Page 78 of XV (Fifteen) (War of Roses 1)

He would never knock.

But neither would Mischa.

The sound intrudes on the heavy silence, startling me to my feet. “Come in,” I call out, expecting Vanya.

Hunched over and cautious, the older man enters my room—but a second is all it takes for me to register the features that don’t belong to my kind benefactor. This man is taller. Older, even, with gray speckling more of his longer, darker hair.

And his eyes…

Unnervingly sharp, they hone in on me and narrow. “Don’t scream.”

I don’t realize I’ve been on the verge of doing so until he advances, his hand outstretched, and the air dissipates from my lungs.

“Please,” Sergei murmurs just loud enough to prevent being overheard by anyone in the hall. “I won’t hurt you—”

“W-what do you want?” Instinct drives me back against the wall. My heart pounds as I struggle to take in as much of the intruder as I can. He’s dressed in a dark suit, conveying a polished aura so different from the harsh one Mischa projects.

He sighs when I stiffen, shaking his head. “I want to talk,” he says. “Alone.”

“About what?”

You know what.I can’t escape the suspicion that that’s what he wants to say. His gaze is more piercing than Mischa or even Robert’s. It penetrates my soul, slicing through my pathetic attempts to protect myself—but there’s a softness to him my other tormentors lack. Even now, I can’t deny that.

“Your mother was Marnie Winthorp,” he says softly. “Wasn’t she?”

My chest burns, and I can’t stop myself from scanning the corners, hunting for Mischa. Is this another one of his games? He may be forbidden from using my mother against me, so perhaps he enlisted someone to do it for him?

But no. Only now do my ears register how he said that name. Reverently.

It’s too terrifying a thought to consider. So I don’t. “You should leave—”

“I won’t upset you,” Sergei says. “And I won’t insult your intelligence by pretending that you don’t know who I am. All I wanted was to give you this…”

He reaches into his pocket and a silver glint catches the light. Whatever he’s holding is small, slender. A necklace?

“Here.” He offers the object to me, clasped between his fingers. “Take this. And I don’t know what Mischa’s done to you or said—” He pauses as if waiting for me to explain, but when I say nothing, he sighs. “But know this: Whenever you need an ally, you come to me. No questions asked. No price to pay. You say my name and invoke my protection and no one will harm you.Thenwe will talk.”

“W-why?”

A noise sounds from the hallway and Sergei cocks his head, frowning. “Remember that. Always. You have an ally in me.”

He grabs my hand, shoving the hidden item against my palm. Then he turns to the door and is gone before I can choke a question out.

“Wait!”

Only silence greets me, and for whatever reason, I can’t make myself move to follow him. The item was a necklace, I realize. It sparkles against my fingers, a delicate silver chain.

Dangling from the center is a small charm that somehow feels familiar, though I’m sure I’ve never seen it before: a small metal rose.

* * *

Sergei carried a woman’s necklace in his pocket.

A rose.

My husband never plied me with jewelry. He dressed me in pretty silks and housed me in luxury—but, as Mischa pointed out, he never gave me a ring, or a broach, or a necklace. Is that a good thing? I have nothing here to remind me of him. Nothing but memories and this instinctive need to compare him to the man holding my figurative chains now.

Robert would never leave me unguarded like this.

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