Or rather,Uncle Maksim, as Yulia likes to call him.
There had been something about his eyes that refused to leave me alone. They weren’t like Sergei’s, cold and distant. No, his had been entirely different. His gaze had unsettled me for reasons I still can’t explain. It wasn’t just the fact that he looked at me like I was something to be studied. It was the way his gazelingeredon me like a predator needing to memorize my every move before striking.
Like I was a puzzle he wanted to figure out.
I’d asked Yulia later in the following days who those men accompanying her father were and had gotten little information aside from her telling me, in a chillingly calm voice, “I’m not sure. But sometimes, they have guns on them.”
What kind of child says something like that so casually? What kind of father allows them around his child in the first place? What kind of world is she growing up in where guns are just accessories on men who stop by to speak with her father?
And what kind of idiot am I for being surprised?
Miss Dori’s glowing review of Sergei Sorokin replays in my head like a cruel joke now.
“Private,”she had told me,“but very respectable within the community. Old money. Deep ties in the tech industry.”
Respectable… yeah, I’d respect someone too if they had men following them around constantly with guns tucked under their suit jackets.
Strangely, though, after that first run-in with Maksim and whoever the other two he’d been with were, there’s been no mention of them since. Not from the staff, or Yulia, aside from her occasional stories of Maksim coming in and out of her life at random when she was growing up.
Other than that, life seemingly goes back to normal.
It actually kind of starts to freak me out. I’m starting to get the sinking feeling I’ve been dropped into something a hell of a lot bigger than I ever could have imagined. No matter how many times I tell myself I’m being dramatic, that I’m overreacting, I can’t shake the feeling that something is deeply, profoundly wrong here.
The worst part? I don’t have proof.All I have are pieces, moments that make my stomach turn but could be explained away if I really tried.
The guns. Maybe they’re security because of Sergei’s insistence on moving silently in the world.
The men in suits. Maybe they’re business associates with whatever company Sergei owns.
The silence of the staff. Maybe they’re just professionally reserved or have poor English skills and therefore can’t talk to me.
Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.
It’s the kind of game I’ve been playing with myself every night since I arrived. Talking myself in and out of panic, convincing myself I’m being ridiculous, then snapping wide awake at two in the morning because I heard something outside my door that didn’t sound right.
I can’t keep doing this.
By the time the light behind my bedroom curtains turns from silver to the dull yellow-gray of a cloudy dawn one morning, I’ve officially given up on trying not to freak out.
Later that morning at breakfast, I try very cautiously to ask questions.
If anyone in this house might be willing to talk, it’s Galina—the head housekeeper and the only person aside from Yulia who’s exchanged more than a handful of words with me since I arrived. She’s older, maybe in her sixties, with a neatness to her that suggests she’s been running this household like this her entire life.
There’s something a little softer about her than the others, not warm, exactly, but less severe.
She’s humming under her breath as she collects my empty cup and replaces it with another without asking. The scent of black tea wafts up in gentle curls, steam rising like smoke.
Her silver hair is pulled into the same tight bun I’ve seen every day since arriving. It looks painful, but it doesn’t slow her down in the slightest.
“Thank you,” I murmur as she sets the cup down.
Yulia sits beside me, scarfing down what has to be her third helping of toast and preserves. Crumbs cling to the corners of her mouth, her little legs swinging beneath the table. The contrast between the two of them is strange and comforting.
So much so that I almost forget what I’m about to ask.
“Ms. Galina?” I begin, using the most polite tone I can manage.
She pauses, glancing sideways at me, her face unreadable.
