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The whereabouts of the men who held the women captive are unknown. Seven more women sought help at police stations or at their embassies in Italy and have since returned home. The whereabouts of the other eight women, including the enigmatic Number Eleven, remains a mystery.

I fightback tears as I slide my burner phone back into my pocket. My hand shakes as I reach for my espresso, the cup rattling against its saucer. I let it go and smooth my sweaty palms over my jeans, relief cascading through me.

Hedda’s story was the first one to break while she was still in the hospital in Italy. Then the British tabloids found out about Olivia and have probably been hounding her for a press conference ever since. Deja gave a written statement to the US media but refused to speak on camera. None of the stories told me what I really wanted to know until today, that it wasn’t all for nothing, screwing those men, being tortured, being hated and ridiculed.

They made it.

They all made it out alive.

I wish I could see all their beautiful, smiling faces so I could remember them that way and not huddled in cages, scared, and frightened. Some of the women might still be gathering their courage to come forward. Some, I may never hear from again. A pang goes through my heart, but I can understand why they might prefer to just disappear after the ordeal they suffered.

It’s a beautiful morning in Trieste, and I adjust my large sunglasses on my face. The sunlight filters through the trees in the piazza as I sit at a café table with an espresso. Five weeks have passed since I dove off the cliff wearing Konstantin’s diamond tiara and into the unknown. Trieste is where I’ve gone to ground. The Italian city is bound by sea on one side and hills on the other. The ancient streets are a warren of Roman arches and medieval cobblestones, red-roofed residences butting up against modern apartment buildings. The Slovenian border is just a handful of miles away. I could drive to Croatia or Austria in just a few hours. Hopping on a ferry or a train, I could disappear into Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, or Greece. An airplane could whisk me to London, Frankfurt, or Valencia.

I’m only three hundred miles from Lake Como, but all these international borders are what makes Trieste so appealing. I have a dozen escape routes planned and I’m ready to flee at a moment’s notice should I catch sight of a familiar tattooed hand or a pair of cold gray eyes.

But the main thing that’s keeping me here isn’t the geography. It’s the Venetian mafia.

I take out my phone and glance one more time at Olivia’s picture from the news conference, wishing there were some way of letting her know I’m alive and in one piece, but it’s too dangerous. For her and for me.

Tapping on the screen, I perform the same browser search that I have every day since my escape: “pink diamond.” Then I scroll through the results.

Pink diamond buying guide

Shop pink diamonds

Why are pink diamonds more expensive?

Ten things to know about pink diamonds

I breathe a small sigh of relief and take a sip of my espresso. There are no recent hits for stolen pink diamonds or news about the tiara that Konstantin had made for the pageant. I’ve been braced for stories about the pink diamonds being splashed across the news sites, making the prize I stole from Konstantin both notorious and worthless. I’ll never be able to sell the diamonds legitimately, but even criminals won’t touch them if they know they’re stolen from the Bratva.

After diving into the waters of Lake Como, I struck out blindly in the darkness and swam and swam. My arms burned. My body was exhausted and starving, and I was running on adrenaline and fear. I didn’t dare stop until my feet hit the lake bottom and I crawled my way up the bank. A few hundred feet away, a boat with a powerful light was sweeping the water. As I dragged myself into some bushes, Konstantin called out to me.

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.

I couldn’t see him in the darkness, but he was close enough that he might have heard me breathing, and I clamped my hands over my mouth and curled into a ball, shaking with exhaustion and fear. I didn’t have anything left in me to run, and I abandoned myself to fate.

His fury crackled through the night. Several terrifying minutes passed before his footsteps crunched on stones and faded into the darkness.

I think I must have fallen asleep or passed out, and when I woke it was still dark. The tiara was still on my head, and I tore it from my hair. I stole a backpack, men’s clothes, and a bicycle from a nearby villa, prying off the bike’s reflectors and only traveling at night. By day, I hid in the bushes on the side of the road. As much as it terrified me to be among people, I knew I had to reach a city.

Three days after the pageant, I hid in an abandoned farm building on the outskirts of Trieste and used a pair of pliers to pull three plain diamonds from Konstantin’s hateful crown. I pawned them in Trieste and then hid in a hotel, living off room service.

I would have preferred to stay in hiding. I was safe while I was hidden. The four walls of my room and the heavy curtains protected me from the prying eyes of every Russian man who wishes to get their brutal hands on me. I knew I couldn’t stay there forever, that Konstantin might track me here from Lake Como, but what forced me onto the streets wasn’t anyone in the Bratva. It was the Mafia Veneta, the Venetian mafia, the dominant criminal organization in northern Italy, similar to the Cosa Nostra, but rumored to be more violent.

I need them. After all, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and I need cash if I’m going to disappear once and for all.

If I searched Trieste hard enough, I might be able to find a Russian mafia contact who would be interested in pink diamonds, but how long would it be until Konstantin heard about the precious stones hitting the Russian black market? The Mafia Veneta has nothing to do with the Bratva and will—I hope—be interested in sixteen exquisite pink diamonds and a handful of plain ones at a bargain price. It would be nice to get eight million dollars, but I’ll settle for six. They’ll be able to smell my desperation.

I sit out front of cafés. I watch. I wait. Across the piazza is an Italian restaurant. Tough-looking men walk in and out of a side door every day, including a local jeweler. I’ve followed him to his shop, and I’m convinced that not every piece that enters his shop is legitimate.

I can’t just walk in and ask him if the Venetian mafia would like to buy fourteen million dollars’ worth of pink diamonds at a bargain price. I need a plan, so until I have one, all I can do is sit here and drink espresso. Until I think of something, the diamonds are hidden somewhere safe. The tiara’s frame I bent out of recognizable shape and threw into a dumpster.

I felt sick as I counted the pink diamonds. Sixteen of them. Sixteen contestants. What a twisted sense of fun Konstantin has. I wonder what gave him the idea for the pageant in the first place. In the world of elite marriages between criminals, arrangements aren’t unusual. I had my own arranged marriage, and it was as transactional and loveless as they come. Konstantin probably wanted one of his own, but he wasn’t satisfied with the women who were on offer. I imagine him sitting in a deep armchair, swirling a glass of whisky, his head filled with dark, disturbing thoughts of women forced to perform for him.

I remember his hungry expression as he watched me crown myself with his tiara as the wind whipped around us on the cliff’s edge.

You wearing that tiara. You’re all I want. You’re all I’ve ever needed.

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