Chapter 25: Natalia

I find myself on the third floor.

The floor where Mikhail’s office is located, and one of the places of the house that are restricted to me.

Although I’m fully aware I’m breaking a rule by coming up here, my curiosity has overpowered me. I’m not sure who wouldn’t be curious after seeing the trail of blood taint the immaculate floor.

I have that feeling again, like I’m walking around in a horror film and every step is taking me closer and closer into the unknown.

I turn the corner and notice the dim lights on in the hall ahead. This whole area doesn’t look like it’s for work purposes, and I haven’t seen an office yet.

Since the blood trail leads to the hall, I continue following it.

I walk right into the grand hall, and my breath is stolen away when my gaze lands on the most beautiful paintings and sculptures of ballerinas.

Large and small paintings cover the walls. The entire wall to my left is dedicated to the largest painting of a ballerina in what I’m guessing must be Swan Lake, and she is the black swan.

The sculptures are set out gracefully across the floor. There must be well over a hundred of them. Some made of crystal, others of stone. All beautiful. I can’t help but move closer to take a better look.

When I do, I realize straightaway that the ballerinas are the same person. The same woman. It’s the same woman in the paintings, too.

There’s something the artist captured about her face that is evident in everything.

It’s the emotion. It’s sadness, but there’s a twinkle in her eyes. The emotion is more pronounced in the paintings because they’re a clearer depiction of what she looks like.

I move closer to the Swan Lake painting and take note of her honey-colored eyes. The sight grips me, and I think of where I’ve seen those eyes before.

Mikhail.

Is this woman his mother?

Is that who she is?

Apart from the eyes, I can’t quite detect any resemblance, but that doesn’t mean she’s not related to him. Sons tend to look more like their fathers, and daughters their mothers. Apart from my jet-black hair, I looked exactly like my mother, but I have my father’s eyes.

Those footsteps sound on the floor again. They echo from further down the hall along with the creek of doors opening.

I watch the mammoth-sized doors ahead open out on either side to a balcony, which looks similar to the one in the bedroom, but from here I can see a larger terrace outside. I wouldn’t think I was on the third floor just from what I can see.

I knew the house was huge, but it seems like it’s so much bigger than I thought.

Because I haven’t been in this section before, I have no idea where the terrace leads to. I don’t think it’s where I’ve been walking with the dog.

When I walk past one of the crystal ballerinas, I spot Mikhail ahead, and I also realize it’s lightly snowing outside again.

The cold air wafts in, making me shiver, but so does he.

He’ll know that I’m here in a few seconds, or perhaps he already does.

I take measured, careful steps, my bare feet frozen against the floor and my skin numb from where the cold caresses it.

All I’m wearing is a nightdress made of silk with little straps securing it to my shoulders.

He’s dressed for the weather in a black biker jacket and black slacks. The same clothes he had on last night. Blood drips from his hand, lots of it. He’s wounded, and as he moves around, the blood continues to drip.

This section of the hall has paintings covered up with dust sheets.

I watch him take the sheet off one of them sitting on an easel. It’s the closest painting to the opened doors. The sheet floats to the floor, and he stands in front of the painting. Because of the angle it’s placed in I can’t see what the painting is of yet.

But I can see him clearer now, and know he’s hurt.

There are bruises and blood on his face and all over his neck. It’s on his jacket too. I’m not sure if all that blood is his. In fact, I’m inclined to think it might not be from the way it’s splashed all over his face.

So, if it’s not his, it means he’s killed someone.

He’s killed more people.

With that in mind, why am I still moving toward him?

I continue and look at him as he smears his bloody hand all over the painting. It’s such an odd thing to do.

Really, Natalia, you think odd is the best word to describe that?

There’s a good reason why I’ve been describing the things I’ve seen this man do as comparable to a nightmare or a horror. It’s because that’s where monsters and fucked-up psychos live.

What I just saw him do is what I’d expect a psycho to do.

When I get closer and realize the painting is an unfinished one of a beautiful girl with soft brown hair and bright blue eyes, I’m inclined to agree with my assumption wholeheartedly.

That’s when I stop in my tracks and observe.

Who is she?

She’s someone else, not the ballerina, but the girl is wearing a tutu and has a bright smile on her face.

I think the same artist did the painting.

I’m not sure.

One last smear of blood on his thick fingers goes over her face, removing her smile.

He says something in Russian, as if he’s talking to the girl in the painting, then shakes his head.

“I got them, killed them all, but nothing will bring you back. Not you or Mother,” he says in English this time, and I realize the girl in the painting must be his sister. “There’s nothing I can do, Talia.”

There’s a slur to his words like he’s been drinking, and when he moves to the door, I notice a bottle of wine in the corner.

He picks it up and takes a long swig, finishing the contents. When he’s done, he throws the bottle into the painting. It bounces off the surface and falls on the floor, smashing.

