Page 39 of The Pakhan's Bride
She gives a slow, deliberate smile, no teeth. "They say you married the newPakhan. It made the news, even in exile. I thought, if you were alive, I should see for myself."
I laugh, one, because I'm amused, and two, I can't help admire her courage. "You risked everything for a gossip column?"
Her hand comes up, trembling, then settles. "I needed to know if you survived."
My silence is response enough, so we sit with it for a moment, listening to the distant sounds of the house waking—Galina in the kitchen, Lev stomping down the stairs, a guard tripping onthe loose tile in the foyer. Ekaterina doesn't move. She is carved from chalk and willpower. I say, "What did you tell him?"
"Everything," she repeats. "About the night of the attack. About Papa. About what he planned for us."
The word Papa lands between us like a grenade. "Why are you here?" I ask, and this time the question bites.
She looks at me, really looks. Her eyes shine, but not from tears. "To warn you. To tell you that Konstantin did the right thing."
My mouth dries. "You mean?—"
She nods. "Papa betrayed us. For years, I believed in his plan, in the men he chose for us, in the way he said it had to be. I thought it was duty. Tradition. But when we were in hiding, not one of them lifted a finger. No offers of help. No protection. Nothing."
She reaches into her coat and pulls out a slim folder, edges worn from use. "I started digging. Following names, tracing transactions. You know what I found?" She opens the folder and slides a few pages to me "Here. Signed agreements. Wire transfers. One from Ricci's holding company to Papa's offshore. Dated around the time of your trip to Paris."
She flips to the next page. "And this one. An old message chain. He promised Ricci access, with or without a wedding. If you refused, he was going to have you taken."
I stare at her, blood turning to frost. My face stares back at me from her pupils, blue and brittle with disbelief. "He loved us," I say. I need to believe it.
She shakes her head listlessly with the saddest little smile on her face. "He loved power. We were currency. If I'd known the extent of all this, I would have killed him myself."
"What did he do to you?" I ask, my voice hoarse.
Ekaterina shakes her head and pushes the folder aside. "Some things are best left for later, little dove."
I loosen the grip of the sheet. My skin is hot and cold at once. "Why did you never come for me? You could have sent word. You could have?—"
"Gone where?" Her voice rises, then breaks. "Every safe house, every old friend—gone. Either dead or bought. I had to wait until it was safe. Until I knew who won."
"You always said you'd never be a pawn," I say.
She nods, rueful. "Now I am queen's gambit, at best."
We stare at each other. The distance is four feet but it might as well be another planet. She reaches out, slow and shaky. Her hand lands on mine. It is cold, the nails bitten to the quick. "Zoya," she says, and this time my name is a lifeline. "I missed you."
A single sob tries to break out of my chest, but I clamp down on it. I will not let her see me weak. Ekaterina leans in as I shake my head. "You wanted it, too. You always said I'd be the perfect wife for aPakhan."
She laughs, bitter and raw. "I was an idiot. I thought I was training you to survive. I didn't know he would throw you to the wolves." Her fingers tighten on mine. "I'm sorry, little dove."
No one has called me that except for Galina since the night of the massacre. I swallow, hard. "It doesn't matter now."
"It does," she says. "I had to see you. To tell you."
I don't pull my hand away. She sits up, straightens her skirt. The old Ekaterina returns, for just a second—the one who could smile her way out of any interrogation, who could charm the teeth from a viper. She looks at me, and I see it—the pain, the guilt, the need to fix what she broke.
"I can leave, if you want," she says. "Konstantin will keep me under guard, but?—"
"No," I say, and the word surprises both of us. "Stay."
Her mouth opens, but nothing comes out. We sit like that, hands clasped, for a minute or an hour. When the guards return, Ekaterina stands and squares her shoulders.
"I will be here," she says, like it's a promise. She walks out, the two men flanking her, leaving me in a room that feels smaller than it did a half hour ago. Sitting there, my heartbeat gradually slows, and I wonder if anything she said was true.
Ekaterina was mean to me in the last few years at the Baranov estate, so much so that all I ever wanted was a way out. But as children, she was fierce, brilliant, impossible not to follow, and harder to not love. But something shifted when we got older and when people started seeing me first. I never asked for it. I never wanted to be the one they noticed. But they did. And each time they overlooked her for me, I watched her flinch a little deeper. She never said it, not aloud, but I could feel the distance grow. The world prized my face and ignored her mind, and somehow, that made us both feel small. She mattered most to me, and I don't think she ever believed that. Maybe I didn't show it enough. Maybe I was too afraid of losing her to say what needed saying before it was too late.
