by Lana Sky
In some ways, she has. While playing with my parents in their garden, she can frolic amongst a sea of roses unbothered. But when sensed while caught off guard, she panics. So much so that she crawls into her father’s bed at night and breaks down at the mere thought of someone taking her from him.
“Thank you for your help,” Vadim says, leading the way to the door. I follow him out, and as we enter the car, I notice that he still has that note clenched in his fist, his gaze unfocused.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, bracing my hand over his forearm as he settles beside me. “Is that handwriting… Is it Irina’s?”
“No,” he says hoarsely, looking hopelessly confused. “It’s not.”
I frown. “Do you think she had someone else—”
“Irina didn’t write this,” he says, as if he has to repeat it just to drill the fact into his own understanding. “But I know who did.”
“Who?” I ask.
Carefully, he folds the paper and slips it into his breast pocket. With his gaze on the window nearest him, he says, so softly, I almost don’t hear him, “Hiram Gorgoshev.”
Chapter Eighteen
The weight of his statement casts a pall over the entire mood of our impromptu trip. I’m at a loss for words, truly unsure of what to say.
Not that anything I could voice would be able to penetrate the cloud of unease hanging over Vadim. It’s so heavy I feel as though if I reach out to touch him, I’ll feel an invisible barrier barring my path—his wall, rebuilt higher than ever.
Hiram, his mentor, and father figure who entrusted his business to him… That man had somehow written a note that wound up on Magdalene the day she arrived at the crisis center. A crisis center primarily funded by said company.
It’s almost too convoluted a web to unravel all at once.
And Vadim especially seems perplexed by this new twist in the puzzle that is Magdalene’s past. By the time we’re nearly an hour into our drive, he finally speaks.
“I knew there were things he never told me,” he says gruffly. “I’m not a fool. But this… Did he plan this with that bitch? Goad me to take in Magdalene for his own gain?” His voice trembles, coarse with anger, and my heart aches for him. Cracks.
In his mind, such a betrayal makes sense—it’s the only way he’s learned to see the world. Always on the defense. But something tells me that the explanation may not be so simple. Maybe reinforced simply by the fact that a man who would do so much for a young, tormented boy to cross his path—even going so far as to give him his name—wouldn’t be so cruel as to gamble that trust on a reckless whim. Would he?
“He’s probably laughing at me from the grave,” Vadim adds with a harsh, callous scoff. “I’ve still carried his name all this time. I was going to give my daughter his name.”
He glowers, his hands clenched over the steering wheel, his eyes flashing a vitriol he doesn’t even display toward his brother. All I can do is place my hand on his shoulder and let him rage.
“Is there anything he left you that might give you a clue as to his motives?” I ask, gingerly giving Hiram the benefit of the doubt.
Vadim blinks as if he didn’t think to consider the possibility for himself. “I had most of his estate liquidated,” he explains, raking a hand through his hair repeatedly. “But some personal effects I had shipped to the city and placed in storage. I never had the heart to go through them.”
“So let’s do it now,” I suggest, hoping I sound braver than I feel. “Together.”
He eyes me warily, and I see the faintest hint of his wall starting to splinter. I feel so attuned to him in this moment, I swear I’m reading his mind. Once again, he’s grappling with his decision to trust me. Hiram supposedly betrayed him, am I next?
I meet his gaze unflinchingly, hoping that whatever he finds gives him enough reassurance to trust me. At least for now.
After a few tense seconds, he sighs and steers the car onto an off-ramp heading toward Fair Haven. Sensing the need to remain silent, I let him stew for nearly the entire drive.
It’s only when we arrive before a prestigious bank in the heart of the city that I manage to blurt, “So this is where billionaires get all those fancy limitless cards from.”
My awe is quickly tempered, however, when Vadim exits the car, stone-faced, and reaches back for me. Together, we enter a minimally designed lobby where a teller guides us to a private room supposedly designed to store personal effects.
As we wait on leather loungers, the woman returns with a few small items balanced on a silver tray.
“Take all the time you need,” she explains as she sets the tray onto a wooden table before us.
The second she’s gone, I sit forward and eagerly peruse each object. There isn’t much—perhaps Vadim’s ruthless minimalism isn’t a trait he picked up on his own, but one he learned from Hiram? A leather-bound journal, a gold-set watch on a leather band, and finally, a black metal lockbox make up the bulk of his few personal effects.
The last item draws my interest the most, but I sit back as Vadim takes his time inspecting the arrangement. Finally, he reaches out, fingering the watch first.
“He told me once, he’d leave this to me,” he says, more to himself than to anyone else. Sighing, he turns his attention to the notebook, warily flipping through the first few pages. With a pained expression, he sets it aside and then finally opens the lockbox.
I find myself leaning forward, eagerly peering within—only to frown in confusion. Hiram Gorgoshev cherished few things in life, it seems. A small stack of documents, and a selection of glossy snapshots tied together with a delicate strip of ribbon. But not just any photos.
I recognize the little girl staring plaintively from the topmost one—so does Vadim. He snatches the entire stack and spreads them out over the table, his expression increasingly constricted. Magda stars in every last one, spanning at least most, if not her entire short lifespan. A wide-eyed, stoic baby. A blankly staring toddler. A presumably five-year-old girl photographed without flashing so much as a smile.
