Yes.
My mind answers without hesitation. As kind and sweet and brilliant as she is, Zane, above all else, is brave.
Loyal.
Loving.
“Say something,” I order my father, gripping my knees to keep my hands from shaking. My arm roars in distant pain, and I’m almost grateful for the way it sobers me. “You knew how incendiary this whole fucking situation was. And you still lit this match.”
“I lit no match,” he growls, his voice startling after so much silence. “Herfather lit the damn match.”
“Did you send men?” I demand. “Was it you at the storage yard earlier? Did you corner us?”
My father’s eyes slide to me, quick and bright as a pulled knife. The surprise, even in his well-composed face, is clear. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
I grimace. “We were hit. Hard.”
“Clearly. My men showed up. They heard the gunfight and got in too late. But why the fuck would they be firing on you?”
I look out the window. I can’t out Maya to him. I don’t know yet if I trust her, if her motivations have been altruistic or deceptive. But something tells me I can’t trust my father either. “What does he have on you?”
“Who?”
“Lebedev. Zane’s father. Why was his betrayal so unconscionable?”
“I told you. Loyalty is—”
“I know. Loyalty is everything. But why the cloak and dagger? Why not just kill him? You can’t have spared both him and Zane just to lure Lebedev out and increase your chances of killing him. Lebedev has something you want. What?”
My father grips the steering wheel tightly. “Lebedev had a monopoly on Russian resources. A monopoly we needed to break into.”
Had. Needed.“Past tense.”
My father’s jaw tightened. “Zane’s father gave us what we needed to exonerate himself. We’ve made our contact. We’ve gotten our hands into the dealings Lebedev has excluded us from for decades. With her father’s intel, we were able to restore our name as the most feared on US soil.”
It makes sense. Lebedev could have been feeding any kind of vile information to his benefactors in Russia, preventing my father and uncle from accessing guns, drugs, trafficking routes, safe houses, off-shore accounts. Everything.
Buying back in using his lies against him—it’s intelligent. And maneuvering Zane this way worked; leveraging her father’s freedom has sent her to kill or lure Lebedev out of hiding.
Either way, we’re closer to killing the bastard and removing him from the resource equation than ever. But it doesn’t explain one thing.
“So why keep her father alive?”
We glide into the storage lot. I think, before my father even speaks, that I know the answer. Maybe I’ve known it since Zane and I left for the lake house. Maybe it’s what’s been keeping me up at night. Maybe it’s what’s kept me from doubting and damning Maya altogether.
After a betrayal like his—why keep him alive?
My father turns off the car and leans back in his seat, releasing a long, soft breath. Then he looks at me. “We didn’t.”
18
Zane
“You fuckingidiot.”
I blink awake, my head spinning. Stepping into that hall where armed guards waited, I should have expected to get my ass kicked into submission. I’m not sure why I thought I’d be brought before Lebedev himself. Did I think we’d share some kind of civil conversation?
“What the hell were youthinking?”
