Page 91 of Pageant

Without waiting for their reply, I shove my pants down, step out of them, and launch myself off the cliff and into the water.

My dive was perfect, but the water still hits like a motherfucker. I plunge down and down into the darkness. Terror floods my brain as water rushes into my ears and up my nose. I fucking hate the water. It blinds you. It deafens you. It weakens and confuses. The freezing temperature slices into my muscles, and I don’t know which way is up and which is down. My lungs start to burn, and I’m a boy of fifteen once more with my brother’s hands around my throat, holding me beneath the surface, his savage expression blurred and warped as the water churns above me. Behind him, Mother watches on impassively, keeping her dress carefully out of the way of any splashes.

I’m not a boy. I’m a man. I’m Konstantin fucking Zhukov,Pakhanof the London Vanavora Bratva. I force myself to be still and use the only sense on which I can rely. Streams of bubbles rush up my chest.

Up.

That way.

I kick my legs and carve my arms through the water, and a moment later I break the surface with a gasp. Far to my right I can hear the throbbing of the boat’s engine and a powerful light sweeps across the lake.

There’s only one place Lilia could have swum to for safety and that’s straight ahead. I kick my legs and arc my arms through the water in powerful strokes, swimming freestyle. This is how I’ve kept fit all these years despite my absolute dread of water. Or because of it, to spite my brother and the way he nearly killed me. Lilia is weighed down by a dress with a tiara on her head. Perhaps she swam in her daddy’s pool, but she’s no match for me.

Every few minutes, I stop and call out for her and listen for any sound in return. My certainty starts to dim as the temperature of my body plummets. Where is she?

Where fucking is she?

The boat’s engine cuts out.

“Elyah!” I call across the water.

His shout echoes back, “Have you got her?”

Shit. Maybe she’s dead at the bottom of the lake already. The shore isn’t far away. I drag myself out of the water and up onto the stones, my chest heaving and my limbs like rubber. I force myself to my feet and gaze across the smooth surface. In the distance, Elyah and Kirill are sweeping the searchlight across the water. Three furious, dangerous men who have survived turf wars, power struggles, and prison, but we can’t find one woman.

A bitter taste fills my mouth as I realize I grossly underestimated Lilia Aranova. Is she an innocent woman, or the deceitful bitch Elyah claimed she was all along? A femme fatale who doesn’t blink at playing Russian roulette with her pussy, or a woman who’s never known pleasure in a man’s arms? A fiercely proud woman, or just a good actor?

Is she all those things?

Or none of them?

I feel like I’m in the black water again, not knowing which way is up. Floundering in darkness. Just yesterday, as I cupped her delicate chin as lust and fury pounded through me, she gazed up at me like I was her whole world. Now she’s stolen mine from me. In one night, she’s ripped everything I built these past eight months right out from beneath me.

I call out to her, my powerful voice rippling across the lake. “I will find you,milaya. I will discover who you really are, and you will pay for this. You will regret the day you crossed me.”

EPILOGUE

Lilia

BRITISH MODEL SURVIVES TERRIFYING WEEK IN ITALIAN NIGHTMARE ORDEAL.

Runway model Olivia Sparrow survived for six days locked in a cage while armed guards with dogs and machine guns kept her and fifteen other women prisoner.

Sparrow spoke out yesterday about her terrifying ordeal, five weeks after her daring escape from a cage in the cellar of a Lake Como villa. “They wanted us to compete in this twisted game. It was like a reality TV show but one where we were going to die if we were eliminated.”

Sparrow appeared emotional but composed as she related how she and fifteen other women were forced to wear a sash and parade around in dresses during pageant-like “events” for three mysterious Russian men. “They claimed it was so one of them could choose a wife, but I think they were sex traffickers and it was some fun for them before we were sold.”

The women were tortured with electric shocks and threatened repeatedly with beatings. One sustained injuries to her face. A seventeenth woman was murdered in front of the others.

Sparrow broke down in tears as she described the women’s daring escape under the cover of darkness. Forming a human chain, they waded and swam through the waters of Lake Como to safety while another woman created a distraction.

“I could hear a boat engine and the men shouting, but it got farther and farther away from us. It was all because of Lilia. I don’t know anything about her. I don’t even know if she made it out alive. Number Eleven saved us, and I’ll never forget her.”

All sixteen women were models abducted from the streets during Milan Fashion Week, where they were walking the runways for some of the world’s most prestigious designers.

Italian police made a statement earlier this month that several women were reported missing, but that they found no signs of foul play at the time. They are now working with Interpol to investigate the kidnappings and murder.

This isn’t the first time Olivia Sparrow’s family has endured the trauma of a missing person. Two years ago, Olivia’s sister Beatrix vanished and was never seen again.

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