Vadim lifts that one, his hand shaking so badly. It slips through his grasp and lands face-down, revealing a slash of cruelly elegant script written on the back: Proud of your creation? Every picture sports some variation of a message, each one seemingly more mocking than the last.
So innocent. So perfect. How many such well-bred creatures did you deny the world when you grew a soul, Hiram?
Do you see his face? I do. What would he say?
And finally…
Do you deny she’s a result of your ‘research?’ Flawed, like everything you touch.
The author of these cruel messages needs no explanation. Irina wrote them, using the pointed language to taunt Hiram. Blackmail him? And the last one, adorning the oldest photo of Magda, mentioned that damn, hateful word. Flawed.
In disgust, Vadim swipes his hand over the photos, scattering them further. Then he snatches the remaining stack of documents from the lockbox and scours them with a deepening frown.
“What is it?” I ask as he lurches to his feet, his gaze on one page in particular.
He shakes his head rather than tell me. Then he retreats to a corner of the room while withdrawing a cell phone from his pocket. In hushed tones, he relays something fervently to whoever is listening on the other end, but I only manage to catch snippets. “…Verify. The one Hiram used. Yes. See if you can track him down.”
As I strain my ears to listen, I reach for one of the documents he’d left behind. All it contains is an itemized list. An invoice? I struggle to decipher the final details. A series of names… Countries? Each one is followed by a date and a scribbled response in different handwriting that makes me suspect they had been written in after the fact.
Gone.
Left in June.
No sign.
Witnesses saw a child but no sign.
Was Hiram tracking someone? Someone with a child who apparently bounced from city to city—even country to country. And jud
ging from the number of invoices, his surveillance of that mysterious figure spanned months if not years.
“He knew,” Vadim rasps. I look up to find him stowing his cell phone in his pocket, apparently speaking to me now. “Irina kept in contact with him. The bastard even had her traced. Put a bounty on her head—”
“I’m sorry.” I rise to my feet and approach him. Everything we’ve learned takes a backseat to the betrayal I know he’s feeling. And I’m already steeling myself to withstand his instinctive way of reacting when hurt.
His eyes cut down to mine, blazing with mistrust. “How do I know you aren’t working with her as well?” he demands. “Am I supposed to believe it was a coincidence that you appeared in my life when you did? How good you are with her. It could be an act. It could…” He deflates, raking his hands through his hair, his gaze unreadable. “No,” he decides, shaking his head. “No.”
What exactly about me makes him change his mind, he doesn’t say. Instead, he sinks onto the edge of the leather chaise and sighs.
“Hiram’s man was the one who brought Magda to the crisis center.” He tosses the crumbled invoice onto the table, eyeing it in disgust. “He tracked Irina to Fair Haven of all places. His mercenary took Magda—terrified her in the process—and then…he abandoned her.”
“And then that man sent you that note?” I ask cautiously.
He shrugs. “It makes sense. Or at least it would if Hiram were the kind of man who thrived in deceit.”
“But he wasn’t,” I say, going off his obvious distress. “So there must be another explanation.” Desperate to help him find one, I grab the journal and flip through the pages. Hiram was a man of few words, most of them spent reflecting on his take on the current stocks, or his viewpoint on the current events that day. I’m starting to feel my search is in vain when I stumble across a page near the very end that isn’t like the others.
It’s longer for one, with Vadim’s name sprinkled throughout. It’s a summary of his accomplishments at the time, more like an exhaustive list. His ascent in the biotechnical industry. His many accolades regarding his education and various business acquisitions. And at the very end, he’d written simply—he is ready for anything.
My throat constricts at the realization of just how true those words are, but for whatever reason, I can’t bring myself to voice them.
“Let’s go.” Vadim stands, leaving everything on the table but the stack of invoices. “If we leave now, we can make it back before dark. I’ll call Magdalene.”
He’s already in the hallway by the time I manage to stand. Before I leave the room, however, I can’t stop myself from gathering everything into the lockbox and tucking it under my arm. When I rejoin Vadim out in the car, he spots my bounty, but he already has his cell phone against his ear, and the person on the other end takes precedence over all else.
“Having fun?” he asks in a jovial tone that’s such a startling contrast to his glowering expression. The man sure can turn on the charm when he needs to. Even I would be convinced if I didn’t happen to be staring directly at him. Whatever Magda says makes some warmth creep back into his gaze even as his frown deepens. “You want to stay the night,” he says, sounding surprised by that fact. His eyes meet mine, wavering with indecision. “I…”
“Yes.” I gently ease the phone from his grasp. Magda’s excited chirping is audible even before I fully press the device against my ear.
“…and we went hiking. And they said we could camp in the backyard! Can I stay? Please?”
I barely recognize this little girl, brimming with the full extent of a seven-year-old’s excitement. Even Vadim seems to realize that, despite his feelings toward Maxim, raining on her parade now would be cruel.
“That sounds great, honey,” I say, deciding for him. “Of course, you can stay. We’ll pick you up first thing in the morning.”
