss mentally conjugating French verbs for my upcoming exam.
Papa didn’t know about the few online courses I’d taken. He’d blown a gasket at my request to attend college, which meant he silently stared at me like I asked to visit North Korea before he said, “Nyet.” So I thought it was best to keep my classes on the down low.
The first four voicemails from Ivan sounded very Ivan-like and straightforward, excessively informing me he would land in Moscow at three a.m. and demanding I stay in my hotel room until he arrived. The fifth, however, raised the hair on the back of my neck.
He blew out a rough breath, then a curse, and a thump sounded through the line, as if he actually hit something. “I cannot believe you did this. I trusted you not to go to Moscow.”
“I didn’t promise you anything,” I muttered to myself.
It went silent for a moment, and then his imploring tone became cold, hard fact.
“You want the truth for once? Fine. If you want to play games and do not tell me where you are, Mila . . . I’m a dead man.”
He sounded so serious, I actually believed him. For a moment at least. Surely, he didn’t think my papa would murder him. This was more likely just a desperate attempt to keep me from finding out he had a secret family.
Too late, I thought bitterly.
But I was a pushover, so I called him back to leave a message and put him out of his misery, only to realize I had no bars. I raised my phone in the air, turned it upside down—all the tricks—and nothing. My cell was supposed to work in Moscow, but I didn’t know service would be this unreliable.
With a sigh, I slid my phone into my coat pocket. Then, looking up, I stopped. My shoes crunched on gravel as I turned in a slow circle. The sun had fallen, more than half of it hiding behind the horizon. Only a crumbling apartment complex and a few concrete buildings surrounded me.
I was completely lost.
Fighting the shiver that rolled through me, I started to walk.
The wind whistled.
The shadows grew darker.
And I suddenly missed Ivan very badly.
A crawling sensation stroked the back of my neck and slid down my spine. It was the feeling of being watched. I gripped my bag tighter, fighting the urge to look behind me, but the suspense turned into an anxiety that tightened my lungs, and I couldn’t resist the pull anymore.
A man—undoubtedly, by the size and swagger—followed me. He wore jeans and a dark coat, and his eyes held steady on the black driving gloves he was pulling on, though I somehow knew I had his full attention.
I turned my head forward, my chest cold.
A gust of wind whipped at my ponytail, and with it, one word rode through my mind on a whisper that sounded like a pitch-black room and goose-bumped skin.
D’yavol.
I glanced behind me. He drew closer with every step, his strides much longer than mine. Only a few yards away now, I could see a jagged scar slashed across his face, from ear to jaw. The last ray of sunlight glinted on a silver knife in his hand.
Facing forward again, my breath escaped in pants, misting in front of my face, while my blood froze to solid ice. When parked cars and light from the windows of a building came into view, I dropped my bag and ran.
My long legs had always put me at the front of the pack during cheer practice in high school, but the footsteps hitting concrete behind me now were close on my heels. I wasn’t going to make it to the front door, so I changed course for the back and prayed it wasn’t locked.
Please, don’t be locked.
I came to a halt in front of the door, and in an instant, one of those black riding gloves wrapped around my ponytail and pulled. I cried out in pain as I went flying backward. My head hit the pavement, and a kaleidoscope of lights flickered behind my eyes.
Rough hands tore at my clothes.
“No,”I moaned, but my consciousness was stuck in sticky black sludge, and I couldn’t get out. Pain and icy air wrapped around my body, rousing me from darkness. I peeled my eyes open.
Scarred face.
Dark coat.
Denim-clad legs straddling my hips.
“No!”
I fought his hands, but my body wouldn’t work right. My head—it felt like it was split open.
The man ripped my blouse down the middle.
“Stop,”I sobbed.
He did.
It took a moment to realize what had caught his attention. He lifted the nautical star necklace from between my breasts and looked almost confused . . . or afraid. Whatever it was, I used his distraction to rake my nails down the scar on his face.
He reared back to cover the wound with a hand, hissing, “Ty malen’kaya suka.”You little bitch.
I scrambled out from beneath him. He seized my ankle, but I kicked back with the other foot, making contact with something that caused him to grunt in pain.
Stumbling to my feet, I fought the dizziness that grabbed at me but couldn’t hold on. My sweaty grasp fumbled with the door handle. It opened, and I slipped inside, colliding face-first with something solid. I hit it—him—so hard, the remaining air in my lungs escaped me on impact. I fell backward, but with a soft Russian curse, the man wrapped an arm around my waist to steady me.
The door had just shut with a thud when a burst of cold air announced it was open again. I spun out of the man’s grasp and moved behind him, expecting to see a scarred face, but it was only a boy wearing a white apron and carrying a crate of liquor.
“Potrebovalos’ vsego tri minuty, kak ya skazal,” he snickered. “Andrei, ty dolzhen mne—” His gaze found me, and he stared, muttering a Russian, “Holy shit.”
Sucking air into my lungs, I stepped back to take in my surroundings.
I’d lost my coat somewhere in the alley outside, and my shirt was ripped open, revealing the lacy white bra beneath. My thoughts were trapped underwater, and I couldn’t find the energy to care what I looked like even with an audience.
Smoke lazed in the room lit by one weak light bulb. Boxes filled shelves, wooden crates littered the floor, and three men sat at a folding table and chairs, all silently staring at me. One of them chewed on a toothpick, while another leaned back in his chair and brought a cigarette to his lips. His suit jacket lay carelessly open, white button-up beneath, no tie.
I coughed on the smoke that twirled in the air.
“Potushi sigaretu.” Put out the cigarette.
The demand came from behind me, from the man I’d run into, his Russian words caressing my back with something equally hot and cold. It was the kind of voice that could pull a girl feet first into the dark.
Leaning forward, the smoker crushed his cigarette in the ashtray. Still trying to catch my breath, I turned around.
I was five-foot-ten with bare feet, but I only stood eye level with the top button of a black dress shirt that stretched across broad shoulders and defined arms.
I looked up.
And just before the dizziness caught me in its grasp and dragged me under, I thought he was handsome.
Handsome in the way rough palms muffle screams, the way people bow to kings, and most of all . . . the way an angel falls from grace.