by Sienna Blake
“Y-you can’t ask me that,” I stutter, my cheeks growing hot.
Her smile widens even further. “I thought so. How sweet.”
Sweet? She’s mocking me. I’m so flustered that I can’t speak.
Isabelle looks over my shoulder, where I know Dimitri is still watching us. “Then I take it he’s not your boyfriend? Despite how much he wants to be.”
Boyfriend? Boyfriend feels like such a juvenile word to describe what Dimitri and I are to each other. I don’t answer her question. “What do you want?”
She smiles, her perfect red lips parting to reveal a set of straight white teeth. For some reason, they look wolfish. “I have an offer for you that will change your life.”
5
____________
Alena
The present…
I close the box, my breath shuddering through my teeth, my lungs feeling shredded.
Enough.
That’s enough of these sharp memories right now.
I fold each thing back into the cavity and lock the box, slipping the key back into my locket and hiding the locket back under my clothing. I stand at the side of my bed, about to bend down to slip it back out of sight, when my door bursts open with a bang against the wall.
“Alena,” Emily’s high-pitched voice calls as she bounds into my room.
I quickly slip the box onto my side table, hoping it’s camouflaged among the elaborate vintage lamp and small pile of books I’ve borrowed from the manor library. I’ll have to tuck it away later.
I turn towards Emily. She looks like her father, the same straight chestnut hair, milk-and-cream skin, same deep-set grey eyes. Except her face is sweet and round, while her father’s is all shrunken cheeks and pointed chin. She’s only three years younger than me at eighteen, my husband’s daughter from his previous wife, now dead.
“Emily, you’re up.” She’s already dressed for the day in a long grey knit dress and semi-opaque stockings, a pair of ballet flats on her feet. I’m still in my silk dressing gown, my nightgown underneath.
“What shall we do today?” she asks.
Her smile is infectious. I feel myself dusting off all these old cobwebs. Emily is the one good thing in my life. The one joy. “Don’t you have a music lesson today? With Mrs Prim?”
She gives me a guilty look. “Um, she might have yelled at me last time, telling me that I was an untalented brat and that she was never coming back.”
“And what did you do to make her lash out like that?”
“Nothing.” The innocence in her face cracks. “Okay, so I may have told her that I didn’t want to do her boring old scales.”
I snort. “That should do it.”
“Besides, I will never be able to play the piano the way Father wants me to.”
“Because you won’t practice your scales.”
She screws up her face. “I swear she had a flute stuck up her ass.”
“Surely having something up your bum would make you a more pleasant person.”
“Alena!” Emily admonishes me, her cheeks blushing furiously.
Despite myself, I laugh. “Let’s go steal Mrs Bates’ work gloves and throw them up a tree.” Mrs Bates is the crotchety old housekeeper. She can’t stand Emily and me. We return the favour. It probably doesn’t help matters that we play tricks on her when we’re bored.
“Oooh, no, let’s act out one of your stories! Have you written any new ones?”
“Um, not recently.” I’m lying. I have been working on a story, a new story. I don’t want to share it. It’s too personal. Too raw. It’s taken me five years just to be able to start writing it down.
I do have lots of things to be grateful for. I never go hungry. We have a cook who lives with us on-site. I am never cold. I have real fur cloaks and this place is well heated. We have real fireplaces; some rooms have two. I have a small study down the hall, just for me, with my own desk that I always wanted, with lots of pens and paper and…
There’s just something missing. Someone missing.
Emily frowns at me, her eyes sliding past me towards my bedside table. “What’s that? I’ve never seen that before.”
My jaw tightens. I know exactly what’s she’s looking at. “Seen what?”
“That box.” Emily strides past me before I can stop her. “It doesn’t look like it belongs here.” She’s right. The simple box sticks out among all this elaborate, fussy luxury. She walks right to it and grabs it. The sight of my box in someone else’s hand makes my chest seize. I stop breathing for a second. It takes all of my willpower not to snatch the box from her grubby little hands. I almost cry when she shakes it, the contents rattling like dice in a cup. “What’s inside?”
My fingers flinch as I restrain myself from snatching it from her. The bigger deal I make out of it, the more Emily won’t leave it alone. “It’s nothing,” I say, trying to keep my voice casual. I fail.
“There’s something in there. I can hear it.”
I let out a curt, humourless laugh as I wave it off. “It’s been so long, I’ve forgotten what’s inside.”
“Let’s open it.”
“You can’t!”
“Why not?”
“I’ve…lost the key.”
Emily looks at me, a tiny crease between her brows. “Then why do you keep it?”
I shrug even as the pain lances me like someone has fisted the broken edges of the contents of the box into my chest. “It’s the only thing I have left from my life before here.” These are true words. And they are swollen with pain.
Emily’s frown deepens, sadness pulling down the corners of her mouth, adding to my guilt. “I thought we were friends, best friends.”
“We are.” She’s my only friend. She has been for five years.
“Why won’t you tell me what’s inside?”
“There’s nothing to tell,” I snap. Leave it alone, you selfish girl. This is mine. Only mine.
Her face darkens. She knows I’m lying. “Best friends tell each other everything.”
