by Lana Sky
Though he did warn me: When we reach the bottom of these stairs, we won’t be allies…
“Enough!” Someone grabs my arm, radiating gentleness. Vanya. “Mischa, what is the meaning of this?”
Either Mischa doesn’t hear him or he ignores him.
“Silence!” The Pakhan raises his hand, radiating authority. “I have proof of my accusations, of course,” he says once the clamor fades to a disturbed hum. His eyes scan the crowd and then land on one figure. Alarmingly, his gaze softens and my throat tightens even before he calls them by name. “Anna…”
A hush falls over the room as all eyes turn to the pale woman practically huddled in a corner. Shaking, she starts forward, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Mischa, please,” she gasps in between sobs. “Mischa, please—”
“Anna.” His expression hardens. “Tell them. No harm will come to him, but you need to tell them. Now.”
Trembling at the edge of the circle, Anna looks smaller than ever. A shadow of a woman, likely to fade into the ether with one wrong move. Vanya’s grip tightens on my arm, but for whatever reason, he doesn’t go to her.
“I…” She swallows hard and clears her throat. “I am Anna-Natalia Vasilev—”
“And for sixteen years, she was a prisoner of the Winthorps,” Mischa finishes for her. “They kept her locked in a virtual cage while sending a stranger’s body to her father. And what else did they make you do?”
More tears streak the woman’s beautiful face and she staggers. One of the men near her lurches to his feet and lowers her onto his vacated chair.
“Four years ago, the younger Robert Winthorp brought me…”
“What,” Mischa prods. “It’s all right.”
“He brought me a baby,” she admits, her body heaving. “A newborn. He told me to raise him. There were other nannies throughout the years, but I’ve been with him the longest. I was told that his mother was dead. But when he got older, the story changed…”
“How?” Mischa crosses over to her and places his hand on her shoulder. “Tell them.”
“He… He told him she was an angel, and that—one day, if he was good enough—he might bring her to see him.”
It’s a lie. It has to be a lie—no man could be that cruel. No woman could be that naïve. But horror renders me paralyzed regardless. I can clearly picture Robert performing every action described.
And it guts me to my core.
“A few months ago, he gave him a locket,” she says hoarsely. “He said it contained his mother’s picture.” She looks at me. “Her picture.”
“Is this the locket?” Mischa reaches into his pocket and withdraws a golden chain. From it dangles a square-shaped charm. God, I recognize it…
The chain I saw around Eli’s neck.
“Yes.” Anna hunches over herself, clutching her chest. “Y-yes.”
The room descends into roars not even Mischa can overrule. A sea of voices and noise and grasping hands. I lash out, shoving my way through until I’m free of the press of people. Then I run until my shaking legs deposit me on the floor of a distant room and I’m alone.
But not for long. My pursuer betrays himself before he even finds my hiding place.
“Get up, Rose.”
“Maybe this truly is just a game to you,” I rasp, looking up and finding him in the doorway. “But this is my life!”
“A life you’ve been hiding from,” he points out.
“How could you do that to Anna?”
“Anna?” He sounds harsher than I’ve ever heard him. “Don’t fucking lie to me. You knew. You knew that child was yours the second you saw him. But you were afraid. Afraid to face the pain, and the anger, and the rage. I can understand that. But the time has come, Rose. You can’t escape the truth forever.”
“Truth?” I spit. “As if you give a damn about me. Admit it! All you wanted was to outwit Sergei and humiliate me!”
He blinks, and beneath the anger and rage, a suspicion gnaws away at the back of my mind: Maybe, for one brief second, the man feels some semblance of guilt.
But it’s still not enough.
“I hate you for this,” I spit, my voice breaking. “God, I hate you—”
“No, you don’t,” Mischa says. “You hate him. He manipulated and abused and lied to you for sixteen years. He turned your pain into a weapon, but now, you have the chance to do something about it. End the feud, or decide to run him into the ground. The choice is yours to make.” He starts through the doorway, but near the threshold, he pauses. “But know this… Whatever you choose, I’ll stand by it. If only to see you break the mold of a fucking pawn and finally play the game.”
