“I have to go downstairs shortly to meet Dimitri,” I tell her. “Today, you stay up here or go to the library if you’d like. We’ll talk about this more later, understood?”

I wait until she nods before I take her by the hand and bring her to the table for her breakfast.

“But first, eat.”

A little cluster of consternation knits her brow. There are many things on her mind, but I don’t have time to really delve into her heart and mind right now.

Dimitri waits.

And then I’ll make my decision.

I wait until she eats a portion that satisfies me, and Nikita comes to tend to her, before I go to Dimitri. I need to hear what he has to say before I make any decisions or plans. But when I get to the threshold of the door, I feel a tug in my gut. I turn back to Sadie and look at her, puzzled. She’s on her feet, shaking her head.

“Don’t go, Kazimir,” she says, holding her belly. Begging for me to stay for both of them. “Please.”

“I’m not going to be gone for long,” I tell her. “Just stay here with Nikita until I return, or—”

“No!” Her eyes are wide and fearful. “You can’t go.”

I’m torn between anger at her defiance and real concern on her insistence. “Sadie.” My deeper voice arrests her. Nikita hears the warning in my voice and reaches for Sadie’s hand, whispering something in a placating whisper. Sadie shoves her away and takes a step toward me.

“Kazimir.” She’s only a step away from me now. I’ve walked toward her without even realizing I did. A sense of foreboding permeates the air between us. “I—I can’t explain it. But if you walk out that door, I just know… something…” She shakes her head.

“You’re overwrought,” I tell her, ignoring my own reservations. I don’t like leaving my pregnant wife vulnerable like this. I reason away the hesitation with logic. But there’s nothing that can happen to her here, not in the safety of our home, with armed guards to protect us and her servant tending to her. When I look at the time, I make my decision. I have no more time to dawdle, and doing so could incur Dimitri’s anger. “I have to go. Be a good girl.”

“No,” she whispers, but I pry her fingers off me and hand her to Nikita, who’s standing behind her waiting, watching the exchange between the two of us with wide, fearful eyes. Sadie lets me go and hangs her head. I walk away, ignoring the tug in my gut and lump in my throat.

My decision is made. I need to get her away from here. First, I listen to Dimitri.

I step on the elevator, glaring at the buttons as if it’s their fault I had to practically extricate myself from my wife to do my work. The elevator descends, but stops only one floor down. The doors open, yet no one comes on. Frowning, I push the button again, and wait until it takes me to Dimitri.

This whole day is strange. Nothing is predictable, not even me. I glance at the time and realize I’m one minute late. I curse under my breath and shake my head. I shouldn’t have let her pleas delay me.

When the elevator opens, I hear shouting and the sound of glass breaking. I exit the elevator at a run.

In the dining room, the servant girl whose shoes I took kneels, weeping. Her fingers are bloodied, but she’s picking up shards of broken glass anyway.

“Stop that,” I order in Russian. “You’re injured. Tend to your injuries first, and leave that for someone else.”

She raises wild, tear-filled eyes to mine and stammers her explanation. “He won’t let me, sir.”

I know exactly who she’s referring to. I look around the room until I see him, standing at the head of the table.

“Leave her and come here, Kazimir,” he orders.

I look from the girl to Dimitri.

“Her hands are bloodied,” I tell him. “She needs to clean them, Dimitri.”

Without warning, he lifts another glass from the table and whips it across the room. It shatters into pieces against the brick fireplace. Another servant girl screams and covers her mouth.

“I said come here!” he thunders.

I haven’t seen Dimitri in a rage like this in years. In the past, I’d obey him without question, knowing I owed him my allegiance and obedience. Now, though… now, seeing him make this poor girl weep in fear, I see him in a different light.

How could I have ever thought this was acceptable? Sadie’s words come back to me.

He’s a monster.

Am I? How could I have respected this man?

In silence, I walk to him, prepared to defend myself if he gets violent. I don’t trust him when he’s raging like this.

Do I trust him when he isn’t?

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