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Lost in Moscow's Secret 29
RONANHANDS IN MY POCKETS, I stood in front of the library window watching light search the horizon. The grandfather clock chimed the eight a.m. hour, signaling I got less than three hours of sleep after returning fromMoscow last night. But as soon as the sun rose, so did I.Old habits die hard.The quiet winter morning remained still when the first ray of light reached the toes of my boots. Dust particles floated in the thin golden beam. The sight reminded me of sunlight filtering through a grimy apartment window; of frozen breaths fromchapped lips, hunger, and fading yellow bruises.First light in my childhood meant my brother and I had to run the streets and steal pastries from local bakeries. Kristian would scope the restaurant out, and I’d do the dirty work. My mom wasn’t exactly a cook. Or a mother who fed her kids. After she died, we were homeless and better off. To this day, my body still awoke charged every morning, expecting the need to fi
Lost in Moscow's Secret 30
MILA I WATCHED RONAN POUR MILK into his bowl of Fruit Loops. I didn’t know what was more bizarre: the fact he’d actually imported the American product, or the sight of his murderous, tattooed fingers lifting a spoonful of rainbow-colored cereal to his mouth.When I continued to stare at him, his gaze lifted to mine, a charming brow rose, and then an animated crunch of cereal and teeth sounded. The sight was disarming, inflating a kernel of humor in my stomach, and my lips tingled at the reminder of his mouth on them. I crossed my thigh-high sock clad legs to quell the heat rising.“Cat got your tongue, kotyonok?”I feigned apathy at the ridiculous idiom, but inside, a nervous energy vibrated beneath my skin, flaring between yesterday’s humiliation and a heat too familiar to what I once felt for him.“I have a headache,” I lied.“You want to know the best remedy I’ve found for that?” “Child sacrifice?”
Lost in Moscow's Secret 31
RONAN ALBERT OCCUPIED THE CHAIR IN front of my desk, his careful gaze and silence on my skin. He had a good reason to be cautious. It was a while since I’d been so angry my hands shook—three months exactly, when I found Pasha’s body mutilated by Mikhailov hands.The irony of the situation was one of the reasons I’d forced myself to sit here and wait for the rage to cool before I shot my men one by one to find the traitor in our midst. The other reason . . . well, it made me a little nauseous. It was the idea Mila’s soft eyes were almost permanently snuffed out by a cup of tea. The burn in my chest whenever I thought of it reminded me of the time I fought for air in an old Volkswagen filled with icy water.I wasn’t sure why I shared that story with Mila considering I didn’t even tell my brother after walking into our apartment later that night dripping water on the cracked linoleumfloor. I didn’t often dwell on the past, but the odd sense of . .
Lost in Moscow's Secret 32
MILAI THOUGHT YULIA WAS A bad maid, but that was before I had her as a nurse. She plumped the pillow beneath my head like she was beating a lump of dough and pulled a piece of my hair in the mix.With a resentful glance, I shied away fromher. “Thank you, but my pillow is fine.”She raised a brow before sliding a mischievous look away to mess with the tray of food at my bedside.“I’mnot hungry,” I said.She ignored me and made a show of adding sugar to my tea. As if I’d ever drink tea again.I’d stayed in bed for two days, and with each second that passed, I grew sicker of it. The only thing that kept me here was the knowledge someone in this house hated me so much they’d poisoned me. And then, my thoughts chanted I was an awful person for what happened to Adrik and that I deserved it.My mind was a terrible place.Yesterday, Kirill deemed me as good as new. Ronan, however, hadn’t shown his face since he carrie
Lost in Moscow's Secret 33
MILATHE NEXT MORNING, OUR BREAKFAST “dates” continued. However, the atmosphere couldn’t be tenser if a ticking time bomb sat beside the teapot. I just didn’t know the silence was about to detonate in a way that would make an actual explosive a better alternative.An edginess flared at the memory of last night. The pressure of Ronan’s body against mine awoke a heat wave beneath my skin that was so hot, I tossed and turned all night in emptiness and confusion. Even now, a restless ache persisted between my legs.I curled my toes against the marble, knowing I should be ashamed of the feeling—especially since Ronan seemed to have forgotten last night entirely by his apathetic demeanor—but I refused to send myself on another guilt trip.Instead of the silent maid, another woman served our food, and she was not the docile, invisible type. She could be Kylie Jenner’s blonde twin. I wouldn’t be surprised if the servant’s eyelashes were thickly masc
Lost in Moscow's Secret 34
MILATHE HOME SAT AS STILL as a grave while I stood beneath the staircase and stared at the elaborate woodwork that hid a door from sight—the one Albert and Viktor just vacated before leaving the house. I expected the entrance to be locked or require a special passcode like it would in any decent spy movie, but it opened right up to reveal cement stairs leading down to hell.Nerves shook in my hands as I hesitated at the threshold and listened for the tortured screams of damned souls, only to be welcomed by silence and a cold draft. A sane person wouldn’t go down there, but it seemed I was losing my grasp on rationality with the rest of the house.Closing the door behind me, I rubbed a hand over the goose bumps on my arm and headed down the stairs. When I reached the bottom, I pretended the room was any other unfinished basement with mortared stone walls and a dampness thickening the air, but the fallacy grew harder to accept each time I viewed a bloo
Lost in Moscow's Secret 35
MILAI SHOULD BE QUESTIONING MY life choices, searching for a key to Ivan’s cell, or doing anything remotely constructive. Instead, I sat in the drawing room and watched the sun sink below the horizon with the Bible on my lap. The book was in Russian and was therefore incomprehensible, but the words didn’t matter. It was the divine support I needed—similar to a crucifix or a garlic necklace.Je hais Madame Richie. Tu hais Madame Richie. Nous haïssons Madame Richie. I was beginning to hate the fortune-teller more each day. I put all the blame on her for setting something in motion I couldn’t stop. I would take credit for my stupidity, but she needed to fess up to the spell she’d put on me to enjoy asphyxiation and the touch of darkness. Lack of college education notwithstanding, I knew nobody in their right mind longed for less oxygen.The front door shut quietly, but it may as well have been slammed, the soft click sending an edgy vibration to the tip
Lost in Moscow's Secret 36
“It takes one to know one, doesn’t it?” My voice shook. Each step he took toward me, I mimicked in the opposite direction until I stood behind the couch, a simple piece of furniture the only divider between us.“Mm. We don’t know each other that well yet, but we will.” A shattered piece of porcelain crunched beneath his boot.“You act like it will be memorable for me,” I retorted, forced to the front of the couch when he stepped around it.“I’msure it’ll be different than your experiences with pampered college boys.”Frustration tunneled beneath my skin. That was the exact thought that led me into D’yavol’s arms, putting me in a position to be circling a couch to stay away fromhim.“Ivan isn’t a college boy.” There Madame Richie went again, throwing Ivan under the bus.His eyes narrowed dangerously as he braced his hands on the back of the couch. “Maybe not, but he is a pussy.”“You don’t even know him,” I accused.
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