Now I feel terrible. Terrible for lying. Terrible for my hateful thoughts towards her.
And yet, a part of me is dying to tell. Dying to unwrap this throbbing wound that has never closed. Perhaps it’s time to share my secret shame, my hidden grief. Perhaps it’s time to unburden myself to someone.
Perhaps I can trust Emily with my greatest mistake.
I take a step towards her. My footing goes as something sharp lances through my lower belly. I gasp, pressing at my stomach.
Oh God. Please, no.
“Leni?” she says, leaving the box now forgotten on the table. She stretches her hands out towards me. “Are you okay?”
The ache throbs again, this time sharper. I let out a cry and double over, clutching at my stomach. This feels just like the last time. “No,” I gasp, my lungs seizing as panic grips me.
“Leni!”
Pain lashes through me in waves. My vision blurs behind tears. Breathe. Can’t breathe. I feel myself falling into a well of pain.
Everything goes black.
6
____________
Alena
Five years ago…
“Abso-fucking-lutly not.” Dimitri’s voice grinds out between his clenched teeth.
After we leave the Kempinski Hotel bar, I wait until we get back to our apartment to tell him about Isabelle’s offer. I know this is not a conversation we should have in public.
“I know it’s unorthodox,” I say softly. “Just think about it.”
Dimitri begins to pace across our threadbare carpet, his hands yanking through his hair. “I can’t believe you’re even entertaining the thought of marrying some stranger for money.”
“It is not for money, it is for us.” I grab his shoulders, causing him to stop pacing, forcing him to look at me. “For us, Dimi.”
He pushes my hands off me, as if my touch burns him. “Don’t you dare say this is for us. I don’t want this.”
“You do
n’t want this?” I yell back, frustration turning in my gut. Here is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, handed to us on a platter, and he isn’t even considering it. “You don’t want a better life? You want to starve? To freeze to death?”
“Of course I want a better life. But not like this.”
“Then how—?”
“You are not a fucking whore!” he screams, making the window panes shudder.
His words slap me in my face. That was one aspect I hadn’t really thought through. If I married a stranger, I’d have to…
I shove that thought down into the dark pit of my mind. That is something I can deal with later. I hadn’t even been made an offer from any potential wealthy husbands yet. I have just been given the offer to sign up with Isabelle’s agency. Even if I sign up, I may not get chosen by anyone.
I only realise I’m shaking when Dimitri wraps his strong arms around me. “Oh, Alena,” he whispers in my hair, “I’m sorry for yelling. Just the thought of you with another man…it kills me.” He presses a kiss to my forehead and sighs.
I melt into his arms, letting his warmth wrap around me until it’s just him and me. We are stronger than anything.
“It’s just an offer, Dimi,” I say. “Just something for us to consider.”
“The answer’s no.”
Resentment swirls around in my gut. He hasn’t even considered it properly.
“Promise me you won’t go back to Isabelle,” he says.
I squeeze my eyes shut as the backs of them sting. Visions of a better life that Isabelle had built up earlier crumble before me—of a life of never being cold, of never feeling the angry gnaw of hunger in my belly, of never having to beg or steal for what I want. I want a better life so badly. So, so badly. Desperation tears me up inside.
“Alena?”
What’s the harm in just seeing what could come of this? It’s not like I have to say “yes”…
Dimitri pulls back to look at me. I don’t want to fight with him right now. I can’t tell him I’m going to sign up. Not yet. I’m doing this for us, I tell myself. He’ll come around once he sees the real opportunity on offer. If there even is an offer…
“I promise,” I lie, fingers crossed behind my back.
7
____________
Dimitri
Alena is lying to me.
I know because her school called me at the factory yesterday to tell me that she has missed school for the third day in a row. They think I’m her guardian because we forged the papers.
I should have known something was up. She’s been distant these last few days, her eyes skipping past me to stare into nothing more often than not, her lips moving as I kiss her, the fire behind it as low as coals. I’ve just been so busy…
She’s been distant…since the run-in with Isabelle. There’s a hollowness digging a pit in my stomach. She’s never lied to me before.
I don’t confront her. Instead I pretend to go to work as usual even though it’s my rostered day off. I wait around the corner from our crumbling brick apartment building.
Finally, she appears at the front door of our building. Her hair looks thick and styled as it tumbles over her fur coat, the same fur coat she wore when we met Isabelle. I squint as she steps out into the grey morning. Is that…? Her eyes are done up and she has red lipstick on her mouth. She has makeup on, real makeup. Where did she get makeup from?
My stomach drops. I think I know where she’s going.
I hang back, watching her stride down the street a decent distance before I follow her, my collar pulled up around my jaw. Her walk is different. Her hips sway like she’s suddenly become aware of them and the power they hold. The way she’s holding her shoulders is different, thrown back to showcase her blooming chest. Men blatantly check her out, heads turning as she walks past them, weaving her way through St Petersburg. A group of men call out obscenities to her from across the street, grabbing their dicks and thrusting. My vision bleeds. She’s just a child, I want to scream. It takes every inch of my willpower not to run over there and beat the living shit out of every single one of them.
