Chapter 92 Nikolai
My heart stopped.
Ivanov's voice came through the door again, louder this time.
"Anya. I said open this door. Now."
I was already moving before the words fully registered. I rolled off the bed, and grabbed my clothes from the floor. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely hold them.
"The closet," Anya whispered, her face drained of all color. "Go. Now."
I looked at the door. Then at the closet on the far side of the room.
"Go!" she hissed, pushing me.
I ran to the closet and pressed myself inside. I pulled the door almost shut behind me, leaving just a thin crack of darkness between the door and the frame.
I heard Anya moving quickly. The rustle of fabric as she pulled on her robe. The soft padding of her feet across the floor. The sound of a wine glass being moved, then another.
She was cleaning up. Hiding the evidence.
"One moment," she called out, her voice surprisingly steady. "I was sleeping."
"Open this door or I will break it down," Ivanov said.
Through the crack I watched her take one last look around the room. Her eyes landed on my shirt lying on the floor beside the bed.
My stomach dropped.
She snatched it up and threw it toward the closet. I opened the door and grabbed it.
Then she walked to the door and unlocked it.
Ivanov walked in and the temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.
He was still dressed in his evening suit. His tie was loosened. He was holding a glass of wine. He had been drinking.
He looked at Anya. Then around the room. His gaze moved slowly, and deliberately, like a man who was in no hurry because he was certain of what he would find.
"You were sleeping," he said flatly.
"Yes," Anya said. "You said you would be gone all night. I thought..."
"I came back early," he said, cutting her off. "My meeting ended sooner than expected." He walked further into the room, his shoes clicking on the floor. "Were you drinking?"
"I had a glass of wine," she said. "To help me sleep."
Ivanov stopped beside the bed. He looked at the sheets, at the slight disarray of them, at the two wine glasses Anya had not quite managed to hide properly on the far table.
My heart hammered so loudly I was certain he could hear it through the closet door.
I pressed myself further back into the darkness, my shoulder pressing against Anya's hanging clothes. The fabric was soft against my skin.
I held my breath.
"Two glasses," Ivanov said quietly. He walked to the table and picked up both glasses, examining them. He turned them slowly in his hands.
Anya said nothing. Smart woman. She was giving him nothing to grab onto.
"Were you expecting company?" he asked.
"I started with one and poured another when the first was empty," she said. Her voice was calm but I could see her hands from where I stood, pressed flat against her thighs, her fingers were rigid. "I was lonely."
Ivanov set the glasses down. He turned and looked directly at the closet.
I stopped breathing entirely.
His eyes were fixed on the door. On the thin crack of darkness where I was hiding.
For a long terrible moment he just stared.
Then he walked toward it slowly.
My heart raced.
I slowly reached out my hand and pressed it flat against the inside of the closet door, bracing myself.
If he opened it I would have to run. Grab something, anything, and fight my way out. Get Anya out of there before his guards could respond.
We would not survive it but at least we would go down fighting.
"Alexei," Anya said suddenly.
He stopped and turned to look at her.
She had let her robe fall open slightly, revealing the upper part of her body. And she was looking at him with an expression I had never seen on her face before. Something practiced and deliberate and utterly convincing.
"Come to bed," she said softly. "I missed you."
Everything in me recoiled.
Ivanov looked at her for a long moment. Then something in his face shifted and the suspicion drained away, replaced by satisfaction.
He turned away from the closet.
"Leave the light on," he said, setting his glass down and removing his jacket.
Anya caught my eye through the crack in the closet door for just one fraction of a second.
Her expression said everything.
Stay. Do not move. Do not make a sound.
I pressed myself back into the darkness and closed my eyes.
What followed was the longest and most agonizing hours of my entire life.
I stood in that closet while Ivanov did exactly what I feared he would do. I heard everything, every sound, and I wanted to tear through that door and kill him with my bare hands.
But I could not. Because it would get us both killed.
So I stood there and I listened and I hated myself for every second of my helplessness.
At some point Ivanov fell asleep. I could hear him snore.
Still I did not move. One wrong sound, one creak of a floorboard, and it was over.
So I waited.
An hour passed. Maybe more. My legs were cramping from standing so still. My jaw ached from clenching it so hard.
Finally, the closet door opened slowly.
Anya's face appeared in the darkness, pale and exhausted. Her eyes were red.
"He is asleep," she whispered, so quietly I could barely hear her. "You have to go now."
I slipped out of the closet, moving with the slowness of a man crossing a minefield.
Every step was calculated. Every movement was deliberate.
Ivanov lay sprawled on the bed, one arm thrown across the empty space where Anya had been, his chest rising and falling steadily.
I dressed in the darkness, my fingers fumbling with my shirt buttons.
Anya stood close, watching Ivanov, ready to wake me with a touch if he so much as shifted.
When I was dressed she walked me to the door and unlocked it slowly.
She opened it just enough for me to slip through.
I turned back to look at her.
Her face was a wreck of emotions she was too exhausted to hide. Shame and sorrow were evident in her expression.
"I am sorry," I mouthed silently.
She nodded.
Then she closed the door between us and I was alone in the dark hallway.
I leaned against the wall and let out a long slow breath that I felt like I had been holding for hours.
My whole body was shaking.
I walked back to the servants' quarters, moving through the shadows, avoiding the guards on their rounds.
When I reached my room I sat on my bed and put my face in my hands.
I had stood in that closet and listened to Ivanov hurt her and I had done nothing.
I had been useless. Absolutely useless.
Never again.
I would not wait anymore. I would not study and plan and observe and wait for the perfect moment that might never come.
Ivanov had to die and he had to die soon.
Before he destroyed what little was left of her.
Before there was nothing left to save.
I lay down on my thin mattress and stared at the ceiling in the darkness and made myself a promise.
One more week to set everything in motion.
And then Alexei Ivanov would take his last breath.
I would make sure of it.