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According to whispered gossip, her grandmother Anastasia had slipped and fallen to her death. The balustrade reached Felicity’s waist. Too high for an accidental fall, her cop mind insisted.
Murder? Or suicide?
All the Liminov wives had died in mysterious “accidents.”
She continued down the wide hallway, her footsteps muted by the faded runner beneath her feet. Orange and yellow roses. It wasn’t the same as years ago. Back then, the pattern had been red and gold. Persian.
She turned the corner into the west wing.
First door on the left.
Hers.
She pushed open the door.
A carved four-poster bed draped in lace.
Pink.
Of course it was pink.
“Pink, Mama. I want it pink. With fairy lights. ‘Cause I’m a princess. A Bratva princess.” Eight-year-old Katerina had been so excited. She was a princess, just like in the fairy tales. Dedushka said so.
And princesses had fairy lights.
That was before Dedushka stopped being her hero, and bedtime stories were replaced by other things — things no child should ever have to endure.
She crossed the room in three long strides and climbed onto the bed. Grabbing the strands of lights hanging from the canopy, she yanked.
And yanked again.
And again.
The delicate wire snapped free, collapsing into a tangled heap at her feet. “Fucking fairy tale, my ass.”
With one last look at the room, she gathered the tangled lights into a ball and walked out.
Her intention had been to leave.
But the double doors at the end of the hallway beckoned.
Her mother’s suite.
Her parents had never shared a bedroom. Back then, she hadn’t known any better. Now she understood — theirs had never been a love match. It had been arranged, her father little more than a steppingstone for the Liminovs to expand their wealth and influence.
She placed the fairy lights on a console table lining the hallway, then crossed to the doors and shoved them open.
Like hers, the room looked as though it had been frozen in time.
Soft butter-yellow walls, accented with touches of duck-egg blue, gave the suite a deceptively cheerful air. Ornate white furniture filled the room — a chaise lounge beneath the windows, a carved armoire, and an elaborately gilded dressing table positioned to catch the morning light.
She crossed to the vanity.
A three-panel mirror rose above the polished surface, its gilt frame decorated with roses and curling vines. Dozens of crystal perfume bottles stood in neat rows before it, as though her mother might return at any moment and reach for one.
She picked up a bottle. The cut crystal felt cool in her hand. Removing the stopper, she cautiously brought it to her nose. The scent had turned, the once-delicate fragrance soured into something stale and acrid, with only the faintest trace of flowers lingering beneath the decay. She replaced the crystal bottle and turned to leave.
Sunlight streamed through the windows, catching on something atop the bedside table.
