She said she loves me. Annika Desyatova loves me.
Does she have any idea how dangerous this has become? When it was sex, when we were strangers, none of this really mattered. Even when I found out her children are mine, our feelings for each other didn’t matter. All that matters is getting them, making sure they’re safe.
But now?
Everything is more complicated. In the morning she will leave me and go to her father—whether she chooses my side or his, I still can’t know. Whether it will be the last time I see her, I can’t know. Everything is outside of my control.Sheis outside of my control.
I love you.
Those words were a knife between my ribs, the plunge of steel, the twist. Because I want to believe her. I want to believe her more than I’ve wanted anything in a long time. I want to trust her fully; I want to give her my loyalty, my hand, my love, my protection, my name.
But how can I?
Despite everything that has happened between us, and everything I know about Annika, in the end, she is still the Daughter of the Snake. In the end, whether she or I wants it to be so, she is my enemy.
* * *
Dawn comes too fast. Annika is bathed, dressed, fed, and waiting for me by the door. The plan is to fake her escape.
“We have to make it believable,” she says. My men are posted outside the house, a few inside. Sacha is at my side. He says nothing. “He’s not going to believe I got away without a fight.”
My stomach drops. But I know she’s right.
“I’ll do it.” Sacha takes a step forward, and to my surprise, Annika doesn’t step back. I wonder suddenly what they talked about last night. “Yes,malen’kaya zmeya?”
Annika nods, then sheds the fleece jacket the owner of the house gave her this morning. Without it she looks amazingly small, and I wonder, not for the first time, if she truly can handle all of this. Then she holds up her hands and gives Sacha a smile.
“Tak, kozyol?”
Sacha swings. His fist cracks against Annika’s jaw and she staggers back, touching her mouth with ginger fingers. Blood instantly beads from her lower lip, a split clean down the middle. My gut clenches, but she gestures for Sacha to continue.
“Again,” she says.
This time he backhands her. A few of the men, seated on the sofas or leaning against the walls, watch with inscrutable expressions. But I know them. They don’t like Annika. They certainly don’t trust her. But now they see just how strong she truly is.
Annika straightens, cheekbone red and already rising in a welt. A ring on Sacha’s finger cut her, and a thin trickle of blood runs down to her jaw. She nods.
I bite back theno, enoughthat rises to my tongue. I can’t afford to look any weaker than I already do—and I don’t want Annika to think I don’t believe she can handle this. I know she can. It’s me I’m worried about.
Sacha hooks her hard in the ribs, once, twice, and she buckles, sagging back against the front door. Her breath comes in a ragged gasp, and she wraps her arms around her abdomen, recovering slowly. I realize I’m not breathing, that my hands are closed into fists and my shoulders are tight.
Easy, I command myself, relaxing.She is not a child. And she is not yours to protect.
“One more,” she orders Sacha, her voice ragged with pain. “In the face.”
Sacha obliges. He pops her hard in the nose. She blinks hard, touching the bridge of her nose as blood, after a beat, begins pouring from both nostrils.
“Kvass,” she croaks. The woman of the house, who I didn’t realize was watching the exchange from the kitchen, rushes out with a bottle. Annika drinks, her eyes bright with tears she manages to keep from falling. When she’s done, she returns the bottle. The woman attempts to wipe the blood from her face with a rag from her apron, but Annika stalls her, smiling. “Net, ostav’eto.”No, leave it.
She has one arm wrapped around her ribs. With her sleeve, she wipes blood from her face. It’s ineffective, streaking her cheek and mouth. With her wild black curls and fearsome black eyes, she looks primal, wild. Astoundingly beautiful.
“Well,” she says. “I suppose it is time.”
Sacha cracks his knuckles and steps back, looking to me. I feel the eyes of all of my men on my face, gauging my emotion, my trust in Annika’s loyalty. I won’t endanger her by faltering or showing weakness. I pull a glock from my waistband and give it to her. Then she grabs her jacket, and we walk outside.
There will be no sun today. Although dawn is long gone and the snowy wilderness is visible, a sleety blanket of cloud hangs low and ominous. Wet snow is already falling; in the distance, the hazy sea is fringed with ice and white powder. There is no indication of the city beyond but a faint orange glow of streetlights against the opaque snowfall.
“You know where you’re going?” I ask Annika.
