Page 67

Behind me, metal groaned as Maksim and Kirill shifted the slab a few inches before it crashed back into place. Mikhail jumped, and Alina tried to lift an arm she no longer had the strength to move. I brought him tighter against her side for both of them and because even though she’d screwed me over–kept screwing me over–she was my sister and I loved her. She’d been forced to do some horrible things to protect her son. I understood that on an instinctual level.

“Dmitri told me not to ruin it for you.” She caught my sleeve. “I almost told you. The next morning. I was going to but…”

Roman wound the new dressing around her middle and pulled it tight. Alina cried out, and Mikhail’s small body locked beneath my arm.

“What happened after you left me?” I smoothed Mikhail’s damp hair away from his forehead. “Where was he?”

Alina turned her face toward her son. “Outside the city. I’d hidden him with a woman Sokolov had never met. He knew I’d given birth, but I didn’t think he knew where Mikhail was.”

“You left your newborn and went to rob three pakhans?” Un-fucking-believable but also so Alina. Only she would give birth and walk out to do a job.

“Dmitri was supposed to move him while I finished the transfer.” Her nails dug into my sleeve. “The money would give us enough to disappear before Sokolov realized we’d redirected it. I reached the house before Dmitri did.” Her voice faded, her eyes rolling back in her head before her lashes fluttered closed.

Roman put two fingers against her throat. “Alina.”

She sucked in air with a broken gasp. “The bassinet was empty. Sokolov sat in the kitchen with a phone. He showed me Mikhail in the back of a car with one of his men. My baby still wore the blue sleeper I’d put him in that morning.”

Mikhail bowed his head until his hair covered his face. Alina pressed her mouth against it, but no kiss could keep those words from hurting him.

“Sokolov told me the money had bought nothing. He had my son, so he had me.” Her teeth chattered hard enough to break the next words apart. “Every job bought me a photograph or a few minutes in the same room. Every refusal cost Mikhail something. Dmitri was dead by morning, and then the photograph came. I spent five years waiting for one chance to get my son out. Tonight was the first time I got close enough.”

The water climbed over my ankles. Across the chamber, Maksim wedged his shoulder against the door while Kirill forced the pipe deeper. We might die down here. The thought knocked up against my desire to find Nora, to save her from this hellhole. I couldn't die. Not here or like this. Alina had to pay for what she’d done, and so did Sokolov. “Why didn’t you trust me?” My voice cracked, but I didn’t care. “You came back into my life whenever it suited you. You left that fucking suitcase beneath my floor. Why couldn’t you tell me one truth?”

“Because you would’ve helped.” The answer came so quickly she must have carried it for years, and it came out with so much relief my eyes burned. “You would’ve handed Nora to Miss Helen, put on that stubborn face, and followed me straight into hell.” Her fingers found mine through all the blood. “You always came when I needed you, even when you hated me for it. I’d already sacrificed you at the masquerade. I couldn’t bear to do it twice.”

Rage jerked me upright. Roman caught the bandage before I pulled it from her wound. “But you did.” My voice struck the pipes and came back at us with a hollow echo.

“No.” Her lips turned blue, and her chattering teeth reminded me we had water closing in around us. I’d been distracted long enough it had climbed over my legs where I knelt. Alina shuddered through a breath. “I have a thousand excuses I used so I could keep moving.” She coughed, and Roman braced her while Mikhail clung to her shirt.

I bit down hard enough to taste blood because I couldn’t find a single answer that didn’t end with me screaming.

Mikhail curled both arms around her waist. “You came back.”

Alina pressed her lips to his hair. “Always.”

His fists loosened at the word, and his body sagged against hers. Whatever else Alina had failed to give him, she’d fought her way back often enough that he still believed her.

My anger hadn’t gone anywhere. I still wanted to shake Alina until every missing year fell out of her, but her skin had turned gray beneath the dust, and Roman kept checking the pulse in her throat as if he expected it to disappear.

We could scream at each other later. I needed there to be a later.

“Move.” I nudged Roman aside, slid one arm behind Alina’s shoulders, and pulled her and Mikhail against me.

She went rigid. Then her face struck my neck, and a sob tore through both of us. Her shoulders felt too narrow beneath my arm. She smelled like blood and the same shampoo I used. For one breath, we were girls again, tangled together beneath our grandmother’s quilt while thunder shook the cabin windows.

I buried my face in her damp hair. “I’m still so fucking angry I can’t see straight. But you don’t get to die believing I stopped loving you.” I tightened my arm around her and Mikhail. “You’re going to live. Then I’m going to yell until I lose my voice, and you’re going to sit there and take it.”

A metallic click sounded behind the pipes. Roman turned while Kirill drew his weapon, and Maksim abandoned the door to put his body between the wall and the three of us. A red light blinked above a narrow speaker tucked high into the corner.

Static hissed through it, then a voice that could only be Sokolov. “What a beautiful reunion. Now, let’s discuss an exchange.” Mikhail went rigid in my arms as Sokolov’s next words ripped every other sensation out of me. “I have Nora. Bring me the evidence, and I’ll give you the little girl.”

33

MAKSIM

“No.” I waded toward the speaker as cold water shoved against my leg. “The evidence stays with us.” Whatever fucking evidence it was that he wanted. “Return Nora, unharmed, and I might leave enough of you behind for someone to bury.”

“The steamroller can turn him into a nice, flat pancake.” Anika’s smile was vicious even as she worried over Nora.