He ignored that. “We’re almost done playing,” he said. “Almost.”
“That’s what my last date said.”
The commander stood there, hands clasped behind his back like he was about to lecture me for missing curfew instead of imprisoning me in a concrete box. His expression was calm, but his eyes hadn’t stopped calculating ever since he walked into the room.
“We both understand where this is going,” he said. “So let me save us time.”
“Please do,” I replied. “I’ve been quite thoroughly bored.”
“We have them, you know. All of them. The Markovs were… difficult. Miss Kara Lennox as well. But they’re all here and quite well contained.”
“You want me to cry?” I asked. “You’ll need better material.”
His jaw flexed once. “And then there’s Miss Katerina Volkov. A pity we didn’t get to keep her.”
I stilled. Only for a moment, but he saw it.
“Ah,” he observed. “Interesting reaction.”
“Not really,” I said. “I assumed she’d escape the moment she got bored.”
He pressed on. “Tell us where she’s going and what she has planned. Tell me, and maybe we’ll let the rest of them live long enough for negotiations.”
“You want me to help you hunt her down because you’re tired,” I said.
“I’m offering you a deal,” he corrected. “Information in exchange for mercy.”
“I don’t believe in your mercy.”
“You should believe in our alternatives.”
“I’ve seen them,” I replied. “They’re imaginative. I’ll give you that. But you’re forgetting something important.”
“And what is that?”
“I’m a Dragunov.” I leaned back on my hands. “And we Dragunovs don’t break just because you’ve got a schedule.”
His eyes narrowed. I grinned back at him.
“You will,” he said softly. “Everyone does.”
“You know what my older brother is capable of,” I pointed out. “Are you sure you want to bet on that?”
The silence that followed was not empty. It was full of the knowledge that my brother’s reputation preceded him. And that knowledge was causing cracks in his composure.
I liked that.
“Andrei is out there too,” I added. “You probably think the youngest Dragunov is the soft one. He’s not. None of us are, really.”
His jaw ticked once.
“And if you kill me,” I promised, “they will never stop coming for your head.”
He didn’t like that.
He stepped forward, guards tightening around him, watching every twitch of my hands.
“Let me be clear,” he explained in a condescending tone. “Your brothers may care about you, but when men care, they make mistakes.”