He leaves, and in his absence, I haul myself to my feet, using the wall as a crutch. My mind reels, and a million conflicting emotions wrestle for control of my heart. Too many to decipher all at once. I can’t. My only course of action in this moment is to dry my tears and retrace my steps.
With effortless authority, Mischa and Sergei have regained control of the room, but the battle lines are even more defined. A virtual barrier splits the room in half. There is no question now as to who belongs to what side, save for two lone figures lingering on the outskirts of the hall.
One is Vanya, staring far away into the distance. Clinging to him is Anna. She looks at me, her eyes reddened and bloodshot, and quickly turns away, burying her face against her father’s shoulder. He strokes her absently, and with every pass of his hand through her hair, the fractures in my soul deepen.
“Have you made your decision?” Sergei wonders from the circle.
“Yes,” I croak. “But first… I need to say something.” My gaze travels to Mischa and he stiffens, wary. “I’ve only ever known the Winthorps,” I admit to the crowd, my voice growing in strength. “I was born in the manor, and for nearly twenty-four years, it was my prison…”
Chapter 17
The hall remains silent as I finish my tale. It’s almost funny how briefly my story can be summed up—barely a few minutes, I suspect. Yet every word has scraped the inside of my throat raw. I can barely suppress the horrors I’ve fought years to push back. They’re conjured by my boldness in addressing them.
But in a sense, I feel lighter from having finally voiced them.
“I, more than anyone, should want to fight Robert Winthorp with every fiber of my being out of spite and revenge,” I admit. “But that is not why I’m deciding how I am. It’s because I know, deep in my soul, this will never end any other way.”
“And your choice?” Sergei demands, his tone decidedly colder.
Mischa is watching me as well. Like always, it’s nearly impossible to decipher him.
“I vote to continue the war,” I say. “But not for myself, or Mischa, or any other argument.”
I merely know the truth: There is no such thing as peace.
“Then it’s decided,” Mischa says, but I can’t ignore the added harshness to his tone.
Neither he nor Sergei is pleased with my decision, it seems. Though admittedly for different reasons.
Sergei lost this round.
But Mischa seems unwilling to accept a victory.
“Council adjured.”
Very few members disperse. Most crowd the center of the room, battling for an audience with Mischa or Sergei. I’ve only caused more chaos, but I don’t stick around to see it unfold.
I push my way through the crowd and escape, racing down the hall, up the staircase, and into the barren room unofficially designated as mine.
Here, in the dark, I strip my dress and crawl beneath the bedsheets. The silence feels mocking after the deafening noise in the council chamber. My breathing scratches unevenly at the quiet—a fitting soundtrack for the creak of my doorknob being tested a second later.
“Please don’t come to gloat,” I plead into my pillow. “Please…”
Soft footsteps inch closer toward my bed despite the warning. They’re far too soft to belong to a man, Mischa or otherwise.
>
“Mouse?” I lift my head and spot her slight shadow along the wall. “Are you here for Mischa?”
Unsurprisingly, I’m not given an answer. The mattress shifts as a lighter body climbs onto the end. Resolutely, they sit while I sob, offering no comfort or judgment.
Nothing at all.
I know that this conversation must happen, even before I wake up to an empty room and don my simple blue dress. Vanya is already lurking in the hallway near my door, his graying hair gleaming silver in the shadow.
When he sees me, he sighs and inclines his head for me to follow. Were I bold enough to claim a resemblance between us, it might be in our actions more than anything. We both dread the inevitable.
Vanya’s chosen battleground is the small sitting room overlooking the gardens. Rather than claim one of the leather chairs, he leans against the wall.
