I’ve been listening out for him to come back. I heard when he did. It was an hour ago. It’s nighttime again. It’s not as late as he’s been out, just gone ten.
It’s the first day, though, that I didn’t spend feeling sorry for myself.
I spent it feeling sorry for what I did.
I’ve spent the last hour trying to figure out the best way to apologize. He hasn’t come to see me, and I doubt he will tonight. That doesn’t mean, though, that I shouldn’t see him. Even if I’m walking dangerously close to disobeying him again.
Gathering my courage, I leave the room and venture out into the passage.
I head downstairs to the office. The second I get down the stairs, the two guards nearby look at me. I don’t pay them any attention though. I keep walking and stop at the end of the corridor when I see Vincent inside his office talking with his brother Salvatore.
My presence makes them stop talking and Salvatore looks at me with an uneasy expression.
“I was about to head out. See you in the morning, Vin,” he says and glances at me as he walks past.
I look back to Vincent feeling his glare on me.
“What?” he demands.
“I’m sorry,” I say, but it doesn’t feel like it’s enough.
“I’m tired of you people and your sorrys.” His face is set and his mouth twisted wryly.
“I know, and I have no excuse for being in your room, touching your things. I am sorry. Um… my first love in life was dancing. My… mother, she used to do ballet.” God, that’s the first time since the incident that I’ve actually told anyone that. Not even Holly knows. Saying it, though, has broken down something that I held in place to keep those precious memories. “I was a dancer, and I had… an accident that meant I couldn’t dance anymore. That was when I started writing.”
It’s best to put it that way and call it an accident. It wasn’t, not the way I made it sound. The whole incident was life changing enough and comparable to an accident that takes everything away.
I pull in a breath and keep talking. “The ballerinas just reminded me of when I used to dance. They reminded me of happier times. Maybe they can remind you of happy times too.”
He doesn’t say anything, but then I didn't expect him to. Something changes in his eyes though, in the way he looks back at me.
That’s all I have to say, and I hope it’s enough.
It’s all I can offer. I turn and walk back to my room.
I didn’t apologize so that he would forgive me and treat me… well, treat me a little better than a whore. The apology actually came from my heart.
***
I resume my usual stare out the window the next day and the days that follow see me doing the same.
The nothingness of the days and the worry over Dad makes me digress into a deep depression comparable to what I faced years ago.
The only people I see each day are Marguerite and Lydia. Vincent avoids me completely.
Friday comes and I wake with the sun. Marguerite comes in a few hours later with her usual tray of pastries and hot chocolate. And as usual she does her best to make small talk and make me feel better. She can see my debacle though. I know she does. There’s no way she can’t see that being here is slowly destroying me.
Today I eat the cookies not because I’m hungry. I eat them because it’s something to do.
The tastes takes my mind off the shit. For those few moments as I eat I stop thinking.
It’s Friday again which means I’ve been captive here for almost three weeks. Friday again and I think back to weeks ago at The Dark Odyssey and the way I was with Vincent.
I remember the first time I had actual sex. Not the times before. It took me a long time to push anything previous out of my head and class the first time as the first time. I was twenty-one.
There was something about being with Vincent that night that reminded me of it because of the way I dropped my guard. I did it then too and gave myself completely.
He would never know what it meant for me to do that. Of course he wouldn’t. I’m a whore to him. A nobody. A thing.
I was just finishing the last of the hot chocolate when the door opens and Vincent comes in.
He looks better than when I last saw him, although I did not mind the rugged look he sported with a fuller beard. It’s completely gone today. His clean shaven face makes him look younger.
He’s wearing a suit again, so I assume he’s going to work. I don’t know what version I’m going to get of him today, but at least he doesn’t look like he’s still pissed at me.
I stand when he approaches.
“Here, you have five minutes with him,” he says, and my heart stills in anticipation. I could cry when he takes out his phone and clicks a button.
