3

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 froma 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 fromIvan.

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 himup.

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 fromfinding 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.

Aman—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.

Agust of wind whipped at my ponytail, and with it, one word rode through my mind on a whisper that sounded like a pitch-black roomand 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 fromdarkness. 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 himto 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 armaround 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 fromgrace.