“Don Makarova,” the priest says. “Your turn.”
I take the pen and scribble across the space set out for the groom, then drop it with a clatter back to the tabletop.
“Now, the bride.”
“Stop calling me that,” Olivia snaps. She steps up with gusto—but when she’s at the precipice, she hesitates.
She gazes at the pen like it’s a snake. Three, four, five times, she reaches out to pick it up but pulls back at the last moment.
“Tick tock,” I say softly.
She glances over her shoulder towards me. Breathes me in like she’s taking in her future.
Then, steeling her posture, she turns and scrawls hurriedly across the space marked out for her.
“Is it done?” she asks. Her eyes are closed, as if that will change anything. Like not seeing will mean none of this is real.
“I will file the papers,” the priest says, barely audible. “Then, yes, it is legally binding.”
She winces, then turns to me. “Can I have a moment alone with my brother?”
“No.”
I’ve already turned away from her when she grabs my arm and tries to rip me back around. When she doesn’t succeed, she runs around and blocks my path.
“You got everything you wanted,” she points out. “He’s unarmed and surrounded by your men. All I’m asking for is a minute.”
“Try crying,” I suggest. “See how much that moves me.”
She shakes her head in dismay. “Does it make you feel good to be so cruel?”
“No. It makes me feel powerful.” I glance towards Demyan. “Take her.”
He grabs Olivia. She kicks and screams as he drags her out the front. A minute later, her screams are cut in half when he tosses her in a jeep and slams the door closed.
I turn back to her brother. After one look from me, my men release him, though they don’t go far.
He falls to one knee without their support, one palm flat on the floor the only difference between staying upright and collapsing completely.
His weakness, his pain, his fear—I can see and smell it all on him. Another mistake I’d have never made.
Never allow your enemies to see just how much they’ve got to you.
“We’re family now, Lawrence,” I tell him quietly. “You go after me, you go after your sister. We’re one and the same.”
His eyes flash with ferocity as he turns his face up toward me. “You are not the fucking same. She is better than you in every way.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Is that so?”
“She’s kind, and loving, and patient,” he breathes. “She is the best of us. If you hurt one hair on her head, I’m going to take your life one day. And by God, I will make it hurt.”
I smile. Like recognizes like, and I sense a kindred spirit here, albeit a misguided one. “I look forward to that day, Agent Lawrence.”
Then I turn and head for the door.
“Makarova!”
I glance back towards him.
“Just don’t… don’t hurt her.”
There’s no anger or threat in his tone when he makes his appeal. He’s acting with nothing but pure fear for his sister.
I meet his eyes for a moment. Then I turn and resume my walk out. Just before I go, I call over my shoulder, “Unfortunately for my new bride, I’m not in the habit of making promises I can’t keep.”
20
OLIVIA
THREE DAYS LATER
I stare at my father’s face.
His eyes are sad, his posture stoic. He gazes down on me with sympathy like I haven’t seen since the day he died.
But there's something lacking from the likeness I’ve scrawled on the wall opposite my bed. I let loose a deep sigh of frustration.
It’s been three days since I was forced into this marriage.
Three days since I last saw my pretend husband.
Three days since I lost my future to the monster who held my family hostage and threatened to kill my brother.
Just three days and three nights, and yet it has felt like a lifetime. I’ve cried until I didn’t have tears to cry. I've teetered on the brink of madness.
The only thing that brought me back from the edge is drawing.
My fingers are pretty much raw, bloody stumps, since I’ve been using my nails to keep the point of my charcoal pen sharp without any other tools available for the job.
The fresh air might have helped stave off my depression. But when I was shoved into this room by an unfeeling Pyotr, I discovered that the balcony door was sealed shut.
I attempted to break the windows, but everything I hurled at them bounced off like they were rubber. I guess unbreakable glass comes standard in the houses of men who make women disappear.
“I’m next, Dad,” I whisper to the sketched picture of my dad. “I’m pretty sure I’m next.”
I wait for him to answer back, but he stares at me with his lifeless eyes and says nothing. I close my eyes and slump back on the mattress.
When the door opens, I don’t even look up. I’m used to the maids and guards moving in and out at will with meals or fresh linens. I leave the trays of food mostly untouched, but I haven’t been able to stop myself eating altogether. Apparently, my willpower is just not strong enough to withstand the bite of hunger.
“Love what you’ve done with the place.”
I open my eyes in alarm to find Yulia standing on the threshold with a tray of food.
“What are you doing here?” I ask bitterly.
She steps in, kicks the door closed behind her, and sets the tray down on the table by the window. Then she surveys the once-blank walls of my room.
I’ve managed to cover the bottom half of the walls with my cartoons and sketches. Some of them make sense. Some of them don’t. Some are accompanied by speech bubbles and coherent narratives, but most of them are just doodles. The manic scratchings of a girl slowly going insane.
“You really are talented,” she remarks.
I laugh. It’s an ugly, broken sound. “What does it matter anymore?”
She sighs and takes a seat at the table. “Care to join me?”
“I’m good.”
“Really, Olivia, I’m not the enemy.”
“Aren’t you?” I scoff. “You’re enabling his behavior. In my book, that makes you complicit.”
She sniffs as if maybe there’s a shred of remorse lurking somewhere in there, but her composure never breaks. She’s immaculately dressed, even now, in cream silk pants and a thin beige wrap sweater.
“For what it’s worth, I am sorry. I understand what you must think of me. But I have lived in this world for decades now.”
“And that means you can’t change?”
“He’s my son,” she says again. “What I can do for you is limited.”
“Bring me food and give me useless advice, you mean? How noble. Truly a resistance fighter.”
I know I should take it easy on her. She’s only trying to help me. But my anger hasn’t had an outlet in three days. Plus, I’m starving and the smell of fresh croissants wafting from the tray she brought in is making my head spin.
“You need to eat,” she tells me, as if reading my mind.
“I’m fine.”
“It’s only been three days and you’ve already lost weight.”