Page 114 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

My heart aches at the sight of it.

Dima left me here while he went into town for some things, preparing to return to New York. He offered to come with me, but I told him I needed to do this myself. Rose’s blood is on my hands, not his. This is a task for me and me alone.

So, with a sigh, I walk up to the door and knock.

At first, there’s nothing. I stand in place, fidgeting nervously and wondering if I’m doing the right thing. Just when I am about ready to flee and reconsider this whole plan, I hear shuffling footsteps inside.

The door opens.

The woman who answers is on the back side of middle-aged, but she looks much, much older. Her back is perpetually hunched over and her eyesight is so bad that she squints constantly, creasing deep lines around her eyes and cheeks.

My breath catches at the sight of her.

Rose told me her mother was in poor health, so I’m even more certain I have the right place. But being here now, in front of this woman, is so much more devastating than I ever could have imagined.

“Yes? Hello?”

I swallow past my suddenly-parched throat and fumble for words. “H—hi, hello. I’m so sorry to bother you, ma’am. My name—uh, my name is Arya. I was a… friend of your daughter’s, I believe? Rose? We met at—well, we met at…”

My words fail me. I don’t know how much Ernestine knows about what happened to Rose or where she was taken, but as soon as I mention Rose’s name, she ushers me inside immediately. I’m given a cracked mug of tea and a cheese and bologna sandwich on wheat bread.

Neither of us says a word.

I’m starving, but I can’t eat. Not with the news I have to deliver. It sits in my stomach like a stone.

Steadying myself, I look around the house. The kitchen is small. The counters are clean and bare aside from a cookie jar in the shape of a unicorn and salt-and-pepper shakers that look like gnomes. A dish towel embroidered with apples hangs from the handle on the oven.

There are a million pictures on the refrigerator. Every inch of the dated cream-colored appliance is covered in photographs, magnets, and crayon portraits of a woman holding the hand of a red-headed child.

One in particular catches my eye: a yellow frame that says “Beachside Bed and Breakfast” with a big frog in the corner. The picture is of Rose and her daughter. They’re nearly identical and both are smiling wide like it’s the best day of their lives.

It breaks my fucking heart.

“You have a lovely home,” I croak awkwardly.

Ernestine smiles, but there are unspoken questions in her eyes. I can tell she is holding herself back. Trying to give me time to say what I came to say.

I should have planned how I wanted to do this. I should have come up with a speech or written a letter. Instead, I’m sitting in front of my dead friend’s mom without a single useful word in my head.

“You said you are a friend of Rose’s?” Ernestine asks finally, lowering her head, looking up at me from beneath pinched brows.

“I am,” I say, clearing my throat. “Or, I, uh… I was.”

Worry darts through Ernestine’s face, but before she can ask another question, I take off the necklace around my neck and hand it to her.

Her lower lip curls immediately. Her chin dimples.

The woman knows what it means.

I don’t have to say anything at all.

“Rose fought to come back to you,” I tell her, patting her hand as her shoulders shake with sobs. “She was trying to escape when… when it happened. I’m so sorry.”

“You were there with her?”

“Yes,” I say.

“With that… those men. The ones who took her.”

---