Vadim eyes me both grudgingly and with a hint of something that might be relief as I return the phone to him. After talking to Magda for a few more minutes, he finally hangs up.
“This is a good thing,” I insist in response to his distant gaze. “She gets to spend time with her family, and you get to digest what you’ve learned. You deserve to feel betrayed. But, you also deserve to think things through and have doubts about what the information may seem to present. It’s okay to not want to believe the worst in anyone.”
“Is it?” he wonders, flicking his gaze toward me.
“Yes.” I nod. “And, it’s especially easy to when you have a diversion. Let’s take advantage of the absence of little ears and paint the town red.”
I feel so smug with my offer, but Vadim’s lips don’t even twitch in the hint of a smile.
“Red with Irina’s blood?” he wonders in a tone that makes me suck in a breath.
“N-Not quite. More like…dinner and wine?”
He sighs but starts driving, presumably toward a restaurant here in the city. After settling Hiram’s estate on the floor of the car—and conveniently out of sight—I lean against him, slipping my hand in his.
He doesn’t pull away at least, but by no means is he content with any of the events today has brought his way. Were I not here, I think he’d go off on his own and brood. Maybe spiral into one of the dark moods I’ve briefly witnessed, and that Ena has warned me about.
And I make a promise to myself to do everything within my power to prevent that from happening.
No matter the cost.
Chapter Nineteen
Vadim’s version of wining and dining centers around a gorgeous French restaurant in the heart of the city. The food is amazing, the wine even better, and as we sit at a private table amongst beautiful ambiance, one could easily assume it’d make for the most romantic tension ever.
Or not.
My date scowls during the entire meal and barely touches his food, too distracted by the thoughts in his head. It’s like I can see them, dancing across his expression one by one. Fear of losing Magda. Anger at Irina. Pain at the thought of Hiram’s betrayal.
By the time our waiter clears away our plates, I’m resigned to what I feel is my only course of action left, other than to let him brood.
“Talk to me,” I demand, reaching across the table to clasp one of his hands. He stiffens, refocusing on me. It’s like he forgot I was even here, so lost in his own torment. “Tell me what you’re feeling. Or…” I lick my lips, recalling the one method of communication between us that never seems to fail. “You can show me.”
He raises an eyebrow and lifts his hand from beneath mine only to capture my wrist. Curiosity alights those dangerous eyes, and I feel a thrill shoot through me.
“Show?” he wonders gruffly.
I nod and casually finger the low neckline of my dress with my free hand, deliberately drawing his attention downward. “If you don’t want to talk to me, then show me. Let me feel what you’re feeling.”
His lips press together in a thoughtful gesture. “Sexual torment?” he muses in a tone so dark… I almost—almost have second thoughts. If only the logical part of my brain isn’t instantly drowned out by the lustful part, who relishes the avenues ventured by his twisted whims.
“I’m here for you,” I tell him, sounding more earnest than I think I have about anything in my life—other than when I said the same to Magda. “Let me be here.”
He stands, pulling me to my feet. In a whirlwind blur, we leave the restaurant and return to the car. It isn’t long into the drive that I become eerily familiar with the direction we’re headed in.
But before anything of note appears on the horizon, Vadim makes time for something far more important than sex.
“Goodnight, ma chérie,” he says into his cell phone, once again speaking to Magda. My heart swells as some softness seeps into the hardened lines of his expression as he lets her regale him with more of her day. But I think real tears prick my eyes as, instead of hanging up, he offers the phone to me.
“Goodnight, honey,” I tell her, sensing
from her slurred reply that she’s already half asleep.
The brief, domestic moment makes for a startling contrast to our eventual destination—an infamous club that happens to be partially owned by the man beside me.
An ominous shiver runs down my spine as he takes my hand, and we exit the car. Once inside the familiar ebony walls, Vadim leads me boldly through an archway in the direction opposite the club floor. It doesn’t appear to lead to the upstairs level either, but some new taboo section, and I have to admit my interest is piqued.
“I mentioned to Milton that I wished to expand my private use of the club,” he explains as my eyes excitedly scan the corners, hunting for any hint of where we might be headed. So far, all that greets me is a long, winding hallway draped in shadow. “He and Maxim both have rooms here,” he adds, steering me forward as the corridor begins to curve. “He granted my request.”
That being his own “private space,” presumably lurking beyond a massive ebony door waiting up ahead. That ominous tingle strengthens, turning into a shudder I can’t suppress. Excitement becomes a palpable thing—I can almost taste it.
Dark, dangerous kink.
Still, I try my best to cut the tension. “Milton granted your request,” I parrot, leaning against him playfully. “Is he in charge?”
“No,” Vadim says, his tone suddenly serious. He brings me to a stop as we reach the door. With one hand, he pushes it open, while the other captures the side of my face, forcing me to meet his gaze directly. “You are in charge,” he tells me huskily. Before I’ve even processed those words, he gently shoves me back, forcing me to stagger over the threshold of the room. “Always… Of how much of yourself you are willing to submit. Of how far you’ll allow me to go. Of your trust. Of me.”
