# Chapter 39: The Unspoken Truth
Hello, dear listeners and readers! How are you all doing today? I hope you're sitting comfortably because we have an absolutely breathtaking chapter to review together. This is the story that continues to unfold with such tenderness and depth, and I must say, Chapter 39 is one of those moments where everything shifts. Let me tell you, nothing about this story is simple—not love, not loyalty, and certainly not the secrets that bind people together in the strangest of ways.
When we left off, Victor Dimitrov had just made a simple yet weighty statement: "A drink, then." But as you will soon discover, there was nothing simple about it at all.
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Victor did not wait for an answer. He opened the door and stood aside, fully expecting Natalia to step through. That infuriating self-assurance of his—how it unnerved her! The way he moved through life as though there were no other option but to obey his quiet commands. As the bells above the door tinkled, a portly, middle-aged man in a white apron bounded toward them with excitement written all over his face.
"Victor Dimitrov, what a pleasure!" the man cried, his lips frozen in a perpetual smile that exposed a stretch of prominent, reddish gums.
"Hello, my friend. Glad to see you are open this evening," Victor replied warmly.
"Your table is always ready for you. Please, this way."
Natalia observed the man as he led them past the bar and a cluster of empty tables. She caught his long, appraising glance at her, and suddenly she shrank within herself. A dozen questions flooded her mind. How many other women had walked across this badly waxed wooden floor in Victor's company? And more importantly—did his wife know?
They were seated at a roomy, candlelit table at the back of the restaurant. Natalia sat stiffly in her chair, insisting upon pulling it out herself, but once seated, she didn't know what to do with her hands. At the bar, a group of half-drunk men were deeply absorbed in conversation, completely unaware of the tension simmering at this back table.
"You don't have to worry," Victor said, sensing her discomfort. "I don't bring anyone here. Least of all my wife."
Ah, his wife. The mere mention froze her breath. There were things Natalia did not want to hear, things she was not ready for. What hurt more in that moment—the mention of the wife, or the thought of the other women, the ones he presumably kept elsewhere? Did his wife know about his indiscretions? Did she simply ignore them? A bitter wave of jealousy rose like bile in Natalia's throat as she imagined the wife sleeping beside Victor, her ivory skin and shimmering blond waves beneath his touch. She imagined the others too, the ones with whom he shared fragments of himself—all but his imprisoned, guarded heart.
*I am less than that*, she thought miserably. *I am only a glimpse of his past, a reminder of his bygone youth.*
Slowly, she rose from her chair and picked up her bag.
"Talia, where are you going?"
She stood before him, light-headed, struggling to find the right words. *Good-bye, Victor,* was what she needed to say but could not. She remained paralyzed, fighting back tears, gritting her teeth.
"Victor, I don't know what I'm doing here," she managed after a long moment. "I really need to go. I must get home."
"No. You cannot leave now."
Before she could take a single step, he reached out and gently grabbed her wrist. It was an imploring grip, more pleading than forceful, but its suddenness frightened her nonetheless. She returned to her chair as the waiter reappeared with a carafe of water and two glasses, which he placed ceremoniously upon the table.
"Two vodkas. Your best, please," Victor ordered, his gaze never leaving Natalia's face. The waiter nodded and vanished.
"Talia, I really need to talk to you," Victor began once they were alone. "I wanted to explain..."
She closed her eyes then—not to shield her torment from him, but to show him she wanted no part in this conversation. *Don't say anything, Victor,* she begd him silently. *Don't apologize or explain things away. Do not diminish what seeing you again has meant to me.*
"It isn't necessary. We've gone over it, and I wish you'd just—"
"Talia, do you know who Ivan Vasilovich is?"
Of course, she knew who he was. Ivan Vasilovich was a prominent Soviet official, one of the first Russian military attachés to install himself in the Royal Palace after King Michael's abdication. In those chaotic early days, when the young monarch was stripped of his citizenship and properties and forced into exile, Ivan Vasilovich had proclaimed himself minister of internal affairs. He was responsible for arresting and deporting thousands of people, for wiping out the king's entire cabinet virtually overnight.
"Yes, I do. I know about all the great things he has done for our country. He is in the history books. The revised ones, at least. What about him?"
"Katia is his daughter."
He paused to pull out a pack of cigarettes and matches from his breast pocket. As he lit one, leaning his elbow upon the table, his face hardened noticeably. For an instant, Natalia regretted her sarcasm.
