by Nicole Fox
I ignore the obvious bait. “But what happens when you inevitably need to investigate your father?”
“Then I’ll do it,” she says, focusing on her steak again. “But everyone knows my father—they know anyone he does business with is likely tainted.”
I drink my whiskey. “I disagree with your premise.”
“About my father?”
“About less powerful people needing to know what the rich are doing behind their backs,” I say. “By keeping civilians in the dark, they’re protected from all of those ugly things.”
“Sounds like something a rich guy would say.”
“I have some powerful people in my pocket. If average civilians knew about that, they’d become angry. They’d try to take on a power system they have no chance of overtaking. Two sides would collide and the civilian side would inevitably fail. There is no point in telling a powerless man that he’s powerless unless you want to anger or depress him. Ignorance is bliss, darling.”
“That’s not true.” She sets her silverware down. Her eyes spark, like meteors falling through space. “When you know what is happening, you can fix it. You can change things for the better. Look at the U.S. military—sexual harassment scandals see daylight, and now we have a Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office. Same thing with the city police department.”
“I can assure you that the city police are far from fixed. Quite easy to bribe, actually.”
“Says the wolf, circling around and finding the weakest one in the herd.” She stabs her steak with her knife before looking up at me again. “My job is to bring the truth to light,” she says. “It’s better for the people to know a terrible truth than to believe a happy lie. Sharing the truth is how we make the world better. How we protect it from people like you.”
“And yet here you are, alone and unprotected.”
Her lip curls up, but she focuses on her food again. God, the fire in her is indomitable. It lights her up, transforms her into incandescence, and turns me on in a way I haven’t experienced before.
Cassandra remains stiff, a faint anger fuming off her like a strong perfume, as I instruct the waitress to bring us an order of zeppoles—Italian doughnuts. She goes to the kitchen and returns soon after, using tongs to set two zeppoles on each of our plates.
After she leaves, I indicate for Cassandra to take a bite. “It’s delicious, I promise.” She reluctantly picks one up and tries a tiny nibble. She tries to subdue the pleasant surprise on her face, but I notice and laugh nonetheless.
I take a bite out of my own, the sugar melting on my tongue.
“You’re wrong,” she says before taking a second bite. “It’s true that it’s better to know the truth, no matter what.”
“That’s wrong and you know it. I don’t know why you’re lying to yourself.”
“I’m not lying,” she snaps.
“Then why didn’t you track down your daughter?” I ask.
“I tried. I don’t have the resources that you have.”
“And what about your father?” I continue. “Have you asked him about everything he’s done? Have you dug into the truth about the one and only Gianluigi Balducci?”
She presses her lips together, putting the zeppola back down. “That’s different.”
“Because you’d rather believe the lie? Or because you’d rather stay safe?”
“I know the truth,” she says. “Enough. Just not all of it. I don’t need the details.”
“You’re splitting hairs.” I finish my whiskey. “And you’re just lying to yourself, so you might as well admit that you’re wrong.”
“I’m not.” She pushes the plate away from herself. “I have no problem asking my father for the truth.”
“That’s another lie.”
“There’s nothing he could say to me that would surprise me. He’s a violent, wicked man. There’s nothing new to learn. There’s no truth to dig up. I already know it.”
I stand up and walk around to her side of the table. She eyes me as I approach, like a sheep watching a wolf in the corner of its eye. Tearing the zeppola in half, I hold it out to her. She stares at it for a couple of seconds before reaching for it.
Quick as lightning, I grab her wrist. The zeppola falls back into the bowl. She tries to yank her hand out of my grasp, but I keep a tight grip on her.
I lean towards her, faces inches apart. “Do you want to know what I’m thinking right now?” I rasp. “Do you want to hear what I want to do to you? Do you want to know the truth?”
She glares at me, the anger coming off her like smoke from a forest fire now, but she says nothing.
I grab her jaw with my free hand and press my lips against hers. We crash together like soldiers on a battlefield. Her lips move the slightest bit, a surrender to the war I’ve declared against her. I delve deeper, tongue flickering out, and—
She bites down.
It catches the edge of my bottom lip. I jerk away, pain lancing through me. My fingertips come away bloody from my mouth. I run my tongue over the cut. It tastes like old copper.
I look over at her. She looks back at me, wild and wary. Her arms are braced against the chair, ready for retaliation.
Not yet. But soon.
I smile. Confusion dances across her face.
“That was fun,” I say. She frowns, her eyes narrowing. “But it looks like you’re tired. And you’re already ready to go to bed. You can leave now.”
“Oh, can I?” she asks, her voice bordering between uncertainty and taunting.
“You will leave,” I tell her. “My men will take you back to your apartment. They’re still outside. And you’ll return to my place tomorrow, ready to move in permanently. My address is 5473—”
“I’m a fucking reporter,” she cuts me off. She stands up. “I’ll find you.”
I smile again. The fire in her is truly unquenchable. “And Cassandra …” I add. “Do not presume to test me again.”
She reaches out to grab her glass of wine, bringing it up to her lips to take one last sip. I watch her start to tilt the glass up, but rather than finish drinking, she reverses course and throws it in my face.
