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Alessia had already stepped out from behind the column, and I crossed over to her. My arms encircled her body, one hand spanning her back and the other cradling her head, pulling her close. Her arms wrapped around my neck, and I held my wife against me.

“I knew you’d reach me in time,” she whispered.

I pressed my mouth to her hair and just breathed.

Behind us, Ivan directed men toward the glass room containing the Veles computer. Aleksei ordered Sokolov moved under separate guard. Nikolai stood over Levon’s nominee and explained, with alarming cheerfulness, the disadvantages of attempting to rise before being told to do so. Maxim spoke to Matteo through the secured channel, confirming the docks and property were under joint control.

Alessia leaned back enough to look at me.

“Is it over?” she asked.

I glanced once toward Dmitry’s body and then flicked my gaze to hers.

“Yes.”

I led her out of the loading room after that.

A narrow washroom sat behind one of the abandoned customs offices, its cracked mirror clouded around the edges and a deep utility sink bolted directly to the concrete wall. The water ran brown for several seconds before clearing. Alessia stood beneath the harsh overhead light with her sweater torn at one shoulder, bruises darkening around her wrist, and blood drying on her mouth and chin.

She held both hands beneath the stream. Red loosened from the lines of her palms and curled toward the drain. Some of it belonged to her. Fortunately, most of it belonged to Levon. She scrubbed the heel of her right hand once, then again. I stayed one step behind her, close enough to catch her if her knees stopped holding her but far enough that she did not have to carry my concern too. Every protective instinct inside me demanded that I inspect every bruise, clean the blood away myself, and decide when she had done enough.

I did none of those things.

“Aren’t you going to tell me I had no choice?” she asked.

“No.”

Her hands stilled beneath the water.

“You had a choice between allowing him to kill you and stopping him,” I continued. “You chose to live. I will certainly never ask you to apologize for that, but I will not tell you how you are supposed to feel about it either.”

“I don’t know what I feel yet,” she admitted.

“That’s okay, my sweet girl.”

She shut off the water herself. For several seconds, she stared down at her wet hands before turning and holding them toward me. I took the rough paper towels from the dispenser and dried her fingers one at a time, careful around the swelling in her wrist.

When I finished, I pressed my mouth against her knuckles.

Alessia stepped into me and rested her forehead against my chest. I wrapped my arms around her, holding her tight against me because I needed to hold her as much as she needed to be held.

“Take me home,” she whispered.

I would obey my little pet happily.

CHAPTER 34

Alessia

A few days later…

The family gathered in Maxim’s secure library shortly after noon.

The room looked exactly like every other place the Morozovs conducted business—dark wood, comfortable chairs, reinforced doors, and a table rapidly disappearing beneath coffee, weapons, computers, and whatever food Riley believed everyone had failed to eat. The brothers occupied their usual positions. Their wives sat beside them. Matteo joined us in person, while Raffaele and Giulia waited on a secure screen from Sicily.

Kit stood in front of the main screen, looked around the room, and closed the diagram Ivan had prepared before he could display it.

He stared at her. “That was the simplified version.”