Page 39 of Brutal Secrets

“Drive.”

Andrei pulls away. “Where to, boss?”

“Bolshoi. The Night Governor wants to see me, and it can’t be good news.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Iopen the door and walk toward the service elevator. My reflection flashes in the mirror at the back of the grimy space. The person who stares back looks the way I feel. A small figure in sweats and a ball cap who could pass for a teenage boy. No hint of sex appeal or star power. My mouth is bracketed with lines of pain and my eyes circled with rings of insomnia.

Maybe that’s why he doesn’t want me. I’m no longer the young singer in gold beads and cowboy boots he took to bed in Moscow. The body under the sweats isn’t quite the same either. My lower stomach bears a C-section scar, and while my boobs are a little bigger from having breastfed, they aren’t quite as perky.

I shake the thoughts off, looking at my head turning from side to side as the elevator rises to the twenty-fifth floor. I thought when I won a Grammy and had a platinum-selling album that all my dreams would come true.

I open the apartment door and drop my keys into the bowl next to a smiling picture of me, Nadia, and Nona. Nadia’s about five in this picture, her blue eyes the same color as her tattered Elsa dress, the one she wore so much it fell apart and was covered in stains by the time she could no longer wriggle into it.

Humming the tune to “Let It Go” under my breath, I pick up the silver frame and look at the three of us. Nona has her arms around us, her gray hair in a bob and her smile wide enough to swallow all of our worries. Nadia sits on my lap and grins, her mouth missing teeth and the frayed sleeves of the nylon dress practically up to her elbows. Her eyes are the image of her father’s. I’m looking down at her and smiling.

I slam the picture down next to the St. Petersburg china bowl I bought for my keys. Another attempt to fill the house with reminders of the man I made a child with. Another attempt to link Nadia to a heritage she’s not likely to embrace now that her father has shattered the last of the illusions I clung to.

The keys ring against the porcelain as I shake the table.

That brief glimpse of tenderness was almost more painful than his coldness in the club the other night. The beautiful curve of his mouth. On my fingers. Against my forehead. His strong hands twined around mine. It reminds me why I fell for him and how it felt to be protected and cherished.

I look down at my watch. Six thirty. I have half an hour before Nadia gets home. I kick off my shoes and pad down the corridor in my socks. I can’t face changing. I can’t face the thought that I’m the one who has to do all the protecting and cherishing. Even Nona, who looks after me, relies on me for her wages.

I’m so tired as I sink to the bed. I tried to replace Vadim, but I didn’t know how to do it. The nights out with people who just wanted to be photographed. Relationships that were little more than a series of photo ops. I’d taken a couple of them home and had sex that felt like counting sheep. Part A goes into slot B. Disengage heart and mind.

Why does the touch of his hands on mine and the press of his lips on my forehead make me feel swollen and achey between my legs? Why didn’t any of those other men make me ache the way Vadim did? What the hell is wrong with me?

I put my arms around the pillow and burrow into the covers. I turn until my back is against the throw cushions and pretend there’s a man behind me who will fit my body into the curve of his arms, curl his legs around mine, and wrap his arms around my stomach.

I pretend this pile of cushions is Vadim. That he still wants me. And I let the tears come. Hope, fear, and longing fight for space behind my eyes. Heartbreak comes up behind them all and floods me until the tears leak from my tightly shut lids.

My shoulders shake and my eyes scrunch into tight balls. No one is here to see me crying like a five-year-old whose Elsa princess dress doesn’t fit her anymore.

No one cares.

No one is going to wipe my tears away.

I’ve got nothing but an empty bed and a pile of pillows and a stack of packed bags in a penthouse on the twenty-fifth floor.

I’m crying for all the things that I can’t have. Things that are close enough to touch but so far out of reach they might as well be half a world away in the frozen woods outside Moscow. I cry because I wish he loved me the way I once believed I loved him.

My phone chimes on the nightstand. It’s not the burner, so I know it’s not Vadim, but I don’t know who else would be texting me right now.

I pull the phone to my face and blink. It’s my lawyer. She’s been in touch with five other stars who wish to pursue legal action against Jimmy, and at least three more who have admitted to misconduct but are afraid to come forward. If the mediation goes well, if these girls see that justice can prevail, they might be willing to speak out as well.

I have a chance to help these women, to give them the courage to take those first terrifying steps. But how can I do that when I have to hide in the shadows to protect myself and my child from the other monsters encroaching on us?

There is only one answer. I can’t.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Oksana perches at the nightclub bar, nursing a luridly colored cocktail, when I arrive at Bolshoi. The after-work crowd is trickling in. A group of loud American guys in suits howls about Russian strippers and shots, and I worry they might be trouble.

I sidle up to Oksana, who narrows her blue eyes when she sees me. “He’s upstairs, waiting for you.”

Glancing around the room, I survey the exits out of habit and check the empty seats. “They won’t be a headache?” I jerk my chin toward the table of braying suits.

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