34
ANNA
They don’t hurt me.
That’s the first thing I notice, and the noticing of it is its own kind of terror because it means they need me intact. Damaged leverage is worth less than whole leverage, and Renat knows exactly what I’m worth to him, which means he also knows exactly how long he can keep me before Luca stops negotiating and starts destroying things.
My hands are bound in front of me with a zip tie that bites into my wrists when I move. I’ve stopped moving. I sit on a wooden chair in the middle of a room that smells like engine oil and river damp, and I keep my back straight and my chin up because the moment I let them see me fold is the moment they know they have everything they need.
Renat sits across from me with his elbows on his knees like we’re having a conversation between equals. “You came to us,” he says. “That was very helpful.”
“I came to negotiate.”
“You came because you thought your husband’s name was a shield.” He tilts his head. “It is. Just not in the way you thought. His name is exactly why you’re sitting in that chair.”
I say nothing.
“We’ve been watching your family for three weeks. Waiting for an opening.” He leans back. “You gave us one yourself. Saved us a great deal of effort.”
“What do you want?”
“Luca Volkov at a location of our choosing. That’s all.”
“He won’t come.”
The smile again. Patient. Certain. “He’ll come for you. Men like him always come for the thing they can’t replace.” He stands. “The question is whether you’re still in one piece when he arrives.”
I hold his gaze. “If you touch me, he won’t negotiate. He’ll just kill everyone in this building.”
“Probably.” He says it agreeably, like we’re discussing the weather. “That’s why I’m not going to touch you. Not yet.”
He walks out. The door closes.
I exhale slowly through my nose, look at the ceiling, and let myself have exactly ten seconds of falling apart on the inside. Ten seconds of my heart slamming against my ribs and my hands shaking against the zip tie and the full weight of what I’ve done pressing down on my chest.
Ten seconds.
Then I pull it back together and start looking at the room.
One door. No windows. Two men stationed inside, both armed, neither interested in making eye contact. Crates along the far wall. Concrete floor. A single light fixture overhead throws a yellow light across everything.
I think about Mila at my mother’s kitchen table, arranging marigolds in a jam jar.
I think about Alexei telling me I look like Papa when he goes to work.
I think about my mother watching the street from the front window, and my father refilling his glass, and the two men Luca had stationed on the street outside, whom I’d noticed on the second day and said nothing about because they were protecting my children, and I was too proud to thank him for it.
Two men.
Renat said they’d been watching for three weeks. He said I saved them effort. He said they were waiting for an opening.
I gave them one.
I walked out of that house and drove across the city and knocked on their door myself, and whatever Luca’s men tried to do when the Malikovs moved on the house, two men against however many Renat has is not a fight that ends well.
The thought arrives before I can stop it.
The twins.
