Aleksander is a murderer

Curled up on the bed, an empty shell of myself, sleep found me. A fitful sleep, riddled with nightmares and dreams swelling with doubt. Even in slumber, tears stained my face, and every other breath came as a sob.

It must have been close to noon when a soft rapping on the door startled me awake. Bolting upright, my eyes frantically scanned my unfamiliar surroundings. The knocking on the door continued throbbing through my aching head as I woke up to reality.

The door cracked open before I could part my dry lips.

"Rhea?" Annika's low, crooning voice filtered into the bedroom. Garbed in a vibrant red dress, she swept into the room without an answer. Her hands fluttered to her immaculately made-up face when she found me disheveled in the center of the bed with puffy eyes. "O, moya khoroshen'kaya devochka."

In the long months since meeting Annika, we'd grown close. When I'd suffered an injury after Aleksander's last assistant pushed me down a flight of marble stairs, Annika had come nearl