Page 148 of Ruthless Sin

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I don’t go in.

I look in.

The easel. The canvas turned to the wall. The brushes in their jars. The paint gone hard in tubes. The high window facing north. The smell of linseed and turpentine I haven’t refreshed in three years.

Yelena’s face. Turned to the wall.

I painted her from memory after I came home. The only way I knew how to keep my promise the year I broke it. I didn’t tell anyone. Not Dante. Not Giada. The canvas has been facing the wall in this house for three years and I’m the only person who has ever seen it.

I close the door.

I don’t lock it.

I walk back through my bedroom to the desk on the gallery side.

I sit.

I have to show her.

The painting is hers. I painted Yelena. Mila has the right to look at her sister’s face before she decides what to do with me.

I’ll go to her door in the morning. One Russian sentence through the wood. She’ll open it or she won’t.

If she opens it, I’ll take her here.

If she doesn’t, the door stays open from this day until I’m dead.

I don’t get to want anything until she does.

25

MILA

His voice. Through my door.

Quiet. One sentence.

“Poydem so mnoy.”Come with me.

He doesn’t knock. He says it once and waits.

I cross to the door.

I open it.

He’s in the hallway.

He hasn’t slept. His hair is rough. His jaw is tight. He hasn’t eaten. The mask he wears at dinner is off. The eyes underneath it are the ones looking at me now.

His hands are at his sides. His jaw is tight.

“I should have brought you here the same day I told you.” His voice is very low. “You had a right to it then. I kept it too long. I’m sorry.”

He stops. He knows I heard everything he already said in that room.

“There’s something that’s yours,” he says. “Come with me.”

I don’t speak.

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