Page 72 of Merciless Daddy

“His hand is going to his radio,” Kiryl whispered.

Then sound exploded through my earpiece.

A body struck a wall. The radio clattered. Tonio grunted. Someone yelped in Russian. Shoes scraped hard over stone.

“Tonio?” I stood so quickly my chair fell backward. “Tonio.”

The struggle filled my ear.

A fist landing. A sharp exhale. Then static screamed once. The connection died.

“Tonio!”

Nothing.

“Angela, restore it.”

“I’m trying.”

“Tonio, answer me.”

Silence.

I pulled the earpiece out and shoved it back as if that could repair anything.

“Pietro?” Sal demanded.

“I’m moving,” Pietro said through the table speaker. Engine noise rose behind him. “Two minutes from the service road.”

“That’s too long.” My hands had begun to shake. “The guard will call the station. They’ll lock the gates. Kiryl is in the corridor. He can’t fight. He doesn’t know how.”

Sal stepped in front of me, close enough to block the floor plan but not close enough to touch.

“Yelena.”

“I sent him into that corridor.”

“You gave him the safest route.”

“It wasn’t safe. No route in that house is safe.”

“No.”

The answer tore through me.

My breath shortened. The room narrowed to Sal’s dark shirt and the pale closures on his cheek.

“Do you want my hand?” he asked.

I stared at him.

His right hand hung open beside his thigh. Palm visible. Waiting.

Not taking.

I grabbed it.

Hard.