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Caterina isn’t here. She’s gone, captured by Alexei, his prisoner, along with Sofia, Ana, Sasha, and my daughters. She’s in some other bed right now, if she’s lucky. I can’t help but wonder if she’s thinking of me at all, if I’ve crept into her dreams, if any part of her misses me with the deep and intolerable ache that I’ve felt every second since Alexei dragged her away.
There’s no way to know.
The truth is that we might never know.
Liam’s hacker dug deeply enough to uncover traces of Alexei’s whereabouts. We managed to pinpoint an area where he might be. That in and of itself gave us a clue—I had once owned a house in that region, a mountain chalet that I’d gifted to a particularly lucrative client.
If Alexei has poached that client from me, it’s possible that he has use of the house. And if so—if he’s there—we have an advantage that I hadn’t dared hope for.
The house had once been mine. I know it fairly well, even though I hadn’t spent much time there while it had been. Of all the places Alexei could be, it’s the one that offers us the greatest chance of circumventing his guards and sneaking in.
Through my remaining connections in Moscow, we managed to find out that several well-known men who had purchased from me in the past had plans to attend a “retreat,” which I know is code for a party where deals will be brokered for illegal merchandise that requires discretion. It could be drugs, it could be big game or live bodies for the hunting parties that some of the Moscow elites hold at their estates, it could be weapons or deals for arms trading.
It could be women.
I’m betting on that—and that it’s not only women, but the women that Alexei stole from us. Caterina. Sofia. Sasha. Ana. Mychildren.
When dusk falls tonight, we’re going to begin the trek to the mountains and Alexei’s possible hideout. And once we arrive, nothing short of a nuclear blast could stop me from finding my way inside.
And what then?
That’s a question that remains to be answered. When Caterina is rescued and back home with me—I refuse to couch it in terms ofif—what happens then? I can tell her that I love her, but I have no idea if those feelings will be returned, not vocally, at least. I would bet a great deal that Caterina loves me in return, but my wife is a stubborn and willful woman. If she doesn’t feel that our marriage can exist on even ground, she won’t say something that means so much. And in order for her to feel secure in that—
I have to change. Mylifehas to change.
Something had shifted in me when I saw Sasha being dragged down the stairs, abused, and violated yet again because she’d tried to save Yelena. I’d seen what Caterina had been trying to tell me all along—that no matter how much I might have believed that I was giving these women a better life, in the end, I’d only opened up more opportunities for them to be hurt, brutalized, and enslaved. I hadn’t given them anything, and I’d taken away every chance they had to make lives of their own, created by their own choices.
I don’t know how it took me so long to see it, except that for nearly forty years, it’s all that I’ve known. My grandfather built this business, passed it down to my father, who did the same with me. I’d never had reason to think differently about the world I’d been raised in.
At the end of the day, it’s no different than any other one of us. Not a single one among us—not Luca or Levin or Max or Liam—has clean hands. We’ve all done immoral things, pushed at the edges of the code we claim to hold dear, grown rich on the addictions, vices, and pain of others. I had meant it when I’d once told Luca that his business was no better than mine, simply because it was a more sophisticated way of accumulating wealth. But now, I see that wasn’t entirely true, either.
The Rossis, and then Luca, have been in the drug trade for years. At some point, of course, the addiction takes hold in those that have access to their supply, and there’s no longer any choice in whether or not they’ll continue to buy from those that deal those drugs. But at least in the beginning, it’s their own choice. Their own choice to get high, to lose themselves in a chemically-induced ecstasy, to shut out whatever part of the world has become unbearable to them, or even just boring.
The only choice that has ever existed in my business is my own.
I’ll do something differently.What, I don’t know exactly. Stepping away from the sex trade will mean leaning on my connections outside of it, relying on men like Luca to point me in the direction of a fresh start, a new horizon.
But it could also mean another kind of fresh start, one no less daunting, but potentially equally rewarding. A marriage on equal terms with my wife, a partnership built on love, trust, and mutual desire.
A marriage where the games we play with each other are only in the bedroom, and outside of it—
I don’t know how to describe it, exactly. I don’t know what it looks like or how to be that kind of husband.
But for Caterina, I want to try.
Outside, the sun is beginning to rise. In twelve hours, we’ll leave for the mountains, and what happens after that remains to be seen.
But silently, I whisper a promise that I hope is the last one I’ll ever have to wonder whether or not I can keep.
I’m coming for you, Caterina. I’m going to save you.
I’m going to bring you home.
