Page 59 of Pageant

But Konstantin watches, observes, connects the dots. Alarm bells ring distantly in my head. I can play Elyah, I can play Kirill, but this man might be my undoing.

I regard him warily, wondering what he wants. Control, clearly. I suppose he’s like me in that way. You become obsessed with control when you’ve experienced what it’s like to have it ripped away from you.

“Who are you pretending to be, Number Eleven?”

I arch one eyebrow. “Who are you pretending to be?”

Konstantin shakes his head and smiles. “It’s not going to work on me, Number Eleven. You can’t turn this around. I’m not going to tell you tales about the girls at school being cruel to me or pine for you across a kitchen counter. Either you’re honest with me, or you’ll be eliminated.”

I shrug like I don’t know what he’s talking about, but my heart is racing and a sick feeling spreads through my belly. I’ve been cornered and there’s nowhere to run.

Kirill leers at me and runs his tongue over his teeth, visions of my imminent demise dancing in his eyes. For a second, they look black. Totally black, like a demon. Just like they were in my dream.

Konstantin riffles through the pages of my passport like they are mildly interesting to him. Where I’ve been. What I’ve seen. He places it casually down on the desk in front of him and smiles at me. “It’s time to be honest, Number Eleven.”

His smile is as hard as diamonds, and I realize I’ve underestimated Konstantin. I thought the hardest, cruelest man in my life was my father, the man who always used me and pushed me away. Konstantin is drawing me closer. I can feel that cruel smile tugging at my soul, hungry to consume it and leave me a hollow shell.

What does he like? Pain? Control? Does he want me shivering in fear before him or begging for mercy?

No, he already told me what he craves.

Power.

I swallow thickly, wondering what he has in store for the woman who’s run rings around his men and made a mockery of his challenges in front of the other women. What can I offer this monster to appease his hunger? I doubt it’s anything I would willingly give because what would be the fun in that?

Doesn’t he know, though? Hasn’t he realized? Any shred of power I’ve had in here is an illusion. A few clever words, a haughty look, my willingness to double and triple dare his crazy men.

As I stare into those sharklike eyes, I realize he does know. He’s just been waiting for me to realize it, too. I haven’t been winning all week. He’s been playing me like a fish on a line and slowly reeling me in. Now, I haven’t got much fight left. I’ve worn myself out on his men.

“Were you a good daughter, Lilia Brazhensky?”

My palms are sweaty, but I don’t dare wipe them on my dress and reveal any sign of weakness. A good daughter? I wonder what it would have taken for my father to think I was agood daughter.

What would Konstantin consider a good daughter? Someone who kept herself pure and chaste and received news of her impending marriage with grace and gratitude?

“I was disobedient and thoughtless,” I reply. “I never listened, and I threw whatever he gave me back in his face.”

Konstantin smirks, as if he suspected as much. He settles back in his leather chair, arms laid comfortably on the armrests. Silver rings glint on his fingers. “Were you a good wife, Lilia Kalashnik?”

I remember Ivan’s complete indifference to me beyond what I did in the bedroom and the kitchen. We barely knew each other, and we were never alone together until our wedding night. Ivan wasn’t drunk when he took me to bed, but he’d had enough vodka to be callous to the point of monstrosity toward his inexperienced wife.

Was I what he wanted? I don’t know. After, as Ivan snored, I curled into a ball and sobbed on the bloodied hotel room sheets. It was my first experience of sex, and I hated it.

Loathed it.

In the morning, I awoke to find myself alone in the suite. His things were still in the room, but he’d gone elsewhere. To breakfast. To gamble. To be with his men. I don’t know, but he didn’t want to spend the morning after his wedding with his wife. I wandered around the enormous hotel suite, more lavish than anything I’d ever known. I took a scalding hot shower to try and ease the pain deep in my body, and then I stared at myself in the mirror. The vanity was marble. The taps were sleek and gold. The soap delicately scented. Everything was perfect, and I was going to have to learn to be perfect, too.

Once I’d settled into Ivan’s house, I became eaten up by jealousy. Which was strange because I certainly wasn’t in love with him. It wasn’t because of another woman, either. It was because of his men. Ivan would invite them around to eat the food I cooked and drink the vodka I served, and he would talk and laugh with them. He would hug them and pat their cheeks, telling them that he loved them and they were everything to him. Then he’d snap his fingers at me and point to an empty casserole dish or call for a fresh bottle of vodka. The only time he touched me in public was when he showed me off to other men.

“I hated my husband on sight. He was old and ugly, and he treated me like furniture in his house. I was never allowed to refuse him. He showed more affection to his men than to his wife.”

Konstantin regards me coolly. If he feels any sympathy for me, he doesn’t show it. “Were you a good lover, Lilia Aranova?”

I can feel Elyah’s sharp gaze on the side of my neck and my stomach plummets through the floor. Are we really doing this? But Konstantin’s waiting for my answer, and he’s not going to let this go. This is my punishment for thinking I’m such a clever woman all week.

I don’t know what it means to be a good lover. I don’t even know what Elyah saw in me. Eighteen-year-old me was overwhelmed by her new role as Lilia Kalashnik, wife of aPakhan. I put on outfits that I thought Mrs. Kalashnik should wear. I cried when the blinis I cooked accidentally burned. I worried that Ivan would realize how much I hated him pawing at me and screwing me until it dawned on me that he absolutely didn’t care. My thoughts and feelings were irrelevant to him.

And then Elyah arrived in my life, and suddenly the most beautiful man I’d ever seen was standing in my kitchen and gazing at me with adoration. Fair-haired, startlingly blue eyes, and a body honed like a weapon, but he made himself gentle for me. He poured sweetness into my heart and smiled at me every day. He smelled like the cold wind from a snow-topped mountain and his voice wrapped around me like velvet.

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