Page 1 of Beautiful Agony

1

VADIM

The rain continuesto pour as I watch my mother shiver, refusing to step into Pankration as drops of rain join the streams of tears on her face.

"Let me call someone to take you home," I say, pulling out my phone.

She nods, wrapping her arms around herself. The sight breaks something in me. Here stands the woman who gave me life, yet she can barely look at me because I wear my father's face.

While we wait, neither of us speak. The silence stretches between us like an open wound. I want to reach for her, to comfort her, but I know my touch would only cause her more pain.

A few minutes later, a car pulls up to the gate. Before she turns to leave, my mother's eyes finally meet mine.

"Give Olga Romanovna my best," she says softly.

"I will,mamechka." I don't try to correct her misconception about Olga's kindness, that Olga helped her escape this place out of anything other than a desire to spite Pyotr.

Let her keep that one comfort—the belief that someone in this mansion once showed her real mercy.

Without another word, she climbs into the waiting car, and I watch until the taillights disappear into the rain.

Slowly, I turn and walk inside Pankration, mind still reeling from finally seeing my mother in person again after so many years. My phone buzzes. An unknown number.

Against my better judgment, I answer.

"Privyet, Vadyusha." Sayanaa's voice slithers through the speaker. "Did you miss me?"

My jaw clenches. "What do you want?"

"Straight to business, then?" She laughs giddily. "You have twenty-four hours to give me back what you stole from daddy."

The bible.

"Never going to happen."

"Oh, I knew you'd say that." Her voice drops lower, more dangerous. "That's why daddy gave me two new toys to play with. A scared little kitty with beautiful gray eyes and a pretty little thief with soft, delicate hands.”

My blood turns to ice.

"Twenty-four hours, Vadyusha." Sayanaa's voice drips with cruel pleasure. "Or I start sending you pieces. Maybe I'll start with the little kitty's gray eyes... or perhaps you'd prefer the littlethief's hands. Those same soft hands that spent too many nights touching what rightfully belongs tome."

"You're lying."

"I don't lie, Vadyusha, I'm not you. But go ahead, check for yourself. You know how to reach me."

The line goes dead before I can respond.

My hands shake as I process Sayanaa's words. The little thief with delicate hands and the scared kitty with gray eyes. There are only two possibilities.

Lacey and Serena.

Serena, I can believe. But Lacey? Last time I saw her this morning, she'd been asleep in bed.

I sprint up the grand staircase, taking the steps two at a time. "Lacey!" My voice echoes through the empty halls.

Bursting into my bedroom, I find rumpled sheets but no sign of her. The bathroom stands empty, steam long since dissipated. Her clothes from yesterday are still scattered across the floor.

"Lacey!" I call again, moving room to room with growing desperation. The blue suite. Empty. Her office. Empty. The library. Empty.

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