Nadia rushed forward and threw herself before the Chekist’s feet. Her knees hit the ground with a painful jolt. “Please, your grace, please have mercy. My father is old, and he has already lost both his sons. Exile us. Don’t kill us. Please.”
The agent spoke to one of his men. “The exquisite daughter of a baron, prostrate before me, calling me your grace. It’s almost enough to weaken my resolve.” He looked at the paper in his hands. “But I have my orders. Nothing is more important than the revolution. Make ready.”
While Nadia continued to beg, the agents straightened their line and drew their revolvers.
“Aim.” The men pointed their weapons at Nadia’s father.
“Fire.”
The cracks echoed around the courtyard, and the acrid smell of cordite assaulted Nadia’s nostrils. Through tears, she saw Papa fall to the ground. It had been difficult to lose her brothers, but this . . . To witness the moment of death brought the grief to an entirely new level of agony.
Her mother and aunt sobbed.
Nadia was still at the agent’s feet. Papa hadn’t deserved execution, but he had served the tsar. Maybe his death would be enough to assuage the Cheka’s bloodlust. “Please, spare my mother and my aunt. They never worked for the tsar. They’re no danger to your revolution.” She choked back her tears so they wouldn’t muddle her voice.
The man looked through his orders again.
“The entire family is to die.” The agent with dark hair and a lantern jaw wasn’t the man in charge, but his statement sounded like an order. Would he convince his superior to kill the rest of them?
“Please have mercy,” Nadia pleaded. “We’ll leave Russia and never return.”
The leader met her eyes for a moment. “I suppose it’s not really their fault that they were raised in luxury. They’re more ornaments than tools of oppression.”
The other agent snorted. “Anyone with either a brain or a heart should have seen that it was wrong to dance in jewels at the Winter Palace, feasting on caviar and champagne, while those around them wore rags and starved. Besides, even in exile, they might sour opinion against us.”
“You care what the capitalist pigs think?” The agent shoved the orders into his pocket.
“No. But the revolution is new, still vulnerable to economic or diplomatic sanctions.”
Nadia sensed the man in charge was wavering but leaning toward cruelty. “We’ll take a vow of silence if you’ll just let us go.”
The second agent huffed. “You’d trust them?”
The man in charge made a motion with his hands. First Nadia’s mother and then her aunt were dragged to the wall and shot, leaving gaping holes in Nadia’s soul.
She stopped begging after her aunt was shot. It obviously would do no good. One of the agents hauled her to her feet and pushed her toward the wall. She couldn’t obscure her emotions as well as her parents had, but she gritted her teeth and straightened her spine, trying to summon a modicum of courage with which to greet the bullets.
“Wait.” That was the second man again, the one who had argued against mercy.
“Have you something to say, Comrade Kuznetsov?” the lead agent asked.
“A request.”
Nadia pulled at the sash binding her wrists while the Bolsheviks spoke. One tug loosened the tie, and then she pulled a wrist free.
She still hoped she would wake up and realize it was all a horrible nightmare. They were going to escape to Paris. They weren’t supposed to be executed in her aunt’s courtyard. But the wind cut into her face, and the murmur of men’s voices pierced her ears, and the smell of gunpowder bit her nose. This was real. How could this have happened? Her parents and her aunt, dead, shot like traitors or criminals. There were no three people she cared for more than those three lying dead in the courtyard.
Maybe . . . Could any of them still be alive? She went to her knees and crawled toward them. Her father was clearly dead, but her mother or her aunt? No. Neither of their chests moved. The only movement came from the Cheka agents.
She would be next. Would it hurt? The physical pain couldn’t be any worse than the crushing grief she already felt. Time was short. Soon they would stand her up and aim their pistols at her. She would try to die bravely, like Papa. She would show these miserable Bolsheviks what noble blood could bear. But first, she would pay her respects to the bodies.
She closed her father’s eyes, ignoring the ghastly wound to his face. “I’m sorry, Papa. Be waiting for me, please? And have Alexander and Nikolai come see me, won’t you? It will be like before the war—we’ll all be together.”
Mama’s face was unmarred. Nadia pulled her mother’s eyelids down and straightened her arms across her chest. “Poor Mama. You are still beautiful, even in death.” Nadia kissed her mother’s forehead. “I will see you again soon.”
Nadia turned to her aunt, but a pair of Cheka agents yanked her to her feet before she could touch the body. Her legs would barely hold her. Face them, just like Papa. She wanted to, but her body trembled, and she worried she would faint. A true noble could endure anything, so why was it so hard to look at the men who had murdered her family?
The man in charge slipped into the manor, disappearing from view. One of the other agents, Kuznetsov, motioned to the two men holding her, and they led her toward the stables.
Dare she hope for mercy? Perhaps they would spare her but insist she muck out the stables first and let her go after they’d humiliated her. Did they think an indignity like that would matter after she’d witnessed the execution of her parents? The servants had been able to leave in peace with their belongings. Maybe Nadia would be given the same chance. She just needed a few things: warm clothing, a skirt not covered in her parents’ blood, the coat she’d sewn her jewels into. She glanced back at the prone figures of her family. Even if she were spared, what would she do without them?
She blinked away tears and looked more closely at the men. Not a shred of mercy showed on their faces. They were not planning to deliver her.
“What are you doing with me?” she asked.
Kuznetsov spoke. “A slight delay. We’ll execute you after we enjoy the fine supper your servants prepared. And you will slake a different type of hunger. You may be an enemy of the revolution, but you’re still beautiful.”
As they reached the stables, he pushed her inside. Then he turned to his comrades. “I’ll let you know when it’s your turn.” He chuckled and closed the stable door, leaving the two of them alone with the horses.
Then she knew. No mercy. Just a different kind of horror.
“No.” Her voice was barely a whisper the first time she spoke, but it was louder the second. “No!”
The agent threw her into the wall. As she banged into the wooden beams, pain shot through her shoulders and head.
“You’re an enemy of the state, condemned to die. I can do whatever I like.”
She’d been prepared to die nobly in front of a firing squad. She wasn’t prepared for this. She tried to rush past the man, but he grabbed her and forced her to the floor. Fabric ripped, and she screamed.
A thunk echoed through the stable, and then the man’s weight pressed down on her, unmoving.
“Hurry, miss.”
Nadia wriggled from underneath the Bolshevik to see the groom. Dima had saved her with the swing of a shovel. But the other agents were still nearby, two on the other side of the stable door. Her parents were dead, her blouse was torn, and the Cheka would soon be searching for her. Terror and grief engulfed her, closing her throat and making it hard to speak. “What am I to do?”
Dima took her by the hand and pulled her to her feet. “Come on.”
“They shot my parents, Dima.”
“I know. And I’m sorry for it. I couldn’t do anything for them, but you can escape. Climb to the loft.”
Nadia tried to follow his instructions, but her limbs shook so much that he had to help her along.