Fuck. As easy as that, I want her again.
I command myself to erase the act from my mind. I’ll pretend it didn’t even happen. It’s the only way.
The train is chugging to a stop. Outside, the darkness is dense and endless, wound like black cotton right up to the glass of the window. Snow blasts down from low clouds. In the light from the compartment, I can see great dunes of it, stretching into a bleak, cold infinity.
We stop with a deafening screech of wheels on track. I wait. We have hours to go until we reach our safehouse in Siberia. Moments pass, passengers presumably off-loading, attendants searching for and distributing their luggage.
Anxiety steepening, I check my watch. Annika has been gone a long time.
I rap twice on the door, and Gregor answers. “Sir,” he says.
“Where is she?” I don’t let the fear creep into my voice.
“Still at the restroom with Yvan.” But a crease appears between his thick brows. “I’ll go check on them.”
I nod, keeping my expression cold and closed. When the door slides shut behind him, I run a hand through my hair.We just fucked. She’s cleaning up, that’s all. Taking a minute to process. There’s nowhere she can go anyway.
But my eyes find that blustering field of snow beyond the glass, and dread spills into my gut.She wouldn’t. She’s not that foolish.
There are no lights out my window, but when I get up and cross to Gregor and Yvan’s compartment, I see the station outside. It’s a dismal, pitiful place: a snow-buried cement platform and a small, hooded building. Beside it, a tiny, rocky parking lot, and one tar-black road reaching out into the distance.
Did she know this was here?My pulse roars in my eardrums. I search the small throng of people gathering suitcases on the platform. She’s not among them…but could she be? Could she have run into the darkness, braced for death or disappearance, anything to escape me?
I swallow the lump in my throat, quickly pulling up the app that tracks her monitor. No internet.
“Fuck.Fuck.” My service bars rise and fall, the screen loading.Come on, come on, come on—
Finally, the map stops buffering. Her tracker shows up on the screen as a tiny, blinking red dot. I sink onto the bench, relief flooding through me. It’s just a few compartments down, presumably in the restrooms or on the way back.
Jesus Christ.I really thought she’d left. Now I’m wondering—is she capable of half the things I fear she’ll do? Is she more the Daughter of the Snake, or Annika Destry, the sweet, pliant, truthful girl I slept with all those years ago?
“Maxim.”
I look up, still seated in Gregor and Yvan’s compartment. Both men have returned, pale and drawn. A pit carves itself into my stomach and I rise slowly, heart raging. “What is it?”
Gregor grimaces, then holds up a band of wet black plastic.
Annika…no.
“Her ankle monitor,” Gregor says gruffly. “It was in the toilet.”
I look sharply to Yvan. “What the fuck happened?”
The men exchange a cold, black look. “The window in the restroom was open,” Yvan finally manages stiffly. “She must have jumped out.”
“What are you still doing here?” I seethe, sweat prickling at my hairline. “Fucking find her. Bring her back to me.Now.”
Chapter Ten
Annika
The man’s hand on my upper arm is way too tight, and without a coat, the snowy, driving wind is cutting me straight to the bone.
“Wait,” I order, as he practically drags me behind the station. I look back at the train, an endless trail of orange lights snaking into the darkness. “Where are we going?”
When the man stepped into the bathroom, I thought it might be Yvan or Gregor, ordering me to hurry up. When it wasn’t, dread opened in my gut like a drain. The man sliced the monitor from my ankle.
“Malen’kaya zmeya,”he’d said.Little snake.And then:“Your father sent me.”
