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“We just escaped from someone who’s trying to take your life.” I said nothing but squeezed the man’s hand back.
And where on Earth were we going?
“My name is Damien,” the man said. I squeezed his hand harder. “Oh, and happy
birthday, Nikolai.”
After about 20 minutes of driving, I felt the car traverse some gravel before, at long last, stopping. Damien removed the blindfold. When I saw his face once more, now with a name attached—Damien—I momentarily lost myself in the man’s chocolate eyes, sweet like candy yet forbidding like a brooding thunderstorm. Damien’s face was so close to mine as he untied the knot, I could feel his warm breath against my lips. I swore I could smell the faint scent of vanilla.
“What was that for?” I asked, fixing my blond curls, which had been flattened by the blindfold.
“You can’t know exactly where we are just yet,” Damien replied, casually. His voice was smooth like velvet.
“Are you kidnapping me?” I felt calm as I asked, despite the potential severity and darkness of the question, or rather, its answer. Something about Damien—the vanilla, the velvet—soothed me.
“Not exactly,” Damien replied. He grabbed my hand once more. “But I doubt you’ll leave—as in, I doubt you’ll want to.” There was a pause as Damien looked into my eyes. “Now, let’s go.”
I swung open the door to the Escalade and stepped down on snow-covered gravel, which crunched beneath my Nike sneakers. I was standing on a circular driveway, cocooned by skeletal trees and dormant bushes standing as a stoic witness to the winter's grasp. The foliage now lay dormant, awaiting the breath of spring to rekindle its vitality. A stately fountain, now silenced in the chill of the season, rested on a bed of withered grass at the center of the driveway, an emblem of stillness amid the estate's opulent surroundings.
“Let’s go,” Damien said, standing in front of the car. I realized immediately how tall he was, how grand he looked standing there in front of the even grander mansion, which was three stories tall and made of stone. The gray sky, no longer releasing snow on New York City below it, felt forbidding yet cozy, even welcoming.
I couldn’t shake the strange sense of familiarity with this place, as if I’d been there many times before, despite no real recollection of it whatsoever. I walked towards Damien, wishing to grab his hand once more but knowing better. The last thing I should do, I thought, was fall for the man who’d just abducted me from the streets.
What on Earth was I thinking?
“Who was in that car chasing us?” I asked as we made our way to the large wooden front doors, the ground continuing to crunch beneath our feet.
“An enemy,” Damien replied, walking in front of me without turning around to answer.
Before we even reached the wooden doors, they swung open with a loud creak. I remembered the comparably modest creak of my own closet door when I’d shut it that morning after reaching for my father’s leather jacket. I put my hands in the jacket’s pockets, remembering that my father’s hands had once been there too, searching for some familiar comfort.
I’d nearly forgotten it was my birthday.
A bald man with a round head and friendly smile stood waiting for us with a tray of champagne and wearing a butler’s uniform. What an odd feeling it was for to be welcomed this way—as a welcomed guest rather than a hostage, as I’d first presumed. The whole thing felt so strange.
“Welcome, Mr. Mikhaylov,” the butler said, bowing slightly while keeping the tray with filled champagne flutes perfectly balanced above his head. When he stood back up, he reached for one of the flutes and began to hand it to me. “I understand today is your birthday.”
I didn’t drink, and even if I did, it was a bit early for a glass of champagne, despite having Russian blood flowing through my veins.
“Oh, thank you, but I don’t drink,” I replied, refusing the flute. “And you can just call me Nikolai.” Damien grabbed his own flute off of the tray and took a sip.
“Very well,” the butler replied, placing the flute back down on the tray. As he did so, he stood aside, making way for Damien and I to enter a grand hall. I was greeted by a striking black and white tiled floor that stretched out in a mesmerizing pattern beneath my feet. The tiles, worn with a hint of history, looked as if they’d born witness to countless footsteps over the years. A sense of grandeur permeated the space, enhanced by the regal atmosphere created by the tasteful décor. Ornate gold-framed mirrors adorned the walls, reflecting the grace of a bygone era. The soft glow of crystal chandeliers hung from the lofty ceiling, casting a warm and inviting light upon the entrance. Dominating the room was a majestic spiral wooden staircase, its polished mahogany steps leading with an air of sophistication to the upper floors. The craftsmanship of the banisters and railings was exquisite; each curve and detail felt storied and worn.
But most noticeable was the cast of characters waiting there, seemingly for me: a modelesque woman with jet black hair pulled sharply into a neat bun, her black dress tight around her thin frame; a large bodybuilder of a man with a crooked nose and an angry scowl, who made even Damien look small; a man in somewhat dirtied and wet overalls, his large black boots covered in snow; and of course, the butler, who’d retreated from his door to join the others.
“Nikolai, I’d like for you to meet your family,” Damien said before taking another sip of his champagne.
I don’t have any family, besides Grandpa, I thought. Surely, I had nothing to do with this bunch.
Chapter 2
Damien
My God—how strange to see Nikoilai back here in the manor. All these years of waiting—and now, the moment was finally upon us.
Surely, if it was strange for anyone, it must have been Nikolai. How could I ever get him to understand who he really was, or who we were, or the severity of the moment?
Above anything else, I did not expect for the boy to have grown up to be sobeautiful. I’d only seen faces like his—porcelain, angelic, perfect—in the fashion magazines I read surreptitiously, pretending to be disinterested, as if I were flipping through their pages searching for a motorcycle or some essay on that season of football. Do people even write essays aboutfootball? Sometimes I would hide a copy ofVogueinRifles Weekly, so no one would be any the wiser if they’d walked in on me reading about the latest Balenciaga bag.
