Page 49 of The Crimson Lily

T he doves must have been at it for hours for their incessant cooing to dive into my dreams. The light of the sun slips through my eyelids, luring my consciousness back to life.

I open my eyes slowly and blink a few times to make sure I’m awake.

I’m in a warm bed of sheets whiter than snow.

The ceiling is low, supported by thick, dark wooden beams. The window by the bed looks out on to green grass and the heavy trunks of tall trees.

The ivory curtains are open, and I am alone in this quiet room. Only the doves outside make a sound.

Is this heaven?

I raise my upper body and scan more of my surroundings: There’s a colorful turquoise carpet sprawled on the floor, a ceiling fan I haven’t yet noticed, an oak closet, and a lighter-colored sideboard with a large mirror hovering above it.

I was put into a long white nightgown that gives me the look of an innocent angel with my wavy blond hair.

Who the hell got me changed? And where the hell are my belongings?

I want to stand up to search for my clothes, but the door at the edge of the room opens.

William walks in, accompanied by a woman—a nun?

—who wears a black robe and a white wimple.

She carries a silver tray with a cup of what smells like coffee and a plate that announces a shiny butter croissant.

She balances it on the small nightstand beside the bed and leaves in a hurry, looking down when William thanks her in Italian.

Only now do I notice that he has a voluptuous piece of clothing hanging on his arm.

As for the rest, he is all blue suit and brown leather shoes.

“Did you have a good night of sleep?” he asks with a cheer.

“Where am I?” I instantly counter.

He ignores my question. Instead, he sits beside me. William lays the clothing piece, a dark-red dress with long sleeves, between him and me.

“I thought crimson would be a good fit for you,” he grooms. “The rest of your clothes and shoes have been washed and are in the bathroom.” He points at a wooden door in the white wall. “Have some breakfast and get ready.”

His red, pointy mustache makes me want to slap him. I can see my reflection in his eyes, too much like mine. The de Loit blue . I remember now how people referred to that glacial color. The red curls springing to the side of his jaw give him the noble allure of a duke or…?a baron.

“Where am I, William?” I press.

He hushes me with a finger raised at the ceiling.

“The dress is for this evening,” he declares.

“What’s this evening?”

William grins, his shiny teeth showing. “Well, Lili, a lord is coming over tonight, so you’d better look presentable.” He picks up the tray from the nightstand and places it beside me. “Welcome back, little cousin, time to get dressed now.”

I would puke if I had anything left in my stomach.

I scowl at him while he rises to his feet and walks away.

After he closes the door, I march out of bed, seize the croissant, open the window, and throw it at the pigeons outside.

I quickly check for a way out, an escape, but the garden is full of trees, and I’m in the middle of nowhere.

When I’m sure he’s gone, I race to the bathroom, lock it, and search myself.

I crouch down on the marble floor and make contact with the plastic object still hidden beneath my skin.

I lock eyes with myself in the mirror and judge my reflection.

A curious monkey, that’s what I look like with my legs spread as such, and my arms curved, but at least the tracker is still there.

I remove it. I want this thing out of me.

In front of me, in the middle of the bathroom sink, is the GPS tracker I smuggled here.

I won’t give them the chance to find it, and just in case that Syndicate lord or whoever’s coming has magic x-ray snake eyes, I flush it down the toilet.

If there was a location to be polled, Maksim already fetched it long ago.

I take off that ugly grandma nightgown and jump straight into the shower. I need to get the prints of whoever changed me off my body.

Maksim, please come find me. I’m still alive. Please come get me.

I have no idea where I am, but I’m sure Maksim does by now. I’m sure he’s doing everything to plan my rescue. I have to be sure. I have to believe the device still worked from where it was. Why wouldn’t it?

The water isn’t getting any warmer, so I settle with room temperature. The drops drizzle down my back, which feels numb and sore. My shoulders are hard as a rock.

I dry my hair with a towel and put on black jeans and my white sweater, which is too large for me. They have indeed been washed and smell of lavender, like fancy baby oil. Despite the circumstances, the scent falls on me like a relaxing wave.

Once I’m ready, I head for the door, then the next, and find myself in a long corridor extending left and right of me. Women—nuns—are walking back and forth without looking at me.

William appears out of the corner of my eye, motioning for me to join him. He holds a tiny silver necklace in his palm. “I think this is yours,” he says as I get closer and hands it to me.

