Page 89 of Pageant

I head the other way, looking for the bedrooms. The first one I look into has an unmade bed and a discarded T-shirt on the floor. That probably belongs to Kirill. The next one is scrupulously neat with just an empty backpack laying on a chest of drawers. It feels like Elyah’s room, and I move on. The last has several suitcases by the door and two neck ties hanging over the back of a chair.

On proud display on his dresser is the fourteen-million-dollar pink diamond tiara.

My mouth falls open when I see it just sitting there. Konstantin is so arrogant, so sure of his power, that he didn’t feel the need to lock such a precious object away.

I step into the room and lay the machine gun on the bed. The tiara is more beautiful than I remember, and the diamonds glitter madly. I can’t imagine the lengths that Konstantin went through to source them. Did he make the tiara with love, thinking of his future wife, or only with hate? What did he want the woman he crowned with this incredible object to feel after a week of torment at his hands?

I pick the tiara up and turn it in my fingers, dazzled by the sight. If I hadn’t just ruined his whole pageant, would I have won? He wanted a woman who was obedient, loyal, and strong.

My lips curve into a smile. I may be strong, I may be loyal to those who deserve it, but I’m also the most disobedient bitch he’s ever laid eyes on.

The bedroom door suddenly opens. I whirl around, feeling like a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar. All the air is sucked from the room as I stare into a pair of startled gray eyes. The sight of me standing in his bedroom holding his tiara has short-circuited Konstantin’s brain.

“You,” he seethes, and lunges for me, his face blazing with fury.

I dive for the open window and leap through it, Konstantin’s fingers snatching at empty air.

His bellow follows me into the darkness. “Guards! Where are you? Lilia, don’t you fucking run from me.”

I race around the side of the villa, my heart thundering loud enough that it might shatter my rib cage. I hear the dual thud of Konstantin’s feet hitting the grass behind me, but he’s already lost sight of me in the darkness. I keep running, the tiara clutched tight in my hand.

Straight into a broad, hard chest.

The scent of familiar cologne fills my nose. I stare up at the fair-haired man, my voice locked in my throat. His blue eyes burn in the dark and there’s a gun in his hand. Just like Konstantin, Elyah stares at me for several frozen seconds before his gaze drops to the tiara in my fist. Hurt and realization starts to bleed into his shock.

An invisible knife twists in my heart as I back away from him. “Don’t come after me, please, Elyah.”

I turn and run, praying I’m not about to feel a bullet between my shoulder blades. An electric second passes. Then another. He’s not going to shoot. He’s letting me go.

Elyah’s shout rends the night. “Konstantin, Kirill, she is here. She is in the garden.”

Disappointment plummets over me. I round another corner of the villa and then press my back against the wall as Elyah shouts in Russian. I listen for several panicked heartbeats. I can’t stay here. Any moment now, they’re going to regroup and split up. I wanted to head for the main gates and find a way through or over them, but that way is cut off now. If I head for the lake’s edge, I’ll be leading Konstantin, Elyah, and Kirill straight toward the escaping women.

There’s only one choice left. One direction to run to escape. The one place they won’t expect me to try for freedom because it means broken bones. Drowning. Death.

I push away from the wall and pump my arms as I run, heading straight for the cliffs with the tiara clutched tightly in my fist. Please let the women make it away safely. Even if I don’t and this tiara and I end up at the bottom of the lake, my spirit will rest easily knowing that Konstantin lost his jewels. Every last one of them.

“Lilia!” There’s the sound of one set of pounding footsteps behind me and I recognize Konstantin’s voice. He seems to realize where I’m going as he snarls, “Don’t be fucking stupid.”

I skid to a stop at the cliff’s edge, so close that I have to wildly circle my arms to stop myself from falling over the edge into the void beyond. The night is so dark that I can’t see the water and I don’t know how far down it is.

When I glance over my shoulder, Konstantin has slowed his run to a walk, and as he breathes hard to catch his breath, he’s smiling. His scarred face is full of triumph. “There’s nowhere left for you to run,milaya.”

I straighten up and turn to face him, the wind catching my hair and the hem of my dress. “I decide what happens next. Not you.”

Slowly and deliberately, looking Konstantin in the eyes, I raise the tiara up into the night sky and place it carefully on my head. It has little silver teeth that push into my hair and grip it tight.

“Perfect,” Konstantin breathes, gazing at me with naked admiration. “As if it were made for you.”

There’s just the two of us out here on the cliff’s edge, standing in the moonlight. Konstantin’s eyes are glittering as he gazes hungrily at me, as if seeing me for the first time. The Number Eleven he knew wasn’t real. I haven’t been real for a long time. Lilia Brazhensky was a scared, defiant little girl. Lilia Kalashnik tried to force herself to be a living doll, not a person. Lilia Aranova thought she found freedom in the arms of a dangerous man. Yulia Petrova was a terrified fugitive. Now, at long last, I’m me.

Just Lilia.

And Lilia is more than enough.

I lift my chin, feeling the weight of the precious stones atop my head. With my right foot, I carefully feel behind me for the cliff’s edge. There’s inky darkness below and the sound of waves lapping. The water could be deep and dark, or shallow and crowded with rocks.

As I edge back, Konstantin lets out a burst of derisive laughter. “After all this, are you going to die, Lilia? Don’t throw yourself away. A woman like you is worth her weight in diamonds.”

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