Dawn comes fierce and black, a hazy tide of snow on the horizon. There will be no trains this time. We torch the Jeeps and the bodies, including Gregor’s, and load up, a slithering caravan plunging into the blizzard, into the mountains.
Annika rides with me. She sleeps a long while, her face amazingly peaceful. I resist the urge to reach out and stroke her cheek, her rose-petal lips. Traces of memory come back to me; not from the last few times we’ve been together, ferocious and hungry and punishing, but of that night three years ago.
Her, a crescent moon, pale and slender and beautiful in my arms. Cool fingertips tracing the ink on my skin, followed by her lips, her tongue.
“Don’t tell me who you are,”she’d said that night, eyes glittering, obsidian, secretive.“And I won’t tell you who I am.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I remember saying, pulling her back into my arms.“Tonight, we’re no one.”
If only that had been true.
The plan is simple. We’ve paid off a local in the small village near Viktor’s compound. He’ll house us, giving us a temporary base for our operation. From there, we’ll send Annika in. Then it’s up to her to find a way to get us in, get revenge, or convince her father to surrender.
Surrender.
This part of the plan is more than dubious. I know. Annika knows. My men know—the Snake will never surrender.
I watch her sleep in the passenger seat, doused in morning light, the brilliant reflection of snow growing brighter and brighter as the sun rises. I know this could be the end of us. Worse—this could be the end of my gang altogether. Half our forces are here, traveling to Viktor’s compound. The rest are back in Moscow, guarding my sleeping, dying brother.
Is this worth it? The revenge? The justice?
It has to be, doesn’t it? My children—if indeed they are mine—are in the jaws of the Snake. And even if they weren’t…Viktor has established an impossible precedent. He’s trafficking humans. He shot my brother in the back.
He has to pay for the things he’s done, or he’ll keep doing them. He’ll keep crushing the rest of us, the smaller, newer gangs, until he’s the only one left.A monopoly. He won’t stop until he is the indisputable and only face of Russian organized crime.
Ahead, the road leads into snowy-white nothingness. My heart is pounding.
If we succeed and remove Viktor Desyatov, who will rise to take his place? Another man, worse than the last?
Me?
Annika shifts in her sleep, curling against the door. Her breath fogs the cool glass, over and over and over.
Her?
My heart beats faster. She could do it—run a crime syndicate as well as, or even better than her father. She could devour us. But will she? She’s given me her loyalty. But can I trust her? Truly? In the end, can I possibly know which side Annika will choose?
There is only one way to find out.
Chapter Sixteen
Annika
By the time we reach the tiny coastal settlement, dark has fallen again. The cold waiting outside the cars is miserable, dry and punishing and more determined than any cold I’ve ever known. The small house is hunkered between gnarled, long-dead black trees. Objects are strewn around the drive, so buried in snow it’s impossible to guess what they are.
A small, toothless man ushers the men inside. He holds a swinging lantern and seems unperturbed by the wind howling off the frozen sea to the north. In the distance, mottled by sleet, I see the faint glow of the city.City. It can’t possibly be called that—a smattering of squat, large buildings, a few salted streets, a dozen freighters accumulating snow in the frozen bay.
My father is here?It seems utterly impossible. My father, who always had a cigar in his mouth and a glass of vodka in his hand. My father, who wore pearl cuff links and Italian suits and liked to be seated by a roaring hearth.
My father.I haven’t seen my father in three years.
I stare into the dark, realize my fists are clenched so tight my wrists are aching. Are my children here with him? My mother? Tomorrow, when I go to him feigning escape, will he believe me? Will he turn me away, his estranged, disloyal daughter, and watch me stumble back into the snow?
“Annika.” Maxim’s hand finds my shoulder, the weight and warmth of him enough to draw me back to the present. He jerks his head toward the house, and I let him lead me out of the dark.
The men are already making themselves at home in the little hovel. It’s deceptively large inside, squat with a rickety second floor and a fire roaring. Something is cooking on the stove, a stout woman attending it with a wooden spoon and talking to Sacha. She beams up at the massive, intimidating man, showing her own gap-toothed smile, her cheeks rosy. Sacha is leaning against the fridge and speaking to her in a low voice. It’s the first and only time I’ve seen him smile.
Despite its shabby appearance, the interior of the little house is cozy and pleasant. Blankets are draped over every surface, handmade and sentimental, with stitched sheep and ships and little fishermen on ice; a TV plays some staticky American game show, and the men, on the sofas and chairs and even the floor, watch with rapt attention as the woman begins handing out bowls of something that smells like home.