A spark of relief flickers in my heart. I am reunited with the part Maksim left with me. Maksim’s present to me, a token of his affection.

“Please tell me where I am,” I plead, my voice busy with not crying.

“Where do you think you are?” William riddles.

I scan my surroundings, noticing the nuns pacing around me and the crosses on the wall.

The hallway behind takes a right. The corridor in front of me opens into a larger room, then continues and bends to the left.

Through the windows scattered across the walls, I can see green grass and pine trees.

I take a few steps toward the opening and realize I’m looking through the entrance of a chapel.

“Is this some kind of cloister?” I ask.

William chuckles with satisfaction. “Good guess, Lili.”

“We’re not in Rome,” I infer from the quantity of forest that encircles us.

My big cousin nods with the same smile he wore in his teens.

He leads me to the chapel, an empty rectangular room of aligned benches, with a ceiling made of the same wood as the beams in my room.

At the end of the chapel is an altar overseen by a flower-shaped window made of blue stained glass.

William eventually takes me to the door left of the altar, into the cloister’s inner ward.

We walk underneath the galleries that encase the garden. There’s a platform of everlasting grass with a small well reshaped into a fountain of gray stones at the center. Irregular bushes are scattered at the base of the archways. This garden looks like a piece of spring frozen in time.

“Have you recovered your memory?” William wonders with an intrigued frown.

I don’t look at him but simply gaze ahead. “Not entirely.”

“You could try asking me things,” he offers.

Excuse me? What kind of sick, gracious move is that? “May I remind you that you’re the one who took my memory away, William?” I scoff.

“And I’m sorry about that.” He seems sincere. It’s disgusting. “But you were uncontrollable. You wanted out, and you went to the Bratva for help. The lords wanted you dead. I didn’t have a choice in the matter.”

I halt my march and let the anger rise. “So, you’re going to make me believe you didn’t want me dead yourself?”

“Why do you think you’re still alive?” he quizzes.

“Because you missed?” I mock.

“Part of me couldn’t kill you, little cousin. I guess that part was stronger than my sense of duty.”

I throw skeptical knives at him with my eyes. “Yeah, right,” I jerk. “Where is the Kinzhal Strastey?”

William glances at me with a smile. “You want to see it?”

Darn right, I want to see it. I give him a single nod masking my eagerness. That freaking dagger that brought me here to this forsaken place, I want to see it, to sentence it.

“All in due time,” William says, calm and serene. “Do you remember Wassenaar?” He changes the subject.

I shrug. “Some of it.”

“What do you remember about your parents?” he queries.

“Nothing,” I mumble.

“Then I can most certainly help, Lili,” William proclaims. “Your mother was Alanna de Loit, and she was my aunt, my father’s little sister.”

I want to ask What’s my real name? but I settle with a barely audible hum instead.

“She married a New York City cop,” he discloses. “That was her first transgression. Detective Johnathan Miles was his name.”

Liliana Miles . That has a nice ring to it.

“Your mother wanted out of the Syndicate long before you were born, Lili. I guess you have your mother’s blood.”

I make conjectures, right here, in my mind. My mother and father united to abolish the Syndicate, and they were killed for it.

“Is that why she died?” I ask, just to be sure.

“No comment,” William blocks. “But treason isn’t a crime that goes unpunished.”

Subtle confirmation. I’m starting to feel sick.

“What’s our family’s place in the Syndicate?” I wonder after a pause.

“We’re handlers, mostly,” he replies. “I’m surprised you remember so little.”

“Tell me about it.” My tone is sarcastic, but it’s actually a hushed request.

He laughs a little. “Ah, I want to. Believe me, I do, but we’d need a week and a day for that.”

“Start with why the de Loits sent me away.” I bring up the aching question that’s been bugging my mind.

“You’re smart,” he says with a smirk. “You can figure that one out on your own.”

I pause again to think, but the answer is blatant to me. “No criminal family wants the child of a cop.”

His smirk amplifies into a proud daddy’s smile.

“I kept in touch with you though. Mom and Dad paid the Springfields to raise you, but we both know they were shitheads.” William talks like a teenager now.

It feels familiar. It has a bitter taste of home.

“You’d come on vacation with me. I took you to see the world, Lili. I even taught you how to shoot?—”