“Test that, motherfucker.” Then she turns and storms out with even more fury than she came in with.
I can only laugh. Cassandra will be more work than I thought.
But I know more than ever that she’ll be worth it.
8
Cassandra
I feel like I’m stepping into a Gothic cathedral as a housekeeper lets me inside Maksim’s mansion. The walls are pale stone, leading up to delicate spirals, and metal windows let in high, arcing beams of light.
“He’s got a little flair for the melodramatic, doesn’t he?” I ask the housekeeper, holding tightly to my pair of suitcases. She has shoulder-length golden hair, though her narrow face makes it seem longer. She could be an unhealthy, tired twenty-year-old or three times that old, and I wouldn’t be surprised either way. I guess I shouldn’t be too shocked that Maksim’s house staff is as mysterious as he is.
She twists her hands in front of her. “I don’t know what you mean, ma’am. He requested that I take you to your room right away. Please come with me.”
She seems to trot as she scurries down one of the branching hallways, but I take my time walking through the mansion. I have to imagine that during the daytime, the sun illuminates this place, but now, it’s almost sinister with the lack of light. It could be a good start to the article.
“Why is it so dark in here?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Like I said, Mr. Akimov ordered only that I take you to your room right away. He specifically told me not to answer any questions you might have. Please come along.”
I sigh. “Your boss is a dick.”
“Mm,” she mutters, a sliver of irritation reaching her voice. She’s either loyal to him or attracted to him. I’m not sure which emotion is less relatable.
After we get deeper into the house, light starts to expose more of the ha
llway, revealing an intricate Persian carpet and the entrances of various rooms. As it gets brighter, I see the light is coming from a large room in front of us. When the housekeeper steps into it, she moves to the left, so I can enter the lounge.
Through the doors is more ballroom than living space. It’s a circular room with a painted dome, though there’s a piano in the center of it, bookshelves covering the walls, and a few pieces of furniture settled around the border. There are only three breaks in the shelving—the entrance I just walked through, a doorway on the opposite side, and a staircase that seems to climb up the wall before disappearing behind the bookcase.
“This way.” The housekeeper continues toward the stairs. I follow her up, though the steepness of the steps is disorienting.
The second floor of the house is darker than the first. For nearly a minute, I keep my eyes focused on the movement of the housekeeper. As we keep moving, there’s a glow of light from another room. The housekeeper stands aside again, gesturing into the room.
I step in. Nothing in the room is surprising. It has a stone floor, a queen-sized bed with an iron headboard and footboard that’s twisted into elaborate, circular designs, and a three-panel closet lined with full-length mirrors in front of the bed. Another door opens to the left.
The housekeeper walks over to the mirrors and slides open one of the mirrored closet doors. “There is a dress in here for you to wear. Mr. Akimov wants you to shower and change into it. Your bathroom is through that door.”
She points to the door on the left.
“What if I already showered?” I ask.
“Then you’ll shower again,” she says simply. I take a deep breath, ready to argue, but I know I’d be arguing with the wrong person. She’s just parroting what Maksim told her, and she hasn’t exactly struck me as the flexible type. “I’ll be back in half an hour to take you to Mr. Akimov. Should I get the rest of your luggage?”
I shake my head. “This is all I brought.”
“Mr. Akimov said you’d be here indefinitely.”
“Yes,” I say. “I will be. But I don’t have that many things. I just moved here from North Carolina. I donated a lot of my things before I came.”
“I see,” she says. “Please shower quickly. We don’t want to keep Mr. Akimov waiting.”
“Definitely not,” I say, trying to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. “Can I ask what your name is?”
“Mary,” she says.
“Thank you, Mary,” I say. She gives me a quick nod before leaving the room.
I open the bathroom door. Everything is stainless steel or pitch black. Not much of an eye for color, this one.
I undress and step into the shower. The minimalism of the single glass wall between me and the rest of the bathroom adds a sense of surrealism to the situation, but as I turn on the water, the cold stream brings me back to the truth.
I’m screwed.
The only chance I have to make this deal worth anything is to find out as much as possible about my daughter and get enough information out of Maksim to make it into a great story. Otherwise, I’m just a rat in a cage with a sadistic scientist.
The water quickly warms. Three small bottles—shampoo, conditioner, and soap—are placed in a row in the small shelf built into the wall. I scrub my hair and body thoroughly, trying not to think of Maksim joining me or which circle of hell I’m diving straight into.
I have to think like an investigative journalist. Be invested, but not too invested. Act benign. Convince the source that I am his pastor and his confessions won’t end up on the front page of a newspaper.
Even if every word of that promise is a lie.
I grab the fresh towel off the bureau. I open the top drawer, finding a variety of bathroom essentials—brushes, combs, deodorant, razors, cotton swabs, cotton balls. I take out the comb, teasing out the knots in my hair.
When I open the bathroom door, a stream of cold air cascades over me. My eyes adjust to the dimmer light. I head over to the closet, pulling out the dress.
