Until suddenly, I’m not. A figure appears near the top of the grand staircase, his silhouette recognizable even in the dark. With a nod of his chin, he beckons me closer. “Mouse,” he says, his old childhood nickname for me, given my obvious silence. “Come.”
He descends the steps, leaving me to follow him into his study.
“I’ve had to learn pretty damn quick how to read your expressions,” he declares, observing me from behind his desk. I doubt he’s even gone to bed yet, considering he’s still wearing his clothing from earlier. Sharp with intensity, his dark eyes scan my face. “You’re thinking about something, and I doubt it has anything to do with a party,” he gruffly surmises. “You and I never mince words, so tell me what’s on your mind.”
He’s right, but I don’t even know how to broach this topic. What to say. That I’ve been thinking too much of the past? Wanting answers I shouldn’t pursue.
“I know that look,” Mischa grumbles, apparently more perceptive than I’ve given him credit for. “You have the same look about you that Eli did when he asked me what happened to the bastard who sired him. It’s only understandable; you’re thinking about the past.”
I swallow hard, caught off guard by the admission. Eli never once mentioned his biological father, at least not to me. Mischa has always been “Papa” in his world. As far as I know, his real father had been a monster who separated him from his own mother at birth.
“I’ll tell you the same thing I told him,” Mischa says gruffly. “I’ll answer whatever questions you have, but I will not coddle you, and nothing I may say will ever change my love for you.” His eyes shine in the dim glow cast by a sole lamp, and I feel a painful mixture of hope and dread crawl up my throat.
With a wave of his hand, he indicates the leather chair before his desk while he claims the one across from it.
“What is it you want to know?” he asks, folding his hands before him as I sit.
I feel my fingers twitch helplessly, unsure of where to start. Unlike Eli, signing is not his forte, so I reach for a slip of blank paper resting on his desk, and he hands me a pen.
Cautiously I write a single question—what do you know about me?
It’s a question I’ve dreaded proposing for so long. I’m holding my breath in anticipation of his answer.
“About the man who sold you?” he wonders, cutting to the heart of the matter.
I wince. Hearing it out loud triggers a wave of emotions I didn’t expect. Pain. Confusion. Sadness. Rage…
Donatello. Once upon a time, he could have been known only as the man I admired more than anyone else in the world. The man who labored to acknowledge my birthday every single year in lieu of my parents. Who swore to protect me.
All lies. He’ll forever be regarded merely as the man who sold me.
I’ve never asked Mischa about him, because I never wanted to know just how much my new guardian might know about my past. About Donatello. And if he did know…
Why let him live so close to us, in a city just a car ride away? Why let him live at all? Why let him thrive?
The thoughts are vengeful and childish, but they fester no matter how hard I try to ignore them. Mischa loves me; I know he does—but an irrational sense of betrayal makes it harder to think clearly.
Because if he does care for me so much, then why hasn’t he hunted down Donatello on his own? Why hasn’t he punished the man who hurt me?
All I can see is his face. His smile, mocking me seven years later.
“Nicolai never told me his name,” Mischa says, referring to another man I’ve strived to forget—Nicolai Baryshnikov, a slave trader, among other things. The same man he unwittingly rescued me from. “What do you remember?”
I lift the pen, pressing the nib to the page, but as the seconds pass, I can’t bring myself to write anything more than a faint, hollow line. Shaking my head, I set the pen aside altogether.
“I won’t tell you what to feel,” Mischa says with a heavy sigh. “But maybe it’s for the best that you don’t remember.”
He rises and approaches me. His hands settle over my shoulders, urging me to my feet, and I’m in his arms again, crushed to his chest.
“You are my daughter,” he tells me. “Mine. No one will ever harm you. Never. Do you understand?”
I can only nod, burying my face against his shoulder the way I would when I was a child. My eyes burn, welling with tears I don’t have the energy to fight back anymore. They spill down my cheeks unchecked as Mischa withdraws.
“Good girl,” he praises, running his fingers through my hair. “Now go. Get some rest.”
As I leave, an unexpected sense of relief loosens the tension in my shoulders I wasn’t aware of until now. For whatever reason, his ignorance comforts me. It makes it easier to breathe and think ahead as a woman in my position should. Donatello Vanici is dead to me. Tomorrow, I’ll be presented to the world as a Stepanova, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I exit the study with my head held high and nearly run into a slim figure lurking beyond the doorway. Ellen. Her golden-brown hair streams loose down her shoulders, and a white nightgown sets her apart from the darkness around her.
“Willow? What are you doing up?” She strokes my cheeks, her smile strained. “I forgot to tell Mischa about the final arrangements for tomorrow,” she says, slipping past me. “Goodnight.”
I don’t know what it is about her expression that makes me swallow in alarm.
Still, I start down the hall, but as murmuring voices catch my ear, I quietly circle back.
“You were eavesdropping,” Mischa scolds, his voice easily reaching me as I falter just beyond the doorway.
“And you were lying,” Ellen counters haughtily. “You lied to her. Why?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mischa says, but his tone gives him away. Ellen is the only one capable of wringing that gruff, raw baritone from him. Guilt.
“You’ve known the identity of the man who sold her for seven years,” she declares. “In fact, you’ve been waging a campaign to keep him away from this area—and don’t look at me like that. You aren’t as secretive as you think when it comes to your business arrangements. Why didn’t you tell her? I could understand if you thought she wasn’t ready, but we decided together to tell Eli about his—”
“Because he’s not dead,” Mischa growls. “Eli? He is like you, able to square the past and leave it buried. Mouse? She is like me. I’m sure she remembers him. His name. Everything he did to her—but if he is not acknowledged out loud, he doesn’t exist. She can go on living in peace. But if she knows he’s still alive? Still breathing, walking, existing in this world. She won’t ever let go. Ever. I don’t want that for her.” His voice breaks, hoarse and hollow. A sudden thump alludes to him striking his desk with a clenched fist, and I imagine Ellen approaching him, wrapping her slender arms around him from behind.
“Tell me what is on your mind,” she pleads.
“You once fantasized about a life of peace for us,” he says. “And we have it. The children who aren’t destined to be casualties in some senseless war. Children who can study music over hatred and fighting. So, if to maintain that peace, I have to lie, I will lie.”