EMERY
“This thing is like a second skin. Does it really need tailoring?”
The seamstress that Julia sent in her stead today ignores my question and keeps hemming up the already skintight lace around my waist. Unlike her boss, this woman isn’t particularly chatty. It almost makes me miss Julia. If nothing else, she was entertaining.
I sigh and stare at myself in the mirror.
The dress is beautiful. That’s undeniable. The fabrics are extravagant and delicate. Perfectly placed lace and skin-colored satin just barely cover my nipples, and the bottom half is so sheer that I can’t even wear underwear or else it will “mar the designer’s vision,” according to the seamstress.
The designer’s vision, it seems, is to leave me as exposed as humanly possible. Which was no doubt Adrik’s vision in the first place.
But for a man who wants to see so much of me, he sure has made himself scarce. I haven’t seen or heard anything from him since yesterday after our lunch.
Keep pushing and you’ll find out exactly what happened to Sofia.
The answer of what happened to his last fiancée is there in the threat, but I can’t bring myself to believe it. Adrik is a lot of things; he might even be a murderer. But he’s taken care of Isabella and me. Even when it was clear he didn’t especially want to.
I can’t imagine him killing a woman he was engaged to.
That being said, I can imagine him lying about killing her to get me to shut up. Matter of fact, that sounds exactly like something he would do.
“Have you ever worked with Mr. Tasarov before?” I ask the woman kneeling in front of me.
She hums what I assume is a “yes,” though it’s hard to tell because her mouth is stuffed with pins.
“He was engaged before,” I say as casually as I can. “Did you work on his previous fiancée’s gown?”
All I can see is the top of the woman’s brunette head, but she noticeably flinches.
“That’s a ‘yes,’ huh?”
She looks up at me, eyes wide, and plucks the pins from between her teeth. “It most certainly is not. I don’t know anything, and I’ve been instructed not to talk with you. Now, please be quiet and let me do my job.”
I blink. “He told you not to talk to me?”
“No, a maid did,” she says. “But she said that he told everyone not to talk to you.” The woman resumes working, doing her best to pretend I don’t exist.
"Does everyone in this fucking house know what happened to Sofia except for me?" I cry out.
The seamstress jolts and then curses under her breath. "Shit. It… it ripped. Damn it, you made me rip it. Dammit!"
She stands up and paces away from me before looking back at the damage. She winces and curses again.
"Julia will kill me," she whimpers. "Your husband will kill me.”
"He isn't my husband."
"And he'll never be if I can't fix your dress." She sags in another wave of despair.
I look down where she was working at my waist and see the loose bit of lace hanging down over my hip bone. It's one strip of lace with a half-inch tear.
"That's what you're so upset about? It's almost nothing."
"The dress itself is almost nothing, which makes that tear everything," she replies nastily. "Julia will see it from a mile away. I have to… I have to fix it."
She pulls out her phone like she's about to call someone and then changes her mind, dropping it on the footstool behind her.
"Shit. I’ll… I'll be back. I need something from the van." She turns towards the door, hesitates, and then keeps going.
Now that I'm alone, I feel ridiculous standing in front of a tri-fold mirror in such an extravagantly skimpy gown. I can't exactly relax in it, though. The material may be flimsy, but it's tight. If I bend, the poor seamstress might be fixing more than one microscopic tear.
So I split the difference and turn away from the mirror. I might not be able to run screaming for the hills like I want to do, but I've seen enough of my own reflection for one day.
A clock ticks in the corner. My own breath is the only other noise. The silence is weirdly eerie, and I’m not totally sure why, but I find myself whistling, humming nonsense syllables under my breath. Maybe just to stave off all the thoughts queuing up in my mind to attack.
Then it hits me.
All at once, I spin around and see the woman’s phone sitting on the footstool. I haven’t had my phone since before Adrik locked me in my room. I’ve been completely cut off, severed from the world and all pathways to information.
And now, right in front of me… a lifeline.
Careful not to ruin the dress, I hurry over and snatch up the phone.
“Please don’t be locked, please don’t be locked,” I whisper as I press the home button.
Gloriously, the screen pulls up without a single prompt to enter a passcode or a thumb print.
“Thank God.”
The background is the logo of Julia’s design firm, so I’m guessing this is the woman’s work phone. Either way, it has internet access. I quickly open a browser and type in a search term.
Adrik Tasarov Fiancée Sofia Dead
It’s generic, but the first result is a news story from a local station dated six years earlier. I click it open, bouncing on my feet as the page loads far too slowly.
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” I mutter, glancing up at the door every half-second and listening for footsteps in the hallway.
Finally, it’s up.
Sofia Volandri, daughter of Volandri Enterprises CEO Marco Volandri, died in a car accident early Tuesday morning. No others were injured.
Representatives from the police department confirmed that Sofia died as a result of her injuries.
“The car was traveling at a high rate of speed, but we have no reason at this point to suspect drugs or alcohol played any part in the accident,” Sheriff Boynton said. “Ms. Volandri struck a cement barrier just after midnight Tuesday morning and passed away almost instantly. We send our condolences to her family and fiancé.”
I back out of the article and click on the next link. This one is from a smaller magazine a few months later.
I scroll past the first few paragraphs and skim to the meat.
“Sofia Volandri’s death was ruled an accident, but I don’t know how anyone can know that,” Ms. Volandri’s closest friend, Valerie, said. “There was no investigation. The police closed it within days. I tried to find out if there was a toxicology report or an autopsy, but I can’t find anything.”
Valerie (last name redacted, per her request) also said Sofia was a cautious driver.
“Most people go five over the speed limit. Sofia went five under,” Valerie said. “They know she hit that median going at least twenty over. And I want to know why.”
“So do I,” I whisper. I back out of the story and click the third link.
This article is more of the same, regurgitating the official story and pointing to some inconsistencies, but it is the first to mention Adrik by name.
Adrik Tasarov, fiancé to the deceased, refused comment when reached.
“Sounds about right.”
I’m still holding the phone when I hear the tailor laboring down the hallway. She’s breathing heavily enough that you’d think she ran a marathon instead of just down the hall and out to the driveway.
But I’m grateful for the noise. It gives me time to drop her phone back where she left it.
She’ll never know a thing.
But now, I finally do.
* * *