The Alena-who-doesn’t-look-like-my-Alena continues on. And on. Until she stops at the black painted door of a six-storey grey Gothic building trimmed with stonework arches, all the windows at the front looking out like dead black eyes.
On the doorstep, Alena presses the buzzer and fluffs her hair as she waits. The door opens. My gut twists as I watch her disappear inside.
I wait a few excruciating seconds before I sneak up to the door. There’s a single buzzer with just two taunting letters against it:
GW
Isabelle’s agency. My worst fucking nightmare. Dear God. What are they doing to her in there?
I get a flash in my mind of Alena inside, stripped to her underwear, a collar around her neck, being paraded up and down a row of old seedy, grabby men like some kind of sick dog show. Sit. Stay. Roll over…
Something snaps inside me. My vision bleeds red. I’m slamming my fist against the door before I know what I’m doing. “Alena,” I scream. I keep banging, the door reverberating in its frame, my voice going hoarse from calling her name. I’m going to beat this fucking door down if someone doesn’t open it soon.
The door swings open. I barely notice the wide-eyed woman standing in the doorway. “Can I help—?”
She jumps out of my way as I barge past her, stepping into a stylish lobby area of white and cream. There is a cluster of girls, all young, all pretty, crowding around the top of a set of stairs, whispering to each other and watching me with startled doe eyes.
“Where’s Alena?” I demand.
The whispers heighten as they glance around at each other.
I grind my teeth. “Where is she? I know she’s in here.”
“Dimitri?” Alena’s voice calls over the murmuring. Her voice sends another wave of fury through me. The crowd parts. She appears on the top step, her features morphing somewhere between mortified and furious.
Frankly, I don’t give a shit that she’s embarrassed.
“It’s okay,” she says to the bleating ninnies around her. “He’s my brother.”
Her brother?
I stomp up the stairs, sending some of the girls scattering. Alena races down to meet me halfway. “What the hell are you doing here?” she hisses.
“I should ask you the same fucking question.”
“Let’s talk somewhere else, Dimi. Please.” Alena glances over her shoulder. She’s nervous. She’s afraid that we’re making a scene.
The scene hasn’t fucking started yet.
A wave of madness comes over me. I tackle her around the waist, hoisting her over my shoulder, setting off a round of gasps. I spin, careful not to bang her against the wall, and carry her down the stairs.
“What the fuck are you doing?” She beats at my back and kicks at the air. I am too damn furious to feel anything. I am numb with fury. I’m practically vibrating with rage. “Put me down.”
I storm out the door, no one daring to stop me. “No fucking chance, sweetheart.”
8
____________
Alena
The present…
I wake reluctantly, because in my dreams is where Dimitri lives. I’m a fish on a hook being dragged ever closer to the surface, while I struggle to remain in the murky depths where my heart and my secrets lie like sunken treasures.
The surface breaks over me in a wash of light behind my closed lids. I open them and blink at the figure sitting at my side. Emily’s worried face comes into focus. She lets out a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness. I was so worried.”
I’m in my bed, in my room. It’s dim. My curtains are closed. The bedside lamp is on. The air smells stale, a sharp scent of disinfectant and something coppery underneath.
A shadow moves behind Emily. We’re not alone. Standing behind her is Mrs Bates, the head housekeeper, a woman with a face like she’s permanently sucking on a lemon. She must be at least fifty, giv
en the amount of crow’s feet around her tiny black eyes that I always seem to catch glaring at me, her hair pulled back into a severe bun at the nape of her stringy neck. She wears her usual uniform of solemn dark colours, her skirt skimming the floor.
“What happened?” I ask automatically. My throat is dry as sandpaper. I wince as the rest of my body cries out. There’s a dull ache in my lower belly. My hand flies to the surface where the pain is radiating from. I feel wet between my legs. Soaking.
I don’t need to hear what happened. I know.
I know.
Emily doesn’t answer right away. She helps me sit up, rearranging my pillows behind me, then hands me a glass of water. When I’m finished, she places the empty glass well away from me, as if she knows to keep anything breakable out of my reach. “The doctor’s been here.”
I look down. They laid towels underneath me. Towels.
“I’m so sorry, Leni,” she says, her voice taking on a soft, hesitant tone. “The doctor said that these things happen, sometimes for no reason. There was nothing he could—”
“You lost the baby,” Mrs Bates blurts out. Her words hang disjointed and sharp in the air. I try not to breathe them in, but there’s no denying reality when it’s a fog around you.
“Mrs Bates,” admonishes Emily.
“What?” There is no apology in Mrs Bates’ look. “Better she hears it straight. Not the way you were faffing about.”
Emily turns her back on Mrs Bates with an exasperated sigh. The instant her gaze falls on me, her features soften into a look of pity. “I’m so sorry,” she says, her voice warbling. Her eyes fill with tears as she grips my limp hand.
“No use in dwelling on these things,” Mrs Bates says.
Emily stiffens. She hates Mrs Bates as much as I do. It doesn’t matter what we think. She’s been working for my husband longer than Emily has been alive. He’ll never fire her. “Leave us, please.”
