I slide it back into my pocket. “Go eat and throw the roses away,” I tell Alina. “And if you have to overthink things, think in short sentences so I can’t hear you.”
She snorts, a quiet, unwilling sound that makes my day better than it has any right to be. “Yes, sir,” she replies, mocking and obedient at once.
I close my eyes and listen to her move through the apartment.
When sleep comes, it’s not a thing I deserve. It comes anyway and takes me one muscle at a time, without asking.
I wake to the sound of my name in a voice I let inside me. Except Alina isn’t lying beside me in bed or in the chair. She thinks by not being in the room, I would be able to sleep better. She’s wrong.
When I check my phone, I find that my men have already sent me pictures of pillars in a parking structure and the grainy images of Archer putting down a bag he pretends isn’t a confession.
The count isn’t two million. Of course it isn’t. It’s a number that would insult me if I had any illusions left about Archer’s loyalty to his sister.
I stand, stretch, feel the pull of stitches angry at their job as I leave the room. Alina’s door is shut, so I knock because I said I would. “I’m going downstairs,” I say when she opens the doorthat wasn’t locked. I like and hate that detail more than I should. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Okay,” she says, her mouth in a tight line. “Don’t… don’t do anything you can’t tell me about.”
“I won’t.”
She nods, swallows. And because I’m greedy, I bend, putting my mouth close enough to her ear that I could tell her a lie, and give her a small truth. “I’ll come back,” I say. “I’ll bring news to make your day better.”
“Promise?” she asks.
“Yes,” I agree, and then I walk past the two fresh guards and let the elevator take me downstairs. The garage smells the same and different. Renat and Petrov stand by a pillar with a bag that’s a smaller apology than the two it was supposed to be. Petrov puts the bag into my hand.
“Not quite half,” he says. “And a note that thinks it’s clever. He wants mercy on credit.”
“Unfortunate,” I say.
I think of Alina’s palm on my chest, the way she said yes to all the worst parts of me and asked for the next sentence anyway. I think of Archer’s face when I tell him what the rest of the day costs. I think of my brother’s voice when he decides whether to let me buy another hour of his patience. I think of the week I promised myself with her when the hole in my side is just a scar.
“Let’s get to work,” I tell the men who’ve made it this far with me. “I owe a girl a better day.”
24
Alina
The penthouse feels lesslike a home and more like an expensive trap the longer I pace around it without Dominik.
I can’t see them, but occasionally I hear the two guards in the hallway keeping watch.
At this point, I’m pretty sure they know I matter to their boss. I’m not just a hostage or a flight risk anymore; I’m someone they’re supposed to keep breathing.
But I doubt they’ll protect me from his brother. I don’t think anyone but Dominik can, and I have no idea how much power he really has over Gavriil. I’m sure his men would stand by him in any other circumstance, though.
Dominik told me to eat when he left. I pushed eggs around a plate until the yolks went cold and then threw them in the trash.
Unable to stay still, I straighten the throw blanket on the sofa for the third time, folding the corner down precisely as if that’s important. I stand at the window and count the red cranes along the river.
When the elevator dings, I somehow know it’s not Dominik. I can feel the tension in the guard’s soft, terse words through the door before it unlocks and swings open with authority.
I know who it is before I see him fully.
If Dominik is violence in a suit, then his brother is like gravity that decided to dress to impress. He fills the doorway wearing a dark suit that looks like it costs more than I make in a year at the hotel, his handsome face a blank mask. The last time I saw him alone, Dominik was sleeping, recovering, and I was too worried about him to be afraid. But at least he was nearby. Now, he’s not home, not here for me to stand behind him the way I despised before, and fear fills me.
“Miss Kent,” Gavriil says, and the honorific is either courtesy or the first stab of a knife. When he goes to close the door, the guards shift forward as if on instinct. He doesn’t look at them, but I can feel the order anyway as he shuts the door in their faces—stand down, stay out there, you work for me, not my brother.
Gavriil walks past me, close enough that the sleeve of his suit grazes my arm. It isn’t a touch, not really, but my body reacts like it is. Heat shoots under my skin before I can stop it, and I hate my body for that.
