I stare at her, uncomprehending, for what feels like an eternity. I realize I’m not breathing. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“You and I both know what it means—you are a father. And your children are now in the hands of the Snake.”
Chapter Twelve
Annika
Iwake to Maxim’s hand on mine, his grip tight. I blink. By the pale dawn light at the window, I guess I’ve only been asleep a few hours. It feels like it’s been years. The abused parts of my body are tight and leaden, my face, my knees, my throat from Gregor’s angry fist. I let Maxim pull me to my feet from where I’ve been sleeping on the bench and hand me my coat.
“Where are we—”
He puts a finger to his lips and raps twice on the glass of compartment door. Gregor and Yvan answer. The train is stopped, the windows too fogged to reveal anything of the landscape but the presumable pale of the snow. I know we’re days from Siberia, so why are we stopping?
I know better than to ask. After our conversation last night, Maxim has been colder and more distant than ever—and how can I blame him? What woman, captured and held against her will, unable to free or protect her children from her own family,wouldn’tlie? If I were him, I wouldn’t trust or believe me either.
As we disembark into the frigid Northern Russia air, all I can do is hope he believes me. After all—it’s true.
Their father is my captor.I touch my belly as we step onto the ice-slicked platform. Snow as far as the eye can see, but a few black roads streaking out from the lot. Maxim has his hand on my elbow. He looks beautiful, black hair and coat against the endless white landscape. He looks…dangerous.
A car is waiting for us in the lot. It’s not exactly a gleaming black Escalade, but I’m assuming it was delivered on very short notice. Maxim offers his hand and I take it. When I sit, he doesn’t let go. His hard eyes search mine, and I wait, breath hitched in my ribs, for him to find what he’s looking for.
Without a word, he releases me, and closes the door.
* * *
“Not exactly the Roza Dom,” says Gregor under his breath. He brushes past me on the threshold of the dismal, derelict little house. “Sorry, princess.”
I narrow my eyes at the back of his head. My first instinct is to sweep his legs out from under him. Or, just to prove that I can, snatch the pistol from his waistband, cock it, and shove it between his shoulders until he begs for mercy.
But Maxim is never going to trust me if I treat his men like shit. They’re icy with me, but in reality, I’ve gotten better treatment from Maxim and his men than I could have expected. If I want Max to even consider that I’m not lying, I need to win them over.
“I’ve seen worse,” I say, truthfully. Yvan is at my back. He gives me a gentle push. “Roza Dom was the nicest place I’ve ever lived.”
“I find that hard to believe,” growls Yvan. He points to a sagging sofa across the room, and I obediently sit. Early sunlight streams into the room through broken shutters and ragged drapes. In the corner above a dismal kitchenette, the roof is broken. Snow piles on the countertop, and a punishing wind whistles straight into the living room. “This looks like my childhood home.”
I give him a quizzical look. I’d thought him a city boy, like Maxim and Sacha. “You’re from the north?”
He nods, eyes narrowed as he takes in the hovel: peeling wallpaper, black mold seeping up the corners of the walls. “Town just like this one. So small it might as well be off the maps. Girl like you wouldn’t understand that. You grew up with whatever you wanted or needed at your fingertips.”
I touch my swollen eyebrow. I realize I have no interest in playing games with these men—that’s why Maxim distrusts me in the first place. If I’d been truthful with him, if I’d been vulnerable and real, would he have believed me when I told him my children, my little girls, are his?
It’s exhausting, this act.It’s my life.“Yes,” I finally say, unable to keep the tiredness from my voice. I sink into the moldering couch. “I had everything I could want.”
Maxim enters, closing the rattling door behind him. He’s on his phone. “Sacha and the others will be here before nightfall.”
I look between them. “For what?”
Maxim silences me with a look.
“There’s a heater and a generator in the back room,” he says to Yvan, who obediently rises and leaves the living room. To Gregor: “Keep an eye on the road. We need to make sure we haven’t been followed.”
He nods and steps outside, closing the door behind him.
“I thought we were going to investigate my father’s compound,” I say softly, searching Maxim’s face. “But we’re not. Are we?”
“No.”
“You want revenge,” I say. “I understand that. I respect that. But you and a few men have no hope in the fucking world of getting it this way. You need to exercise patience. He has an army, men everywhere, more guns and money—”