“Your mother,” he begins gruffly, “because I do not doubt that she was your mother…” Looking at me seems to hurt him. He turns away, raking his fingers through his hair. “But I don’t know what lies you were told. Or by whom. But I don’t—”
“She never told me,” I admit hoarsely. “Not about my father. I asked her about his identity once and…I was never brave enough to ask again.”
“No,” Vanya insists. I hear him swallow as if fighting to form words. “I can’t be… She wouldn’t do that—no.” His eyes flash as they rake me over. From Marnie’s blue eyes, to my brown hair, to my bare, battered feet. “She wouldn’t keep something like that from me. Never. She wouldn’t do that to me!”
Tears spill down my cheeks. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to prove it to you. I’m not sure if I even believe it myself…”
Of all the things to cross my mind, something Sergei said during one of our first meetings slithers across my thoughts. A name, uttered like a ghost’s.
“Does the name Elena mean anything to you?”
“It was my mother’s,” he says absently. “She knew… My first wife demanded we name Anna after her mother and grandmother. I always boasted that my next child would be named after mine.”
And maybe Marnie was more cunning in her deception than even Robert Winthorp knew. She named me Ellen, a subtle take on Elena—the name she only dared to call me on my birthday.
Along with another moniker.
“You called her Rose, didn’t you?” I ask.
His face falls and I almost regret mentioning it in the first place. “Yes. I called her Rose. They were her favorite—”
“You gave her the necklace, too,” I surmise. “The one Sergei gave to me. I know you’ve seen it.”
“I have,” he admits. “But it wasn’t his to give. I never knew she left it behind…”
I can tell through his tone alone that he would have never retrieved it himself.
“I guess she enjoyed manipulating us both,” I say.
Vanya looks at me sharply and steps away from the wall. With one hand, he parts my hair and cups my cheek. Then he wraps his arms around me, pulling me close.
“I knew from the moment I saw you who your mother was,” he confesses to my shock. “I thought maybe she took another man under the nose of her husband.”
Yet he still treated me with nothing but kindness.
“I would have deserved it. I let her go,” he continues. “It damn near killed me, but when she left, I let her go. But if I had known… I would have never abandoned you. Never.”
I don’t doubt him, and deep in my soul, I know that Marnie didn’t, either.
She knew a man like him would never throw his child to the wolves.
So she stayed silent.
But something in his tone sticks out, unwilling to fit in the puzzle Sergei and Mischa have forced me to put together.
“Left?” I pull back enough to meet his gaze. Instantly, I know he won’t lie to me. Not now. “You make it sound like she had a choice.”
In my own case, I didn’t choose to return to Robert—and Mischa, for all his twisted jealousy, had been willing to come after me.
“Why did you leave her there?”
“You don’t understand,” Vanya says. He lets me go and moves to the window, bracing his hands over the glass. With his head bowed, it’s easier than ever to see the pain—both emotional and physical—his body has endured throughout the years. “Marnie Winthorp wasn’t taken, or kidnapped, or whatever story you’ve been told. She chose to leave her husband—”
“What are you saying?”
“The truth.” He scoffs. “We didn’t ransom her. She allied herself with Sergei. And with me.”
Nothing in all of my twisted journey since being taken has affected me with the same hopeless sense of disorientation. Not Mischa. Or Nicolai’s attack. Or even the cruel reality that Robert may still be alive.
“She grew fearful of her husband. She wanted safety for her and her daughter. When she left, she tried to bring her as well, Briar, but something went wrong and the girl was left behind. Sergei perpetuated the rumor to protect her. In a way, I think he thought it served him as well, the image of a ruthless foe against the greedy Winthorp. But Marnie… All she wanted was a better life. A simple life.”
“And you trusted her?”
He nods. “She gave us more than enough information to prove her intentions. She was smart, so smart. And so cunning. She could inspire a fish to live on land just by telling him to. Last night at the council…” He sighs wistfully. “You looked so much like her.”
