the most pleasurable moment of my life.
We’re looking at each other across the pillow.
I think he’s as lost as I am. He doesn’t know what to do.
He kisses me once more, softly on the lips.
Then he says, “Go back to your room, little ballerina. Don’t let anyone see you.”
Quietly I slip out of the bed and I run back the way I came, my body weak with pleasure and my head spinning round and round.
21
Miko
The next morning, everything is as usual.
When I come down to the main floor, I can hear Nessa practicing up in her studio, with a new record playing on the turntable. She must have finished choreographing one dance and started the next.
The house looks the same as always. My face looked the same in the mirror, after I showered and dressed.
And yet, I feel completely different.
For one thing, I’m actually hungry.
I go into the kitchen, where Klara is clearing up the remains of the breakfast she made for Nessa.
She looks startled to see me, since I usually only have coffee in the morning.
“Is there any bacon left?” I ask her.
“Oh!” she says, bustling around with the fry pans. “Just two pieces—but give me a moment, I’ll make more!”
“No need,” I tell her. “I’ll eat this.”
I grab the bacon out of the pan, eating it where I stand, leaning up against the island. It’s crispy and salty and slightly burned. It tastes phenomenal.
“I can make more!” Klara says, flustered. “It will only take a minute. That’s probably cold.”
“It’s perfect,” I say, snitching the last sausage from the pan, too.
Klara looks alarmed, either from the fact that I’ve come into the kitchen, which I never do, or the fact that I’m in a cheerful mood, which also never happens.
“Is Nessa in her studio?” I say to Klara, already knowing the answer.
“Yes,” she says cautiously.
“She likes to work. I hear her in there constantly.”
“That’s right.”
Klara probably respects that. She has a highly-developed work ethic herself, doing the job of at least three people with all the cooking and cleaning and errands she runs for us.
I pay her well. But she drives a twenty-year-old Kia and carries a canvas tote as a purse. She sends all her money back to Poland, to her parents and grandparents. Jonas shares those same grandparents. He doesn’t send anything back, despite making a lot more than Klara.
“You’ve taken good care of our little prisoner,” I say to Klara.
She sets the pans to soak in the sink, running the water and not looking up at me.
“Yes,” she says quietly.
“You two have grown close.”
She squirts dish soap onto the frypans. Her hand trembles slightly, and some of the soap lands on the faucet. She wipes it off hastily with the sponge.
“She’s a good girl,” Klara says. “She has a kind heart.”
There’s a note of reproach in her voice.
“Did you know she learned to speak Polish?” I say.
Klara stiffens and her eyes fly guiltily to my face.
“I didn’t mean to teach her anything!” Klara gulps. “She picked it up so quick—I thought she’d learn the word for ‘spoon’ or ‘cup’, just as entertainment. The next thing I knew she was saying sentences . . .”
Klara’s explanation comes tumbling out, her cheeks flaming with anxiety. She doesn’t have to convince me—I’ve seen for myself have clever Nessa is, and how perceptive. She looks like an innocent little faun, but her mind is always working a thousand miles a minute.
“Please don’t be angry with her,” Klara adds. “It wasn’t her fault.”
I thought Klara was pleading for herself, not wanting to be punished. Now I realize it’s Nessa she’s worried about.
This is worse than I thought. They’ve become friends. Close friends.
I should fire Klara. Or, at the very least, keep her away from Nessa.
But who would I trust to guard her? Fucking nobody. Nessa could worm her way into the heart of a rabid badger.
So I stare silently at Klara until she stops speaking, biting her lip and wiping her wet hands convulsively on her apron.
“I’m concerned where your loyalties lie,” I say to Klara.
She tugs on her apron with her chapped hands.
“I would never betray the Braterstwo,” she says.
“Nessa Griffin is not a pet. She’s an asset—a very valuable asset.”
“I know,” Klara whispers.
“If you had some idea of setting her free—”
“I would never!”
“Just remember that I know where all your family lives in Boleslawiec. Your mother, your uncle, your little nieces, your grandparents . . .They aren’t safe, just because they’re connected to Jonas, too. Jonas would put a