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To me, she looked like a queen. Perfectly curled hair pinned around her face. Yellow diamonds lying across her neck, matching ones clasped around her wrists.
They might as well have been made of iron, because a Baranova woman is a woman shackled. To her duty. To her husband. To the Bratva.
I picture myself on my wedding day, wearing my mother’s yellow diamonds, my hair pinned in neat curls on my head, my smile as perfect as my mother’s.
By following in her footsteps, I believed I would become closer to her. Catch glimpses of her beyond the veil. See her when I looked at my own reflection.
When the letter arrived—unmarked like it, too, was a secret—it took me by surprise. I’m not sure where it came from, or how it got into my dressing room, or why it had been hidden for so long.
The curved script was familiar the instant I saw it.
She deserves a life full of love. A life without violence and death around every corner. One where she will be cherished. Where her husband will do anything for her happiness.
I close my eyes and picture the words I’ve long since memorized.
You should want what’s best for our daughter.
Although my mother never accused my father of anything, I could read the subtext in every line.
I’m giving our daughter the life I never had.
A tear falls down my cheek.
I ruined my mother’s sacrifice the moment I stepped back within the city limits. Back into my father’s territory.
Only, it wasn’t my father who was waiting for me.
It was my ex-fiancé.
The man groomed to be just like him.
Andrei Leonov.
I sit in silence on my father’s grave as I search the pieces of my life for answers. When my mother died six years ago, was I too blind to see anything? Any hint of what happened to her?
A Baranova funeral is a grand event, and people from all corners of the city came to bear witness to my mother’s. People I’d never met—some even traveling from as far as Russia—gathered around to listen to my father give her eulogy. He said pretty things about his pretty wife, but I can’t remember a single word.
Her empty casket spoke volumes. For a man so powerful, even he couldn’t find his missing wife.
But that’s not right. Narrowing my eyes, I look deeper. He told me she was sick. A sick person’s body doesn’t just wander off.
There were pieces missing from my father’s story. Pieces he’d intentionally left out.
Like a secret letter saying she was leaving him and taking me with her.
Mikhail stands behind me in silent observance, giving me space to absorb this moment. I’m grateful for it. Out of the three men holding me captive, I would have expected him to be the loudest. The one snickering in the background as he counts my tears.
I stand from the dirt and brush what I can from my new pants, frowning at the stains already setting in. “I ruined your pants,” I say simply, glancing up at Mikhail. The shoes, too, judging by the dirty streaks clinging to the white leather.
He shrugs one shoulder. “I’ll buy you another pair if you like them so much.” A twinkle enters his eye, like he enjoys the idea of buying me things...or of me enjoying his gifts.
I sigh and shake my head. He’s still covered in blood, though it’s mostly dry, the red streaks muddying his otherwise handsome complexion. Stubble lines his cheeks, and rich brown waves curl around his ears. His stylist must be proud; the man clearly cares about his looks and takes his hair care routine seriously.
He stares right back, a small, confident smile playing on his lips. He knows he’s gorgeous, and he enjoys the attention it brings him.
I turn away from him to find my mother’s grave. Because there was no body to bury upon her death, my father delayed creating a marker for her. I remember asking him about it, finding it strange that there was no memory of her in the house. No pictures of her or our family, none of her favorite paintings hung on the walls, and not a single of her favorite roses filling the vases scattered around the property.
It’s like she never existed at all.
