Page 49

The door opens before we knock, and Natalia rushes out to wrap her arms around me, squeezing so hard, I can't breathe. Her eyes clamp shut and I hold her back, tearing up a little at the sight of her. She's thinner, and pale, like she's not taking care of herself. But I'm not here to lecture my sister. I’m here to ask her to do the right thing and help us approach the council about ending this foolish war peacefully.

"I thought you were dead," she whispers, and I hear her sniffle. "No one could find you, and Father tore the city apart looking and found nothing. I thought Mikhail had gotten to you, or that our father had ordered—" She stops and pulls back to look at my face, shaking her head. Tears streak her cheeks, smearing her mascara in long, dark lines. "I thought I'd never see you again."

"I'm okay," I tell her, clearing my throat so my voice doesn't crack. "We're okay. We're here."

Her eyes drop to the carrier in Dimitri’s hands, and she freezes. The color drains from her face, and her mouth opens in a shocked expression. "Oh, my God, is that the baby?"

"His name is Misha." I lift the cover over the carrier so she can see him better, and his face is peaceful in sleep, tiny hand curled against his cheek. "He's seventeen days old."

Natalia's eyes fill with tears that spill over immediately, and she touches the edge of the blanket with a trembling finger, like she thinks he might shatter. "Oh, God," she sighs as she covers her mouth, and I see fresh tears brimming in her eyes.

"We should go inside," I tell her, but Natalia stares at Dimitri for a second and nods. She knew before I ever left, but I never really knew what her thoughts were about it. In her mind, she was set to marry his brother. We would’ve been family, anyway. Then everything erupted and we ran off, and now the shock in her eyes worries me.

"Yes, we should go inside," she says, sinking back into the tomb of a house.

We follow her inside and sit, shedding our jackets and unbundling Misha without disturbing him too much. The room is cozy, though not as nice as our apartment back home in St. Petersburg was, but that place is a lifetime away now and our future is here in Moscow, whatever that looks like.

"Tell me," Natalia says, scooting closer where she can peek over my knees at the baby. She seems curious but not necessarily bold enough to outright ask, which isn’t like her. Normally, she's blunt and straightforward. This war really has taken its toll on her. "Tell me everything. I want to know all of it."

"Oh, God, where to start." I sigh, reaching for Dimitri's hand. I never told her about how I got together with him or how our love was based on the fact that we were aligning together to stop that wedding. But I'm sure she can figure that part out.

"Start with the little guy," she says quietly and cracks a smile. "Seventeen days?" She lifts both eyebrows in shock, and I snicker.

"Well, we'd have come home sooner, but he surprised us a few weeks early. My labor was only seven hours long and⁠—"

"I can't believe you did that alone. Mamochka will be shocked."

"She wasn't alone," Dimitri says warmly, putting his arm around me. And as if on cue, Misha fusses a little. He's such a Daddy's boy.

Natalia's eyes rise to meet Dimitri's and she nods at him. "Thank you for helping my sister. Now, how can I help you?"

"We need to meet with Alexei. Do you still have ways to contact him?" I ask, squeezing Dimitri's hand as a gesture of hope, and Natalia's face blanches but she nods. If we go through Maksim, Alexei may be defensive. But Natalia's call might be the thing to show him we mean business.

31

ALANA

The pub sits on the far side of town, a working-class place with chipped tables and stained floors that your shoes stick to. We arrive ten minutes past nine and walk into the noise as Natalia opens the door. She leads us past the bar to a private room in the back where a single bulb hangs over a poker table scarred with cigarette burns and liquid stains. The walls are thin. I can hear every word from the next room, but hopefully, our conversation will remain more private than that.

Our lives may depend on it.

We wait in silence for Alexei to show up not knowing at all how he might respond to seeing his brother returned from the dead and in the company of his enemy's daughters. Dimitri's hand rests on my knee, his thumb rubbing back and forth. But it does little to calm my nerves.

Misha sleeps in his carrier at my feet, and Natalia sits across from us, eyes fixed on the door as her fingers drum a nervous rhythm on the felt. She hasn't spoken since we left her apartment, and I can see the fear in every line of her body.

No one believes for a second that this is going to be easy for any of us. Both of us are terrified of him. He could easily gun us down where we sit just for having the Volskaya name, and God only knows what poison his father has filled his head with about Dimitri. Alexei may not be Pakhan yet, but he will be soon enough. He has the same authority right now to make the call about whether Dimitri lives or dies.

"You're shaking," I mumble to my sister, whose eyes snap to mine.

"You understand he's a fucking killer, right?" Her tone is sharp, the Natalia I remember well. But her knee bounces in fear. "Look, I said I'd help line this up as a favor, but I don’t see why I had to come."

"You're here to let Alexei know this is serious." I don’t want to be hard with her because I can see she's shaken up, but we have to do this. "And you almost married the man. You spent time in talks with him, private dinners. You know him well enough that he trusts you to some extent. Okay?"

Natalia rolls her eyes and as she does the door opens, and Alexei steps through. He stops in the doorway when he sees us, and for a moment he stands frozen.

He looks terrible—his cheeks hollowed out, a pink scar tracing his jawline from ear to chin, still red and angry under that stubble. And his eyes carry an expression I recognize from my own mirror, from the months when Dimitri and I first ran and every shadow held a threat. Too much seen. Too little sleep.

His hand moves to his weapon, and I see him think about pulling it as he looks at Dimitri with a dark expression. "You came back," he growls in a gravelly voice. "You actually came back." The man has matured a lot in the past nine months. He seems more confident and in control now, at least without his father around to overshadow him.