I realize now that’s what I heard downstairs. It was another bottle.

My legs tremble, and I feel that urge to run, run far away. Yet I’m rooted to the floor like vines are holding my feet down.

I take in a slow breath. That’s when he turns and looks at me.

“What are you doing in here, Malyshka?” His voice, harsh and cold, cuts into me. “You were told not to come up here.”

“I’m sorry. I saw blood on the floor and… You’ve been gone since last night.”

“Go back to bed, princess. You don’t want to be around me right now.”

“What happened?” I don’t know if I’m making the mistake of my life by asking questions I shouldn’t be asking, but I’m compelled to nonetheless.

“Nothing that concerns you. Now go. Get out.” He points to the door. More blood drips from his hand.

“You’re hurt.”

“I’m always hurt, princess. This is just another day with new pain.” A menacing smile inches across his face. The menace doesn’t reach his eyes, though, like it usually does.

There’s too much pain lurking in the depths for anything to reach them. I know I should listen and get the fuck out, but that pain reaches out to me.

Maybe it’s because I recognize it. I’ve felt it and seen it in myself.

I chance walking up to him and stop a breath away. He stares down at me with those cold eyes, assessing me, and I gaze up at him.

“What room is this?” I ask, trying another angle.

“A shrine.”

That’s exactly what it feels like.

“It’s a shrine for them,” he adds.

Them.

His mother and sister.

“Mikhail, let me dress your wound. You’re bleeding.”

He chuckles off-key. “What the hell does a cartel princess know about dressing wounds?”

The answer to that is, she would most likely know nothing, but I do. I know because I’m not a princess. I’m the pauper.

Tentatively, I reach out to touch his hand, as if I’m touching a predator who could devour me any second now, but he steps away from me.

“Don’t touch me. I have their blood on my hands.”

“Whose blood?”

“The men I killed.”

My heart freezes in my chest. I was right. He’s killed again.

“Who did you kill, Mikhail?”

“The men who bought my sister and thought it was a good idea to torture her so badly she had to beg for death.”

My God.

My soul trembles. Only hours ago, I talked to Sophia about Mikhail’s sister.

Hours ago I could only assume what must have happened. Now I know.

I can only imagine how she must have suffered.

“Look at her,” he says, staring at the painting again. The blood has completely defaced her image. “She was sixteen when I did that painting of her.”

He did the painting?

My eyes widen.

I don’t know what shocks me more. Glancing around the room, I look at the other paintings and wonder if he did them, too. They seem older, though.

Gritting his teeth, he steps around me then walks away and through another door to our left.

I follow him and see it goes back into the hallway. He continues down it and opens the door at the end.

This leads into an office. This is where I’m not supposed to be.

He takes off his jacket, and I gasp when I notice the deep knife wound running down his shoulder. It’s sliced through his shirt, and the whole sleeve is practically gone.

He opens another door at the back that leads into a little bedroom area. This office is equipped to work and sleep in. There’s a bathroom in there, too. That’s where he goes next as he continues taking off his clothes.

This is the first time I’ve seen him naked and not taken note of how good his body looks.

What I look at now is his wounds. There’s another gnash on his back.

He steps into the shower and turns on a heavy blast of water to wash over his head and wounds.

Blood flows down the drain as I stand there and watch him clean himself off. I watch until he decides to turn off the water minutes later and turns to face me, resting against the granite wall of the shower.

“Why are you still here?” he mumbles.

“I told you I wanted to dress your wound.” Which has already started bleeding again.

He grabs a towel and wraps it around his bottom half before stepping out of the shower.

He walks toward me, then reaches over my head to the cabinet and takes out a first-aid box.

He doesn’t give it to me, though. He ignores me and walks back into the office, where he opens the box and starts trying to dress the wound himself.

I ignore him and look into the box myself. It holds more than the normal stuff you’d find in a first-aid box. There’s a bit of everything, and I find just what I need to close the wound until he can get himself to a hospital.

He sits down and starts fumbling with a bandage pack, but there’s a tremor in his hand either from the wound or the alcohol. It’s stopping him from getting a good enough grip to open it.

I take it from him. He glares at me, but as soon as I open it and get down to business cleaning his wound, he allows me to take care of him.

All he does is watch, and while I know what he must be thinking, the part of me that wants to be me keeps going.

I find something I can use as a makeshift suture, then bandage both wounds.

When I touch his face to look at the cut on his cheek, he catches my wrist.

“Leave that one,” he orders, but he doesn’t let me go. I shudder. I know he sees my fear. There’s a spark of something sinister in his eyes that heightens my senses. “Are you afraid of me, princess?”

“What do you want me to say to you?”

“We’re getting married in a few weeks. Maybe we should start with the truth.”

He holds my gaze, and a different type of fear coils through me, reminding me I’m a lie. He’s going to marry me and find out he married the wrong woman.

We will never start with the truth.