The dress is sheer black with silk material barely covering up the chest and private areas. It’s certainly meant to humiliate me. My instincts tell me to refuse to wear it—to put my old clothes back on—but I’m certain he expects I’ll do it and he’ll see it as a victory. He’ll see it as proof that I was humiliated.
Better idea: wear the fuck out of it and act like it doesn’t bother me at all. That is what gets under the skin of these types of men. I won’t let him cow me that easily.
Pulling it on turns out to be harder than I thought. The material is tight and I have to keep rearranging the silk material to ensure that everything is covered. The hem cuts just below my ass. As I try to walk in it, I’m surprised to see it isn’t as constricting as I thought. It presses against my ribs and it’s hard to take long strides, but I won’t be afraid of it splitting if I sit down.
There’s a long shoebox at the bottom of the closet. I pick it up, setting it on the bed before flipping the top off.
They’re knee-high red boots.
He’s absolutely messing with me.
I sit down, pulling on each boot. I zip up the sides and check myself in the mirror. To my surprise, I don’t look bad. My hair could be better, but the dress fits and it gives me more curves than I normally have. I look like a hooker, but at least I look like one that’s getting paid handsomely for her time.
I check my phone. No messages. I have no idea how much time has passed, but it has to be close to half an hour. I could risk checking some of the other rooms, but it would be a dangerous risk at this point. Mary doesn’t seem like she’s exactly on my side. I have no doubt that she’d go running to Maksim to tattle on me if she found out I’d been snooping around where I don’t belong.
Mary appears out of the darkness like I just said “Beetlejuice” in the mirror ten times. I catch myself as I nearly fall over in the stiletto boots.
“Jesus, Mary,” I mutter. And Joseph. “Don’t scare me like that.”
She ignores my comment. “Are you ready? I’m taking you to the library. Mr. Akimov will join you there shortly.”
As Mary starts leading me back to the library, I pull at the hem of my dress and consider how I can get Maksim to talk about the Bratva. I could lead him into a discussion about my daughter and when he refuses to tell me anything like he did last time, pretend to settle for information about his illegal business. He was willing to allude to his leadership in the Bratva at the restaurant, so he must be open to talking a little more about it.
I touch my lips. I’ve tried to not think about the kiss—his ruthlessness bordered on cruelty and I didn’t think I let my desire for him show, so I should have been repulsed by it, but it was like gasoline set on fire. I don’t know the reason for it, but I know I can’t let him strike the match like that again.
I’ll have to keep his hatred for my family at the front of his mind.
And I’ll have to keep his mouth from mine.
When we reach the library, Mary gestures to a couch beside an armchair. “You should sit here. Mr. Akimov will be here shortly.”
She bows her head before leaving through the entrance we previously walked through. I don’t sit down. Small defiance wherever possible is my M.O. for the evening. Fight the power, or something along those lines.
Instead, I wander through the library, glancing at the spines of the books. There doesn’t seem to be any organization to them, but I also don’t recognize most of the titles.
When I’ve done a full circuit of the room, I glance at the two entrances and the stairwell.
“I wonder where those lead?” I whisper under my breath.
My heart is beating too fast. I need to relax before he gets here, so I sit down at the piano and tap a couple of keys. I wish I had learned to play.
I check the two entrances and the stairwell again. He could easily lurk in the shadows if he wanted to. The room is creepily quiet.
I run my hands over the front of the dress. I p
lay a few more notes before trying to fake a couple of chords. I make more noise. I look around the room, waiting for him to appear—a vampire in his vampire house, ready to take everything from me.
At this point, I just want him to get it over with.
The boots are starting to pinch my pinkie toe. I unzip them, pulling them off. Let him yell at me for disobeying orders; see if I care. I listen carefully, waiting to hear footsteps. It’s a stone house. Everything must echo. But I can’t even hear Mary anywhere.
“Mary?” I call out.
Nothing.
I walk over to the bookshelves again in my bare feet. I pull down a book. Autopsies of the Anomalies. Gross, and also weird.
I put it back and take down another book. In Times of War. That’s right up Maksim’s alley, I bet.
I start to skim through. It’s as dry as it gets—battle tactics about flanking enemies and organizing assault patterns. Every few pages, I glance over my shoulder, expecting to find Maksim standing over me.
I get through the first chapter. The second chapter. The third chapter.
Still nothing. No one. Silence.
I slam the book down after the fourth chapter. I walk over to the entrance. The house is darker now. He’s still trying to embarrass me. A proud woman wouldn’t stick around. She’d call an asshole’s bluff and leave him alone in his misery until he made up for his mistake. If he’s so desperate to get revenge on my father, he’ll track me down again.
But he still knows about my daughter. And God only knows what he’ll do if I abandon our deal now.
I lean against the doorframe, contemplating the paths in front of me. I imagine him swooping in, bursting out of the darkness, grabbing onto my hips, and pressing his warm body against mine as he kissed me, harsher than last time. This time, when I tried to bite his lip, he’d turn away right before I could, only to hike my dress up and push into me with a carelessness that would be equally threatening and thrilling.
