“Tell me about you.”
My knife and fork halt above the plate. I give the girl a levelling stare. “I am the Daughter of the Snake.”
“Yes, well. I know that much.” She sits forward eagerly. “You are practically famous. I know so much about you, but—you must tell me. Why did you leave? Do you really have children? Was your mother really killed, or did she escape, like you?”
I lay down my silverware, scrutinizing the girl. “What’s your name?”
“Lilly.”
“Lilly.” A pure name for a pure girl. She’s younger than me, probably in her early twenties, and she’s so small her gregarious personality almost doesn’t fit. “How long have you worked here?”
“Only a year. But I’ve spent many summers here. My grandmother and mother were the head maids of this house.”
Interesting.Lilly could pose a very useful access point for me—and she seems far too naïve to see it coming. A girl like this would know every way off the estate, every secret room, every broken lock. She might even know the guard shifts, or details about Maxim or his men or his gang.
Or what they intend to do with me.
I pick up my knife and fork and set in more slowly, slathering mybliniand adding a few thick slices of smoked salmon. I chew thoughtfully, fully aware of the weight of Lilly’s hungry eyes on me.
Finally, I ask her, “What do you want to know? One question today, another tomorrow.”
Lilly scoots even closer, practically on the edge of the chair. “How did they catch you?”
I look up, genuinely surprised. Of all the things she’d ask, why this question first? I search her face for answers, and find only interest. How did they catch me? “I got comfortable,” I admit, feeling the shame of it turning the food in my stomach. I push away the tray. “I thought, perhaps, impossibly, this world had forgotten me.”
And how beautiful it was. The first year was brittle with fear: they would find me, of course they would.But why bother to look?My father didn’t care when I left the country. He didn’t seek me then. Why would he now?They’ll take my children.But no oneknewof the twins. How could they? I’d been careful. Exceedingly careful. I’d buried my travel contacts, always used a fake name. I dyed my hair blonde. I spoke English with an American accent.
The second year, the clouds began to part. I worked odd jobs in Seattle while I raised the twins. When money ran thin, I found and stalked a nanny for three months before deciding she was clean enough to trust. I took what rudimentary coding knowledge I had and studied, watched hundreds of hours of YouTube tutorials, read all the books and articles I could find on the subject. Finally, I found a job that paid well enough I only had to work four days a week. It paid under the table, cash, untraceable. My employers never once asked my name.
And that’s where it happened—I got comfortable. I spoke Russian to the twins. I took photos of them and hung them in frames on the walls of our modest two-room house. I prepared to enroll them in school.
Like clothes, I shed my Russian past; criminal and terrible and my entire world for so long. But it wasn’t enough—I could speak English and pay in American dollars and drink domestic beer. No matter what I did or where I went, I would always be Annika Desyatova. I would always be my father’s daughter.
“I’m sorry,” says Lilly, reaching for me. “I know what it’s like. To want to disappear. Run away and start completely new. I know what it’s like to want to forget.”
I doubt it very much, but Lilly seems sweet, and I don’t want to lose her trust or frighten her. I even let her take my hand when she reaches. “Yes, well. It seems that is impossible for people like us.”
Her eyes glitter, and a small, delighted smile touches her lips.Us. A clever word.
Downstairs, the front doors open and close. Lilly pales, leaping to her feet. She begins gathering my tray without asking if I’m finished.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes to start your bath,” she says, and rushes out of the room without another word.
Almost the instant she’s gone, a knock sounds at the door.
Maxim enters, a massive, stone-faced man in black immediately behind him. I’m suddenly aware of how disheveled I am: wrinkled clothes (I only managed to kick off my shoes before crawling into bed last night), unkempt curls, day-old makeup. I resist the urge to leap out of bed and present myself, instead reclining against the silk pillows as if I don’t have a care in the world.
“Annika. This is Sacha.” Maxim crosses the room after a moment, clearly thrown by my appearance, and stands by the window with hands clasped before him. “One of my men.”
I give Sacha a cool once-over. His expression remains steely and blank. Unlike Maxim, he has no apparent reservations about interrupting a woman before she’s cleaned, dressed, or in any way presentable.
He sits where Lilly sat on the cushioned stool, legs wide apart and head cocked back. Even for such an imposing man, he takes up an astonishing amount of space.
I bite down a wry greeting, instead meeting Sacha’s frigid, penetrating gaze with one of my own. My father would caution speaking first in a negotiation—an admission of weakness. I’ve had many opportunities to become acquainted with dangerous silence. This one is no different.
It’s Maxim who speaks first. “We’ve been discussing your future here.”
“Lovely,” I reply, stretching my arms above my head and giving a good show of luxuriating in my pillows. “I like it here. A family home, I presume? It’s very beautiful.”