A tear runs down my cheek when he hands it to me. I recognize the number he’s calling straightaway. Dad…
“Dad,” I gasp when he answers.
“Hi, sweet girl,” Dad says, and that’s when the tears come.
I’m glad when Vincent leaves, giving me the privacy I need, but I doubt he’s gone far.
“Please don’t cry, my darling,” Dad says. “Please don’t.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just so good to hear your voice. I thought you were dead.” I really did think that. What else was I supposed to think?
“I know. I’m so sorry, Ava. Please tell me you’re safe. He hasn’t hurt you, has he?”
I shake my head even though Dad can’t see me. “I’m safe.” It sounds like a lie. Honestly, though, it’s true.
“Thank God in heaven. Oh God, you shouldn’t be there. I wish you didn’t make such an offer, Ava.”
“Dad, don’t. Please don’t say that. Please, let’s just talk. We have five minutes. Tell me what’s happening.” I try to hold the tears in.
“I’m at the clinic. I’ve just been under a lot of medication for the last few days while I detoxed and did a few other things,” he explains.
“How are you feeling now?”
“Like hell. It’s worse than last time, I guess because I’ve been taking stronger… drugs. I’ve arranged to stay another week to be on the safe side. I’m trying...harder this time. I want it to be different, Ava…” His voice trails off, and I hear him sniffle like he’s crying. “Ava, I fell off the rails when I lost Sasha. I blame myself that I didn’t see he needed my help, my attention. We came to this country, and I thought we’d be free of the monsters. The darkness. But we weren’t.”
I cover my mouth to keep from crying out as guilt sweeps through me. We came to this country because of me. Only because of me. No other reason.
He only got in trouble because of me, lost everything and had to start anew.
“It’s my fault,” I breathe.
“Don’t you dare… don’t. I didn’t go through all that hell for you to blame yourself. I failed you and her, your mother. And I have to be realistic. Your father would kill me just for the danger I’ve put you in now.”
My breath hitches, and I shake another memory away that I don’t want to remember.
“You are my father, and you’ve done everything for me,” I remind him. The same blood might not flow through our veins, but that doesn’t matter.
“No, Ava, what happened should never have. I lost my way, and I can’t even remember half of the stuff I did. You shouldn’t be paying the price for my sins. Sins I can’t fix. Not you.”
“Don’t worry about me.”
“I do, dorgoy” he replies, and I get that ominous feeling I’ve had looming over me again.
We don’t talk about the past, and we never speak in Russian.
“Ava, I’m going to do better. For you and her. She would want me to, so I will. I pray your father isn’t turning in his grave at what I’ve done. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Tears stream down my cheeks as memories fill my mind of the past and those who died. I see their faces, and I can’t shake them out of my mind.
My mother and my father—my real father. Dead. I know it wasn’t my fault they were killed, but I still blame myself.
I always wonder what would have happened if things turned out differently. That last ballet was the last time we were together and happy. They wouldn’t have been where they were if not for me, and what happened to me next wouldn’t have happened.
I’m crying so much that when the door opens and Vincent comes in, I barely register it.
My hands are shaking, and I hate that I’m still crying.
He takes the phone from me and ends the call.
I turn away and face the window so I can have the privacy to cry. He stays. I wish he would go. Just leave me. It’s been years since I broke down like this, and I can’t have anyone around me right now when tears of pain flow down my cheeks.
Pain from death, horrible deaths, all of them, especially my mother. Both my parents were killed right in front of me.
I’m stunned, shocked even, when I feel warm hands on my shoulders. I’m crying so much, though, I can’t move.
Vincent smooths his hand down my back and slips it around the midsection of my waist, pulling me to him. I rest against his chest and look up just to check if this is real. It’s that moment when I feel the answer I searched for that night.
It comes as a feeling as he holds me and I allow him to.
Something bad happened to him. Something bad happened to me too.
The memory of my parents has filled me with darkness. Darkness I left in Russia ten years ago.
Darkness I left with the Bratva.