"A great man, indeed," Victor continued, his voice suddenly heavy with something dark. "An accomplished, dedicated man. Very spirited. So spirited, in fact, that he went home to his villa on Kiselef every night and beat his wife and daughter senseless. He used a crowbar once, a fireplace iron, an empty whiskey bottle—but most of the time he resorted to the metal buckle of his military belt."
Natalia felt her heart plunge into her stomach. This was not the story she had expected to hear.
"Of course, I did not know any of this when I began working for him at the ministry," Victor went on. "I met Katia sometime later, when she came to our office to drop off his wallet one morning. She was wearing a shawl over a sleeveless dress, and when she handed me his wallet in the reception area, it slipped off her shoulder. That was when I first saw the bruises."
The cigarette twisted restlessly in his fingers as he stared at its glowing tip before taking another drag. The waiter arrived, placed two glasses of vodka before them, and retreated again to the bar.
"Ivan Vasilovich wouldn't let her out of his sight," Victor said. "He brought her along on every trip we took—to Warsaw, to Sofia, and back to their hometown of Leningrad. His entire staff traveled with him on those trips, occupying all the available train cars. That was where Katia and I became quick friends. One night, I heard her crying in the corridor of the sleeper compartment, right outside my own door. I slipped out and asked if she wanted to share some of my vodka."
Victor paused, his eyes growing distant as the memory overtook him.
"There was a boy in her life, she told me. A medical student, the son of a peasant, whom her father did not approve of. He had greater plans for her, it seemed. The problem—as she spelled it out to me with such pathos—was that this boy was the love of her life. She could not imagine a future without him. In fact, her precise words were that she would not live without him. And something in the way she said it, so resolutely, made me shudder. A moment later, she reached for my flask and took a large swig from it. 'Don't worry, it's only life,' she said before returning to her compartment."
Natalia sat motionless, unaware that she was barely breathing.
"A week later, I stopped by their home on Kiselef to drop off some papers," Victor continued. "It was late when she opened the door, and at first I did not recognize her. Her entire face was a purple bruise, her eyes swollen, one of them entirely shut. 'He found out,' was all she said. 'He is sending me to a boarding school, back in Moscow.'"
"'When?' I asked, shocked to see her in such a state. 'In a week,' she told me. There was something about her that broke my heart as I reached out and took her hand. I looked at her beautiful, desecrated face, and I said, 'Katia, come by the office tomorrow. There's something I want to talk to you about.'"
Victor took a long pause, reaching for his vodka and swallowing a generous gulp. He was no longer looking at Natalia; he was staring at the blank wall behind her, as if the memory itself played out there.
"Three days later, I returned to their home with a bouquet of flowers, an enormous box of chocolates for her mother, and the best Russian vodka I could find for her father. He greeted me at the door with great enthusiasm, seemed genuinely happy to see me. 'Come in, my boy,' he said. 'Katia told me you would be coming by.'"
"'Yes, sir,' I replied solemnly. 'There is something of great importance I would like to discuss.'"
Victor crushed his cigarette into the ashtray.
"Two months later, we were married. A grand wedding with five hundred people in attendance. Every dignitary, every government official and military attaché was there—you can imagine. We danced in the ballroom of the Athenaeum Palace, which her father had secured for the occasion. We smiled at each other and cut the first piece of our seven-tiered cake, while everyone cheered and raised glasses filled with the best champagne from France. Later that night, after our car dropped us off at the new villa that served as our wedding present, she changed out of her gown while I poured myself a tall drink."
There was a heaviness in his voice now, a weariness that Natalia had never heard before.
"As I stared into the flames of our marble fireplace, she came up behind me, quiet as a cat, stunning in a black dress. She put her arms around me, rested her chin upon my shoulder. We stayed like that for a while, Katia and I, and I knew what we were both thinking. She was free—free to be with her doctor—and I had an undeniably bright future ahead of me. We had both gotten what we wanted. 'I love you, Victor,' she whispered in my ear. 'I'm going now. Don't wait up for me.' Then she kissed my cheek and flew out the door."
Victor threw back the remnants of his vodka in a single, sharp shot and set the glass down with a clink.
"And that's how it's been, Talia, between my wife and me for the past five years."