I try to reconcile this brave, bold woman with the fearful specter I knew who could show me affection only in secret.
I can’t.
“She was an amazing woman,” Vanya insists as if reading my mind. “Don’t you doubt that for a second. She was.”
“Then why did she leave you? If she was so afraid of her husband and so determined to live a better life, then why go back?”
He flinches. “Your sister. Every day without her pained her a little more. I knew that. And maybe I cared for her more than she did me. I could live with that. I have lived with that. But…” He looks at me and his gaze hardens. “She knew how to reach me, and if she so much as hinted about you—” He breaks off, grinding his teeth. “No Winthorp stronghold would have kept me out. She knew that. I loved that woman,” he admits. “At least the woman I thought she was.”
And maybe, in her own way, she cared for him.
“My name,” I say. “I think she wanted it to be Elena.”
He winces, gritting his teeth.
“I spent so long being afraid of who my father might be. But I never dreamed that he could be someone like you.”
His mouth lifts into the semblance of a smile. “I am sorry you grew up in the way that you did,” he says. “But I am proud to finally meet the woman you are.”
I approach him, and he doesn’t resist the hand I tentatively place on his shoulder.
“But there is still one thing I don’t understand,” I confess. “You say she wasn’t your captive, but Sergei and Mischa seem to believe that she was.”
“Mischa?” He cocks his head thoughtfully. “He doesn’t know. I’ve never told him the truth. With Marnie gone, it was easier to maintain the lie. But Sergei?” His body goes rigid. “Sergei can be the staunchest ally you have ever had on your side. And he can also be more ruthless than every single Winthorp combined. I have never doubted his intentions, but you should always question his methods.”
“Is that why you decided to support Mischa instead?”
“There came a time when Sergei crossed the line,” he says. “He proposed a plan so despicable that I gave him only one option: step down or I would challenge him. So he did.”
“He wanted to hurt Briar,” I say. Butcher her, as Mischa put it.
“I should have gone with them,” Vanya says. “Not only to stop them, but… Perhaps I could have stopped her.”
My mother. Not long after that night, she did the unthinkable.
“But it’s in the past,” he says, pulling awa
y. “There’s no use in dwelling on it. All I can do is prepare for the future, and I will not make the same mistake again.” He reaches out, ghosting his fingers along my cheek. Then he abruptly turns, limping for the door. “We will talk more later,” he promises. “Later…”
I watch him go, unsure of what remains to be said.
Or perhaps it’s painfully obvious: We both spent years seeing Marnie Winthorp as merely a victim.
When, all along…she may have been the villain.
Chapter 18
My head throbs in the aftermath of Vanya’s confession. Desperate for fresh air, I retreat to the gardens.
But all I find are shadows of the past.
Grim, overcast daylight paints the landscape in a silvery glow and I’m reminded of my comfortable prison in Winthorp Manor.
Was this how Marnie felt once freed from her own cage?
Overwhelmed. Exhausted. Terrified.
Rather than learn how to brave this new, dangerous world, she preferred the one she already knew and a more familiar monster.
But I always endured Robert. Understanding him beyond his surface brutality was a chilling prospect. He corrupted everything he touched, myself included. But as a childish bit of laughter reaches my ears, I’m forced to wonder just how far his taint has truly spread.
Up ahead, Eli runs across a patch of grass, his blond curls bouncing wildly. A watchful Anna hovers nearby. She calls to him and he giggles back, so oblivious to the darkness swirling around him through no fault of his own.
Darkness one man conjured purely out of selfish spite. I know he’s behind me, even before his hand brushes my shoulder.
“We need to talk—”
“You put a target on his head.” Fury distorts my voice. I doubt he can even understand me. “Even if he is—no. It doesn’t matter. You’ve just made him the top prey of any sick bastard who thinks that he can use Robert Winthorp’s son as a bargaining chip. Was humiliating me truly worth so much?”
