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I watched from the rear of a delivery van parked half a block away. Maksim commanded the exterior teams from the SUV, and Roman occupied a surveillance vehicle with enough equipment to invade a small country.

The walk took fourteen steps. I counted each one while forcing myself not to open the van door. Anika’s coat shifted over the armor with every step, and the silver ring flashed when she pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. Five years ago, I’d watched the same woman cross a ballroom and believed the mask made the encounter safe from consequences.

Anika stopped on the mark Roman had chosen as a dealer in a black vest walked out from a door further down and lit a cigarette. Anika stood twenty feet from the north entrance and tucked her hands into her coat pockets.

“Thirty seconds.” I checked the tablet in my lap. “Everyone on alert.”

A black sedan rolled down the street and stopped. The rear window lowered, but the darkness inside concealed the passenger. The voice in my earpiece came through, flattened by electronic distortion. “You were told to come alone.”

Anika glanced toward the tinted window and shrugged in a motion so casual I almost believed she was unaffected by any kind of fear or panic. “I was also told my sister would be here. We’re both disappointed.”

“Walk to the car.” One long finger crooked, motioning Anika forward.

“Don’t you fucking dare.” I ground out each word, even though Anika was too smart for their machinations, I couldn’t risk it.

She snorted and shook her head, probably for my benefit as much as for the man ordering her around from the car’s depths. “Have Alina step out.” She stayed on the mark, shoulders squared. “If you know her, you know stubbornness runs in the family.”

The countdown struck zero, and Roman’s breath burst through the channel. “Transfer initiated. I’m tracing.”

The sedan’s brake lights flashed. Anika shifted her weight, ready to retreat exactly as we’d rehearsed.

The man in the dealer’s vest lunged for her arm. Fuck.

I almost ripped the door handle off in my haste to get out. Anika pivoted and drove the heel of her palm into his nose, exactly like Roman had taught her in the hours while we prepared. Blood burst over his mouth, his head snapping back. He caught her coat on the second attempt, but she dropped her weight and tore free as two of our plainclothes men closed from opposite sides.

I reached the street before Roman could remind me my position was supposed to remain concealed. Fuck that shit. He and Maksim were on my heels. I didn’t need to look or hear their cursing in my ear. The first guard folded the dealer over the sedan’s hood. The second opened Anika’s path toward me while the vehicle jumped the curb trying to pull away.

I fired into the rear tire without slowing my mad dash toward Anika. Rubber exploded, but the sedan kept moving, dragging sparks from the rim until an escort vehicle blocked the next intersection. Smoke flooded from beneath the chassis, hiding the doors long enough for two figures to vanish into the casino crowd.

Anika reached me breathing hard, blood on one sleeve. I checked her over, hands moving over the armor before she caught my wrist.

“I’m fine. He isn’t.” She pointed toward the dealer, who’d made the unfortunate mistake of fighting our men and gotten bashed in the head several times for his efforts. She whistled and shook her head. “Gentlemen, please. Don’t kill him until Roman asks questions.” Turning, she pointed at me. “You either.”

“You know me so well.” It would be easy to snap the man’s neck. Too easy a death for the man who’d dared put his hands on Anika with the intent to harm.

My radio snapped to the estate’s emergency channel. “Pakhan Popov, we have a situation in the residential wing.”

I pressed two fingers to the earpiece, my heart taking an icy plunge like it had been ripped out and tossed into the water lapping the docks. “Report.”

“Nora Petrova is gone.” The security chief’s composure fractured around her name. “The cameras show her leaving six minutes ago with Anika. You requested to be informed if they left. Guards at the gate confirm they walked out together.”

Across the street, the real Anika stood beneath the casino lights while the disabled sedan smoked at the intersection. The entire demand rearranged itself in my head. Alina hadn’t needed her sister alone. She’d needed Anika away from the estate. And we’d played right into her hands.

20

ANIKA

The SUV hit eighty miles per hour before we hit the first intersection.

I didn’t have the strength to watch where we were going, so I focused on the tablet in my lap and the estate security chief on speaker. Every time the feed buffered, my mind filled the frozen space with Nora frightened, hurt, or calling for me while I–once again–fell into my sister’s trap.

“Fuckity fuck fuck on a fucking dump truck.” I dragged the recording to the moment my bedroom door opened. I kept repeating the words in my head, because the simpleness of them helped calm my anxiety.

My own face appeared on-screen. Alina wore her hair beneath a chestnut wig long enough to match mine, and she even wore my red sweater, the one I’d left in Nora’s room after the attack, and the same black leggings half the women in the city owned. From the camera mounted at the end of the hall, she was me. To many of the guards she walked past, she raised no red flags.

She tapped on Nora’s door. My daughter opened it, stared for several seconds, then threw herself forward.

The relief on Nora’s face carved my heart from my chest, but I was almost grateful she wasn’t afraid. Alina caught her, buried her face in the curls, and held on so tightly that Nora’s feet left the floor. This wasn’t a stranger stealing my child. It was her aunt, someone she loved, using that love to take her through a house full of armed men.