“Annika,” I say sharply. “I thought we had a deal.”
“I thought we did too,” she murmurs.
I toss the bloody rag back into the bowl of water, too hard. Annika looks at me sharply. “How did you contact your father?” I ask. “The computers?”
She stares at me for a long, long moment. I feel frozen in her gaze, unable to move, unable to speak. Then she turns a slight, sharp smile toward the window. “If you thought I could contact him through the computers, you wouldn’t have let me use them. Don’t act like you’ve ever trusted me, Maxim. We are both better than that.”
She’s right. I don’t trust her. And I did take every precaution I was advised to in equipping the computers. If she knows I had them secured, she tested the boundaries. Out of curiosity, or intent? I was in the room every time she touched them, yet she succeeded in finding the blocks.She’s dangerous.
As Annika gazes at me, her face changes. The cold, icy queen begins to falter. That poisonous smile stays in place, but to my absolute shock, a tear streaks down her pale face.
A trick.A game.
“When I heard through the grapevine you were coming for me, I sent my children to the only place I knew they would be safe.”
My heart beats hard. Why is she telling me this? What the hell is going on?
“I sent them to my mother.”
My stomach bottoms out. “Your mother is—”
“Dead?” Her eyes glitter. “Yes. To your world and my father’s, she is dead. But not to me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“She’s in the witness protection program in the United States.”
“She’s involved with the feds, and you sent her your children?” The realization is a spike of ice in my ribs. Has Annika, unwittingly or otherwise, led American investigators to me? “What the fuck were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that a Bratva bastard just like my father was coming after me, and I needed to protect my fucking children.” Her eyes narrow to slits. “I didn’t plan an escape. My father and his men found me on this train. That was a rescue operation.”
Dread spills down my spine. I lean back, running a hand over my face. “They know where we are.”
“Yes. Or, at least, where we’re going.” Annika wipes the tears angrily from her face. “Maxim.”
I look at her, bewildered to find her expression open and vulnerable, her voice earnest.
“I didn’t escape when I could have,” she whispers.
Don’t listen to her. She’s dangerous.“You didn’t escape because Gregor shot your driver before you could.”
“Bullshit,” she spits. “I stalled for time.”
I hesitate. I don’t know whether or not she’s lying. If she is—she’s good at it. But I already knew that, didn’t I? “Why should I trust you?”
“Because I’m still here.”
“What are you getting at?”
Annika looks at me, unblinking. “They have my children.”
Oh. Shit.“Annika…”
“You swore they would be unharmed.”
“I sworeIwould not harm them. If your father has them, there is nothing you or I can do to take them back.” A pang goes through me at that: What if someone said the same thing to me about Alexei? That he was a lost cause, that I had to turn my back on him? “I’m sorry, Annika. There is nothing we can do.”
“Nothing we can do,” she repeats coldly. “Nothing we can do formychildren, Maxim. What about for yours?”