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A deafening silence stretched between them, crowded with so many unspoken things that Natalia felt she might suffocate under their weight. Victor reached across the table and took her hand. She tried to pull it away, but his determined grip held her in place. Slowly, he raised her palm to his face, and there it was—the warmth of his skin, the moist softness of his lips, the trace of stubble brushing against her fingers.
"Look at me," he said.
But she could not. She was afraid he would see in her eyes what she no longer had the strength to conceal. Yet his glance was already penetrating right through her flimsy mask, and she thought, *I cannot stop him. There are no barriers he cannot break. It is my soul that he wants.*
When at last she raised her eyes to meet his, he smiled—a hopeful, knowing smile—and everything around them simply disappeared.
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Later that night, in the communal bathroom down the hall, Natalia gently placed her bag in the corner and flipped on the lights. She washed her hands beneath a trickle of cold water and examined her image in the tarnished mirror. Her face was flushed, but really no different from this morning. And yet so much had changed since then. She had never felt more transformed, more altered—yet none of it showed on the surface. Still the same green eyes that slanted slightly at the outer corners. Still the same long auburn hair, so thick it had become an annoyance to wash. Still the same fading beauty mark at the top of her left cheekbone. Still the same face that had somehow managed to blossom despite years of poverty and the despair that clung about her like the damp, thick air of a midsummer storm.
It wasn't until recently that Natalia had come to see that she was, in fact, pretty. She was not beautiful in a blatant, indisputable way like her cousin Lidia, but she possessed a kind of appeal that was less intimidating, more approachable—the sort of attractiveness that drew boys toward her instead of sending them running for the hills. But it wasn't until she had stood face-to-face with Victor that she had seen it so plainly. She had seen it through his eyes.
*When did you become so beautiful, Talia? Let me look at you. Just let me look at you.*
No, there was nothing in her reflection to betray the revolution raging inside her heart.
She tiptoed back toward her room, leaving her shoes outside the door. Without turning on the lights, she found her nightgown in the armoire and changed in complete darkness, careful not to make a sound. When she fell backward onto the embroidered cover of the davenport, she stretched her arms out wide—as wide as she could, like a bird in flight. Her eyes traveled upward toward the invisible ceiling.
And then, it took her a moment to realize it.
She was smiling in the dark.
Such a quiet moment, yet so profound. Because for the first time in what felt like forever, Natalia was not thinking about what she had lost. She was not thinking about her imprisoned brother, or the poverty that clung to her, or the cruel twists of fate that had scattered her family like leaves in a storm. For just this one precious moment, she was simply alive. She was seen. She was beautiful—through his eyes, she had become a woman worth looking at, worth wanting.
But at what cost? And what now?
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## Reader's Impressions & Star Rating
Reader, let me catch my breath and share my honest thoughts with you. This chapter was an emotional masterclass in storytelling. We finally understand the strange marriage of Victor Dimitrov—not a love match at all, but a mutual rescue pact between two desperate souls. Katia saved herself from an abusive father and a boarded school fate, Victor gained a powerful father-in-law and a promising future, and neither of them ever pretended it was anything more than that. But here's what broke my heart: in saving Katia, Victor sacrificed the possibility of real love for himself. And now, years later, he stands before Natalia—the woman who makes his guarded heart tremble—having no idea how to be truly vulnerable, truly open, truly hers.
The scene where he raises her palm to his lips and says "Look at me" gave me chills. And Natalia's quiet realization of her own beauty, seen through his eyes, was so tender and pure. The final image of her smiling in the dark, like a bird in flight, is one I will carry with me.
This chapter deserves nothing less than a full five stars. The storytelling, the confessions, the raw human vulnerability—it was absolutely breathtaking.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ **Rating: 5 / 5 Stars**
## Next Chapter Prediction
Oh, my dear readers, where do we go from here? Natalia has been utterly transformed by this revelation, and now the question burns: what will she do with this knowledge? Victor's marriage may be a mutually beneficial arrangement, but that does not make it any less binding. Will Natalia allow herself to fall deeper into this impossible love, knowing that Victor belongs to another woman on paper? Or will the weight of her own family obligations—her brother, her survival—pull her away from him? I predict that the next chapter will bring a confrontation of some kind, perhaps with Katia herself, or perhaps with the dangerous political world that Victor inhabits. And given that Ivan Vasilovich is the monster of this story, I have a sinking feeling that his shadow has not yet finished falling over their lives. Stay tuned, dear listeners, because secrets like this never stay buried for long.
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