“You helped,” I say. “You got Archer to give me intel I didn’t have.”
“I lied to my brother,” she says.
“Your lie got him to call back which helped me.” I look at her mouth and then away. “It’s a shame his call came later than it should have for you, and that hurts me.” I’d burn down every mile between them if it meant I never heard disappointment in her voice again.
I prefer Alina being angry at me to her being let down by her own damn brother any day of the week. At least if I’ve done something to upset her, I can figure out a way to fix it. She’s too good, too sweet to endure any pain from her own blood.
Alina goes very still at my response that gave away more than I intended. “Why?” she asks me quietly. “Why does it hurt you?”
“Because I don’t like watching someone you love and trust making you suffer,” I say simply. I want to be the man who protects her, keeps her safe, even if that’s feeling like an impossible feat.
Her breath catches. “Now you know why I couldn’t let Gavriil wake you.”
I wouldn’t have thought Archer and Gavriil have a single thing in common, but maybe there’s another reason why I feel like I’ve reached my limit with my brother’s high-handed demands. My whole life he’s treated me with tough love to make me stronger, when all it’s done is made me resent him. Gavriil should be my brother, first and foremost, not thePakhangiving me orders like any other soldier and expecting blind obedience.
Especially when those orders directly affect Alina.
“My mom always dated men who would hurt her,” she says softly, eyes fixed on some point I can’t see. “Archer and I would beg her to leave because it hurt us to see them abuse her, but she stayed. Every time. She called it loyalty, but Archer called it a slow suicide.” She swallows hard. “The last man proved him right. And I promised myself I’d never mistake cruelty for strength or love again.”
“I’m sorry you grew up around men like that,” I tell her sincerely. “And I’m sorry no one showed your mom that she deserved better.”
A flicker of something twists in my chest, anger for the girl she was, and a darker promise for the woman sitting in front of me. No one will ever touch her like that.
The phone on the table buzzes again, interrupting our quiet, introspective moment.
Viktor.
As soon as I answer the call, he doesn’t waste a second. “Plate on the van is four nine three-LZP. It’s registered to a company that doesn’t exist other than a mailbox in Secaucus.”
“Keep the plate. I’ll send a picture to the part of the police department that owes us for their kid’s scholarship.”
“Copy. Also,” Viktor says, “Renat thinks he saw Popeye himself, just for a second, on the catwalk.”
“Then he must be getting nervous,” I say.
“He’s expecting us,” Viktor says.
“That fear will hopefully cause him to make a mistake.”
I end the call and rub the bridge of my nose with my fingers. Pain twinges but I breathe around it. Alina reaches as if to touch my hand but doesn’t.
“You should go lie down,” she says quietly.
“I should,” I say. “But then I wouldn’t be able to keep an eye out for Gavriil.”
A small dangerous light flickers in her eyes at the mention of him returning, one that I can’t decipher.
Is she scared of Gavriil, or does she want to see him again? I worry she may have liked standing up to him so much that she wants to try it again.
And the next time could be her last.
I stand up and the room tilts for a heartbeat at the thought. I slap a palm down on the table demanding that my body cooperate with me. My father used to say that pain is a reminder that you’re still failing. I hear him every single time I move.
Alina rises with me. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I lie. “I just can’t sit still another second.”
I cross to the window and look out over the city my brother’s been ruling over for a decade.
