Page 52 of Betrayal and Vows

I pour over surveillance footage, happy to find there does not appear to be any cameras in her room.

However, there are several in the hallway outside her bedroom. As I’m scanning the footage to make sure she and I weren’t caught doing anything, I see something.

I pause and rewind.

It’s from earlier in the sitting room.

I can’t believe I didn’t notice it.

Vadim is watchingme.

He’s watching me watch Lena.

And he’s smiling.

Not suspicious.

Satisfied.

Like a man watching a plan unfold exactly the way he intended.

My blood goes cold.

Does he know?

Or is hehoping?

Isthiswhat he wanted all along?

I rewind again. Watch his expression frame by frame.

It’s not approval. It’s control.

He’s playing us.

Now, more than ever, I have to be careful.

He’s testing me… and Mikhail. Will he tell Mikhail I’m fucking his future wife? This life is all about power and manipulation. Will Mikhail kill me to prove he’s man enough to take over the family?

Back in my room, I pull open my dresser drawer. I carefully open the small box I’ve had since I was a very young boy.

I pull out a child's drawing. My touchstone. I haven’t looked at it in a long, long time. Every kill puts me just a little farther away from the boy that did that drawing.

The crude stick figures are of a family of three.

Mama. Papa. And the little boy standing between them.

Me.

Not Anton.

The name I was born with.

Alexei.

My thumb brushes across the handwriting barely legible.

“When I grow up, I want to keep people safe.”