took Matvei’s disgusting deal, I wonder what my role in all this is. What am I doing? What am I responsible for? Am I just someone here to make Nikolas feel comfortable as a pawn in Matvei’s dangerous game?
I hate that my fingers shake as I send the response to him.
I will.
I place my phone facedown and turn my attention back to Nikolas, watching him eat. He seems to have forgotten about his parents and moved onto playing with a toy garbage truck on the surface of the dining table, thank God.
But now it’s me that’s on edge. Maybe I’ve bitten off more than I can chew by agreeing to this job.
Not that I had a choice.
I don’t think Nikolas knows what to do with me. From what I’ve learned from the other members of the household staff, he’s been through a handful of nannies. But none of them have said why the women before me didn’t work out.
I wonder if he senses that I’m not here for a paycheck, or even of my own free will. I’m here for my dad and only my dad.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t have a soft spot growing for this solemn little boy already. I can’t help it—that ovaries squealing sensation reaches a fever pitch whenever I hear him groaning in the middle of the night and rush into his room to find him caught in yet another nightmare.
He quiets down as soon as I get there most of the time, although I remember from somewhere that you’re not supposed to wake up someone having night terrors. You just sit with them, touch them softly, and try to help them find their own way out of it.
That’s what I do with Niko. I’ve done it every night since I got here. I’m exhausted from getting so little sleep myself, but whenever I start to feel truly sorry for myself, I remind myself yet again that I’m here for my dad.
I’ve been trying out different bedtime rituals, hoping one of them provides a fix for Niko’s nightmares. Tonight, wearing the pajamas that Matvei had one of his men retrieve from my apartment, I head to the boy’s room, ready to read Niko to sleep.
As I approach his bedroom, however, I hear a deep voice speaking slowly. I poke my head around the corner for a second to see Matvei sitting on the side of Nikolas’s bed, already reading to him. I bite my lip and stay quiet, watching.
I’ve just come into the middle of the story, but it seems to be about a boy that survives on his own in the wilderness when his parents lose track of him while camping—a little on the nose, to be sure, but sometimes that’s what it takes.
Nikolas stares up at Matvei with wonder in his eyes, the same way he looks at me while I read, and for the first time since the night of my arrival, Matvei doesn’t seem like this big, evil mob boss.
He seems almost… human.
He’ll occasionally makes animal noises for the characters as he reads, and every time, Nikolas giggles. I feel my heart flutter at the sound of the two of them laughing together—ovaries squealing, most definitely.
In moments like this, it’s easy to forget that I still have no clue what’s happening. Who’s the prisoner and who’s the warden? I shudder and try to put those thoughts ahead. Keep your head down, do your time, and get out, I say to myself again and again. Maybe I’ve watched The Shawshank Redemption a few too many times.
At the end of the book, Matvei looks up and says, “See how Johnny put the knife away and only used it when he needed?”
Nikolas nods.
“That’s because they’re not toys at all. They’re very dangerous, and if you’re not careful, you can hurt yourself. He’s talking to you, Niko. You have to stop playing with my pocketknife, okay? You don’t want to hurt yourself, do you?”
I know what he’s talking about. Nikolas has had a fascination with Matvei’s switchblade pocketknife lately. Not in like a serial killer way—he isn’t vivisecting frogs or skinning cats or anything nearly that morbid. He just likes playing with it. He gets this faraway look in his eyes every time I discover him with the knife in his hands. Like he’s dreaming of something he lost, something he can’t quite properly remember.
Nikolas tilts his head to the side. “My daddy had one like it. Yours looks like his.”