Page 56 of Dark Soul

Three entire vans filled with white orchids.

Alexia shivered. She wasn’t a big fan of cut flowers in the first place, but the cloying, sweet smell of the orchids was making her think of sadness and death. Even now, from her bedroom in the basement, she could smell them.

The words over-the-top didn’t even begin to cover it.

Now, even with her bedroom window closed, she could hear one of the security guys shouting at someone who’d apparently parked their van in the middle of the driveway. She smiled ruefully. She didn’t envy the security men their job today—they must be losing their minds over this.

Now, just an hour before the event was due to start, hundreds of lanterns lined the driveway and the outside of the house, giving it a magical, fairy-tale feel.

Alexia reminded herself there was nothing magical about what was happening here. This was just one more example of Kvyat flexing his wealth. And though she didn’t doubt the charity whose logo and banner were tastefully displayed in several spots around the room did important work with children, she hated the fact that the cost of this party would likely exceed what the charity would raise for the children.

And that poor Nikolai was part of it.

Alexia had been told about the party several days earlier, when Kvyat had decided Nikolai was to play the piano at the event.

And Alexia hated him for that—for treating the boy like a show pony, for forcing him to do something that he so clearly didn’t want to do.

Alexia didn’t know much about music, but it didn’t take any specialized knowledge to see that Nikolai was a talented pianist. The boy’s long, delicate fingers flew across the keys, drawing rough and poignant sounds from it.

Unfortunately, Alexia could also see, in the straight, narrow lines of the boy’s back and in the tightly held breath, how much the boy hated it.

He’d been practicing the song almost non-stop for forty-eight hours, together with his piano instructor, who connected via video call and seemed to have no other commitments or desires in life, except to see this song performed to perfection. Alexia had been forced to intervene in order to get the boy to stop long enough to eat and rest.

They spoke in Russian together, or rather the man spoke and Nikolai listened, so Alexia couldn’t understand the words, but she understood the tone the older man was using, and didn’t think it was a tone anyone should be using when speaking to a child.

For the hundredth time, Alexia wished she could take Nikolai away from here.

She shook her head.

There wasn’t any point in thinking about that.

She wasn’t going to kidnap Nikolai. Even if she wanted to, she knew she wouldn’t get far.

She walked up the stairs to the main living area. And though she’d been expecting the change, it was still a shock to see how in the last couple of hours the living space had been transformed into a sparkling green and silver forest.

As she reached the top step, she ran smack into Arseny Kvyat. He was flanked by the same two women he’d spent all day with. They were dressed in black, young and slim, and each one carried a thick clipboard that seemed to weigh as much as she did. Alexia imagined they were party planners.

And it made perfect sense to her that Kvyat would have hired people to make sure the event went off without a hitch. What she didn’t understand was why he looked so nervous.

Even now, dressed in a custom-made tux designed to highlight his broad shoulders while hiding his slight pot belly, the man radiated a nervous energy.

Tonight means something to him.

But she had no time to ponder what that something might be, because he was speaking to her, and she realized he must have said the same thing several times.

“You’re not dressed, Miss Alexia,” he said, his eyes darkening with disapproval.

She fought the urge to cower.

“I’m going to make sure Nikolai is ready, and I’ll go get changed.”

He nodded, looking momentarily appeased. “Please do so.” There was a pregnant pause. “If my son needs to practice some more—“

“No,” she said quickly. “He’s ready.”

She wondered about her choice of words when she went upstairs to Nikolai’s room and found him sitting on his bed.

The boy was ready, in the sense that he was dressed in a smart black tux, looking like a miniature version of his father.