“One more time, are you afraid of me, princess?”

“Yes,” I breathe.

“I don’t think you’re as afraid of me as you should be, or you wouldn’t nurse the guy who killed your father, no matter how cruel he was to you. You’d still view me as the monster. The question is, why aren’t you?”

I press my lips together and think of my answer.

I view him as the monster, but when I think of how he slayed Raul, I view him as my savior.

I can’t tell him that. Ever. And I’m only safe in those moments in my headspace when I think of how he defeated Raul. That’s it. I can never voice those thoughts to anyone.

“Do you want me to think of you as a monster, Mikhail?” I ask. “Is that what you want me to think of you?”

He looks me over before answering, and his face softens somewhat.

“No, I don’t.”

He releases my hand and continues to stare at me.

“Where did you learn to do this?” He glances at his shoulder.

“It was something I was taught in case of trouble.” It’s the wisest answer I can think of, and it seems to work.

He stands and holds out his hand to me. “Baby, come and lie next to me.”

I take his hand, and he leads me out to the little bed. He gets on it first, and I climb in next to him.

He turns the lights off and slips an arm around me.

The moonlight is the only light we have so we can see each other.

He lowers his head to kiss me briefly, and I kiss him back.

“Go to sleep, princess.”

I close my eyes but don’t sleep for a while. Neither does he.

But I drift off eventually with thoughts of tonight weighing on my mind.

I’m woken the next morning by the light shake of my shoulders.

When I open my eyes and find Aleksander looming over me, I sit up straightaway and pull the sheets closer, even though I’m wearing clothes.

Mikhail isn’t here. It’s just Aleksander and me in the room.

He straightens and gives me that look of disgust I’m now accustomed to. Probably because I found my way into the place he told me not to visit.

“You have a visitor, Miss Alvarez,” he informs me.

I give him a narrowed look. “Me? Is it Sophia or the seamstress?”

“José Diaz.”

Oh my God in heaven! José. I get to see him.

I jump off the bed, not caring what I’m wearing.

“Mr. Dmitriyev has allowed you fifteen minutes with him. He’s out on the terrace waiting for you,” he adds.

“Thank you.”

I rush out of the room and head down the hallway I came up last night so I can grab my coat from the room.

When I do, I run outside to the terrace. I have to hold back tears when I see José standing by the balcony waiting for me.

I try to hold them back but fail, and I become that little girl I was years ago when I first met him as I rush into his arms.

He holds me, and for the first time, I truly appreciate the fatherly warmth he shows me.

“Mija,” he mutters, holding me closer.

Aware of the presence of guards, he pulls away and glances nervously over my shoulder.

I look, too, and that’s when I notice Mikhail standing in the hallway inside the house.

He gives us a nod and walks away. This is because of what I did last night.

It has to be. Whatever the reason, it’s what I need right now.

“We don’t have much time,” José reminds me. “Let’s sit over here.”

We sit side by side on the little bench, and I feel like eons have passed since we last saw each other.

Where we sit is private enough to talk, but we still have to be careful.

“Are you safe, my dear?” he asks.

I nod. “Yes.”

“He hasn’t hurt you?”

“No. I’m not hurt. But I’m so scared. I’ve been scared every day that he’s going to find out my secret.”

“I know. I wanted to come before now, but this is the first he’s allowed me.” He nods. “The house in Mexico was burned down. I managed to destroy everything inside there before the guards got to it that would give the secret away.”

“Oh my God, you did?”

“Yes. I got rid of all of Adriana’s pictures and the ones Raul had of him and his family. Everything.”

“Thank you so much.”

He takes my hands into his.

“You’re more than welcome, mi amor, but you know that’s not going to be enough. It won’t. You can’t stay here and live this life. I did my best, but it’s still risky. I was only able to get rid of what I could in the house. We don’t know what could come from the outside. We don’t know what Mikhail could find.”

I nod. “I know. What am I going to do, José?”

“There’s nothing you can do, so don’t even try. My powers are limited, but I’m still trying to get you out of this mess. I’m still looking for an escape route. All I can say is, be ready to leave when I find one. Things are happening that might work in our favor.”

My heart races. “Like what?”

“People are still trying to kill Mikhail and his family. When that happens, we leave.”

When. He said when, as if he was sure.

“You think that will happen, José?”

“I don’t know details, and I probably won’t. Whatever is happening is big, with people who are above anybody we’ve ever dealt with. My only concern is you. The only way I can see out of this is Mikhail’s death. Until then, I’ll play nice and look for another way out. Either way, you have to get out because someone will find out the truth and kill you. You hear me, Natalia?”

“I hear you.”

I’m listening, and now that I’m even more aware of the situation, my heart aches.

Someone still wants Mikhail dead. If his death means my freedom, I should want him dead, too.

But… I don’t.

I don’t want to die, either.

“Be ready to leave the moment I give you the word.”

“Yes.”