Nadya rested her elbows on her knees. “Evgeni.”
Time and again he’d tried to get her to use his nickname. But Zhenya never passed her lips, nor did any endearment. He had half a mind to call her milaya sometime just to see what she’d do. “Nadya.”
She tilted her face to look at him. “We both know he was not just an interpreter. He was Intelligence. He . . . he could have information he shouldn’t have.”
“Could . . . or did? Do you know something I don’t?”
Instead of answering, she reached over to turn another page in the album.
So then. There was information she—or their superiors—didn’t want him to know. They were willing to trust him far enough to have him discover what he could, but not so much that they’d lay all their cards on the table, lest he decide to take his brother’s side.
He eased out a breath. “I could well have known what he knows by now, if not for the train accident.” Assuming Zivon would have listened to him. Talked to him. Actually told him what he was planning, instead of barreling ahead, thinking he alone knew how to plan their future.
Blast him. No one in the world could infuriate him quite like Zivon.
And he never missed anyone quite like him either. He shook his head. “I tried to tell them that killing Alyona was a mistake. Why did no one listen? Do I not know better than any how my brother will react?”
Her chin lifted, her spine straightened. “He had to be shown how steep the cost is for his allegiances. He had to be taught what pain feels like—what the rest of us suffered under the old Russia, that made us envision the new.”
He wondered, not for the first time, which of his comrades had pulled the trigger that day in Moscow. Had it been her? Another of their friends? He dug his fingers into the stone. “We killed his betrothed, Nadya. We’d have been better to poke a nest of hornets.”
“From what you’ve told me of him, I wouldn’t have thought him the type to lash out.” Her voice was modulated. Cool. The voice of a soldier on a mission, not of the woman who wrapped her arms around him and kissed him until the world fell away.
Sometimes he wished he didn’t love the hard side of her as much as the soft. He could hear Matushka’s voice in his head. “Why can’t you find a nice girl, Evgeni? One who will be content to tend your home and give me grandchildren?”
It had been her argument each and every time he’d rejected the suggestions she and Batya made about potential wives for him. “I’ll find my own wife,” he’d said then. His gaze cut again to Nadya. Or not. She’d made it quite clear she’d never marry, that she considered it a prison to which she wouldn’t submit.
Still, they had plans. They would find an apartment together when they made it back to Petrograd. They’d do what the party told them to do, advance in the ranks. They’d make a difference, build a new Russia. And if ever they felt called away from each other, they’d simply part ways.
But Zivon . . . Zivon had always been traditional. Evgeni shook his head. “Perhaps his rage is quiet. But that makes it all the more deadly. He will take everything he knows now and try to destroy the Bolsheviks with it.”
Her face was hard. “We won’t let him. We’ll go to London, we’ll find him, find what he knows, get the information the Prussian gave you—and we’ll silence him.”
It was a wonder the rock didn’t crumble under his fingers. “You will not kill my brother.” He’d been careful to say we before, when speaking of Alyona, even though he’d been kept out of the loop once they’d made a decision. But there was no we here. He would do many things for the party, for the new Russia, for this woman he loved, despite all logic telling him she’d walk away at the first sign of trouble.
But that wasn’t one of them.
Her hand landed on the photo album, tugged it from his lap to hers. “If you have a better suggestion—”
“I do. We convince him to live quietly, to retire from any military affiliation. He could have a career teaching at any major university, or translating again. He could just disappear, as so many of the nobility have done.”
Her gaze didn’t budge from the photo she’d opened to. “So what then? We go to London so you can convince him?”
“Hardly.” It came out a snort as much as a word. “He likely thinks I’m dead, and it’s best that way. I’ve never been able to convince him of anything—and he can see when I’m lying in half a second.”
With one of those disarming, lightning smiles of hers, she bumped their shoulders together. “So can I. And don’t forget it.”
And this was why he’d fallen for her so fast. He’d never met anyone else who could be so fierce and yet so teasing all at once. He leaned into her shoulder a bit. “He would never give up his career for me. We have to make him want to.”
She grunted and flipped a few more pages. Then a few more, but more slowly. Her shoulders relaxed. Her face went from hard to satisfied. “I think . . .”
He knew that tone. It was the one that had convinced him to make a risky charge at her side in the heat of battle. The one that had dared him to meet her later in an abandoned barn. The one that had insisted to their superiors that they could handle the meeting with the Prussian, and that Zivon’s determination to flee Russia would be the perfect ruse.
That tone meant trouble. And possible glory. And feeling more alive than he ever had before. “You think . . . ?”
She stared for another long moment at the photos and then sent him a sultry smile. “I think I know how to do this. We convince his new allies that they’d better not believe a word he says.” Slapping the album shut, she shot to her feet. “Come on. We have work to do, and if it goes as planned, you’ll have your way and his life will be spared.”
She didn’t add a But if not . . . She didn’t have to.
MONDAY, 29 APRIL 1918
Zivon moved to the edge of the roof, tilting his face up to receive the sunshine. He’d already finished his lunch, but there were a few minutes yet before he had to return to his desk.
Behind him, Clarke gave an exaggerated groan and stretched out his legs. “I don’t like the sprinting days. Give me the six-mile run over the sprinting any time.”
Zivon chuckled and cast his gaze out over the city. “I do agree. But the short bursts, they help build strength.”
“I know it. I just don’t like it. But at least I’m feeling fitter again. And I’m keeping up with you more easily—unless you’re holding back.”
Zivon shot his friend a half smile. “Do you really want me to tell you if I am?” In truth, he was putting in far more hours than Clarke each week, given that he ran even on their off days just to clear his mind.
Clarke laughed. “No. Let me luxuriate in my ignorance, thank you.”
A few of Clarke’s colleagues moved their way, balling up their paper sandwich wrappers, and asked him something about their afternoon’s assignment. Zivon took that as an excuse to move a step away and draw in a breath of crisp air. He’d woken up in a dark mood again today, thoughts of Evgeni plaguing him.
It had been two months. Two long, excruciating months since the train accident. Since he’d lost his brother. Since all the pieces he’d put together so carefully for his escape had been dashed off the game board.