“I don’t like this, Maxim.”
I look at my friend, study his fearsome face. “What would have me do, Sacha? Let Viktor disappear again? Let him live on unscathed, after what he did to my brother?Ourbrother?”
Sacha’s jaw clenches. He shakes his head once.
“Annika will pull through,” I tell him. “Give her time.”
“We will see,” Sacha says. He stalks off into the snow, a shadow evaporating into dismal, endless white.
Annika, I think desperately.Hurry. Please.For both our sakes.
We are running out of time.
* * *
Afternoon in this corner of the world is terribly cold and steeped in darkness. By the time our caravan reaches the compound, it’s nearly dark. A ring of floodlights glows atop the hill, a thick haze of snow between us.
I grip the assault rifle in the center console as if it can lend me courage. It doesn’t. Instead, I simply feel the gravity of its power—this machine is meant to kill. And that is what we’re about to do.
Sacha grips the steering wheel hard. He doesn’t look at me, but at the road, his face hard. “It is time.”
I don’t have the luxury of hesitating. It’s clear Annika’s mission has failed. I nod once, and we lead the short line of vehicles up the winding, snow-blanketed road to Viktor Desyatov’s compound.
“Something’s not right,” Sacha mutters.
I squint through the windshield, bringing the rifle to my chest—but it quickly becomes clear there’s no need. The black metal gate blocking public access is open.
I don’t need to look at Sacha to know alarms bells are going off in his head, just as they are in mine. There should be men posted here, ready to mow us down. Even if Viktor didn’t know we were coming—and by now, surely, he does—there would be armed guards here to turn away intruders.
Instead, the road is vacant, nothing but black asphalt and snow swirling in gray eddies. My gut clenches.
“It’s a trap,” I say, because it has to be, and Sacha looks at me sideways.
“We should turn back,” he says, making no move to do so. “We are probably going to die.”
“You’re right.”
A dark smile curls his lips. He turns those cold eyes forward. “But we are not turning back, Maxim. Are we?”
“No.”
“Well. If we are going to die, best to do it fighting, hm?”
I return his smile, the grimness of our situation setting in deep in my bones. Annika has no doubt been captured—we all knew this was a risk.Therisk. If she’s still alive, there’s a chance we can save her. And our children. There’s a chance we can’t save anyone, and we are, in fact, stepping into the arms of death.
For Alexei.
I roll down the window, feel the cold on my face for what very well could be the last time. Then I signal the rest of the gang, and aim my rifle out the window.
“Let’s go,” I say to Sacha.
He nods once, firmly, and puts his boot to the pedal. Just like that, we enter Viktor Desyatov’s compound.
Just like that, we enter the pit of vipers.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Annika
