‘Whywerehis days numbered?’
‘You’re asking the wrong man.I truly never knew him and now I never will, but I believe he was trying to protect the boys.I know he trusted you greatly because he placed Vasily here.’
‘Here,with Penhalyx?’
‘Withyou, Lachlan,’ Danya says.‘He told me you were a good man.I’ve never heard him say that about anyone.’
‘What about the boys’ mother?’
‘She died giving birth to Vasily,’ Blaire mutters darkly, ‘as seems to be tradition in the upper echelons.Vasily has no one now.Penhalyx will claim him, I expect, given that Vasily is the heir to all.’
‘Including the Moroz Front?’
‘What?’Jules looks between them.‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
Lachlan holds Danya’s gaze.‘Including the Moroz Front, right?’
Blaire asks, ‘Are you saying they attacked you on Mikhail’s orders?’
‘It wasn’t the Front who attacked us,’ Lachlan states plainly.‘The Front, whatever else, are professionals.This was a PMC, and a sloppy one at that.’
Jules asks, ‘What’s a PMC?’
‘Private military company.Guns for hire.’
‘Carrigan told us it was the Moroz Front,’ Blaire says.
‘It wasn’t.’Lachlan hasn’t looked away from Danya once.‘Did you know Mikhail ran the Front?’
‘I know nothing of that.Mikhail was little more than an employer to me.Who commands the Front has always been unknown.If it was Mikhail, I was not informed.But,’ Danya allows, inclining his head, ‘the mission objectives to extract the children would make sense.’
Lachlan casts back.The most serious breach happenedbeforeDanya arrived.Lachlan and his teams steamrolled the next attack by the Front, no one even got close.If Danya was helping them from the inside, that’s not how it would have gone down.
‘Swear to me.’
‘I swear it, Lachlan.’
He has to trust it for now.
‘Mikhail Sorrenko was running the Moroz Front,’ Jules utters quietly, line between his eyes.‘My father never knew?’
‘He must have suspected towards the end, but I don’t know why Mikhail was going up against Penhalyx in the first place.’Lachlan thinks back to the night of the attack.Sorrenko had saidso much,but it’s all jumbled now.Broken pieces, some lost, and Lachlan can’t put it all together.‘If he wanted to kidnap Savannah, then… God, I don’t know.’He rubs between his eyes, headache not budging.‘I don’t know why he did what he did.If he wanted to fuck with Alistair, why shoot Savannah and not Jules?’He looks at Blaire.‘How’s she doing, by the way?Is she…?’
Blaire puts her hand atop his, gives a gentle squeeze.‘The surgeons told me she’s expected to recover well.No signs of lasting damage.’
Lachlan stares.
On one hand, the relief is a welcome reprieve from the overwhelming maelstrom of bad things inside him, but he can’t help the small degree of scepticism her news elicits.‘She was shot in the heart.’
‘The Estate has the best medical teams in the world.’
‘I don’t even know what they were doing to her.’
‘Doing?’
Right.Everyone who knew about theblue roomis dead.
Lachlan wants to explain but doesn’t know where to begin.
