Dmitri scrapes his chair back and drops into the seat across from me, passing me a small piece of paper filled with numbers he jotted while the man talked, dates, the outline of a shape we both recognize.
“You think he’s lying?” Dmitri asks.
“Not tonight. Tonight he wants a clean getaway.”
Dmitri grunts. “Trina lit the fuse, not the old man.”
“Trina handed him the match and the powder,” I say. “He supplied the blind rage. Trina couldn’t have done it without him.”
Dmitri studies my face. “We move.”
“We move,” I agree, standing. The heated anger from earlier is gone; what’s left is colder and more useful. “Gather the men. I want an army. Our target is the Volkov mansion.”
We head for the lobby. Out on the curb, the doorman raises a hand to signal the valet to bring our car around. It quickly arrives.
Dmitri at the wheel, we pull into the river of cars, headlights ghosting through snow. Somewhere across the city, the woman I love is being fitted into someone else’s plan. Somewhere else, a girl I once watched grow up is planning to make a king bleed so she can sit in his chair.
Aleksander thinks he’s in control. He has no idea.
I take out my phone, typing one word to the team leaders, the only word that matters now.
War.
CHAPTER 38
TERESA
Present moment…
“It’s time to end this.”
Aleksander shifts his weight, the pistol glinting in his hand. As he raises it toward me, my lungs feel as if they’ve locked shut. But then he lowers the weapon, as if a thought suddenly occurred to him.
“Let’s have a final toast to Maxim,” he declares. “Before the woman who destroyed him joins him in the ground.”
My knees want to fold, but I force myself to stand upright. Every second he stalls, every word he wastes is another chance. Another moment closer to Vlad finding me.
Aleksander turns toward the bar. He uncorks a decanter with practiced ease, pouring amber liquid into three crystal tumblers. His eyes flick toward me, narrowing, his mouth curling into a wicked grin.
“You’re going to be dead soon anyway, so a little drink won’t hurt.”
He sets one in front of Jack, then me. His hand trembles slightly as he lifts his own glass.
“Finally,” Aleksander says, his voice swelling with dark pride. “My plans pay off. Finally, there will be justice. Maxim will be avenged. My blood honored.” He raises his glass, amber liquid trembling in the light. “To the future.”
The words are still hanging in the air when Jack moves. He rolls his eyes as if bored out of his skull and lifts his pistol. The crack is sharp, ugly. Aleksander’s body jerks, his gray vest blooming red as the glass tumbles from his hand and shatters across the floor.
For a frozen heartbeat it doesn’t seem real. Aleksander blinks down at the stain and sways. He sits hard on the edge of the desk, sucking sharp breaths in and out. Shocked.
“Jack,” I choke. “What?—”
The gun hangs lazily in his hand. “The old man wouldn’t shut up. And we need to get this goddamn show on the road!”
A new voice drifts across the room, cold as winter. “Honestly,” Trina says, “I couldn’t take one more of his rants about Maxim and justice.”
She steps out from a side door I hadn’t noticed, dark hair pulled back tight and sleek, face composed. Without hurry, she crosses to the bar, plucks up the decanter, and pours herself a drink. She swirls the amber liquid once, then lifts it to her lips like she’s been waiting her whole life for this moment.
“You—” The word tears from my throat, betrayal searing through every nerve. “Trina?”
