I didn’t say it out loud, but I felt it too.
We all did.
“So here’s the plan,” I continued. “Andrei investigates the drones. I go speak to ARCHEON. Directly. I want to know if they’re really the ones that attacked you and Katya, or if that was just Revenant trying to shift the blame off themselves.”
“And me?” Viktor asked, already knowing the answer.
“You handle the Markov situation,” I said. “With Katya.”
Viktor grinned like he’d won a prize, which considering things, maybe he did. “Gladly.”
“She may not appreciate being volunteered,” Andrei said dryly.
“She will,” Viktor replied with confidence.
I stood. “One way or another, this is going to end.”
CHAPTER 23
Dubai, present day
Katya
ARCHEON’s idea of a ‘safehouse’ looked a hell of a lot like a luxury penthouse, which was almost funny considering we’d been hauled here under armed escort not fifteen minutes ago.
Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the glittering sprawl of Dubai at night, the city lights reflecting off the glass like a second sky. Heavy blackout shades were rolled halfway down, enough to give us a view, but not enough to let anyone see in from above. The furniture was low and modern, all cream leather, the air cool and filtered, the silence just a little too quiet.
There were no obvious guards inside the suite, but I could feel them all around us. In the hallway. In the stairwell. On the roof. They were everywhere.
We were all here.
That was the strangest part.
The Markovs occupied one side of the living area, still radiating the kind of pissed-off energy you only get from being forced to cooperate. Their limo had made it farther than ours, but not by much. ARCHEON had boxed them in on the outskirts of the city, surrounded them with guns, and ‘invited’ them into an armored convoy the rest of the way here. Roman was slouched on the arm of a sofa like he was trying not to punch a wall, Lev sat in a chair angled near the window clocking all the exits, and Dmitri stood with his arms crossed, shoulder against the wall like he was two seconds from walking out if this went sideways. Kara sat between Roman and Lev, with her knee bouncing, fingers curling and uncurling around a glass of water she hadn’t touched.
On the other side, the Dragunov brothers had made their own little gravitational cluster. Mikhail stood near the center of the room, anchored like a dark pillar. Andrei leaned on the back of a chair with his arms folded, and Viktor was sprawled sideways on the couch beside where I sat, one arm draped over the backrest behind me like it lived there.
And at the head of it all, claiming the space as hers, stood ARCHEON’s director. She was wearing an immaculate navy suit with her hair in a neat, sophisticated twist. She gazed at us all, cataloguing every person in the room.
Her eyes flicked toward me for a beat when I looked at her. Not hostile. Not exactly friendly either. More like just aware.
“I suppose,” she said crisply, “we should begin with what you’ve all been waiting for.”
Viktor raised a lazy hand. “Is this the part where you tell us that you’re our friends?”
“Yes,” she said. “That part.”
Tension flooded the room. Even Roman straightened up.
The director regarded us for a moment, as if weighing which version of the truth to give. Then she looked directly at me.
“ARCHEON didn’t try to down your jet,” she said. “It was Revenant.”
My eyes flicked to Andrei, remembering the blood on his forehead, the way his hands shook when he finally got the jet under control. He kept his face neutral, but his jaw clenched hard.
“Why?” Andrei asked. His voice was calm, but there was murder in it.
“Because you became a liability,” the director replied, her eyes sliding to land on me.
