The roar in Zivon’s ears was nearly as loud. He pushed to his feet. “You left her there?”
“She’s not exactly alone. I have people keeping an ear out. But . . .” Pearce’s gaze flicked to the priest. “There was a bit of information I wasn’t privy to at the time I agreed to Lily’s plan.”
Father Smirnov stepped into the office, lips pressed together and eyes flashing apology. “Fyodor and I have been speaking with everyone in the congregation. Describing this Nadya. Asking everyone if they’d seen her. There was someone who admitted that she’d come to him just before the article was published. He did not know who she was, of course, only that she was a fellow Russian. A pretty young girl who claimed to be alone and frightened by a refugee neighbor who’d been making overtures. He sold her a gun.”
Zivon charged toward the door. “The address.” His Lily was in their hands—her hands, the very woman who had killed Alyona. He had to reach her quickly. He had to save her. He shouldn’t have let Hall and Blackwell talk him into trusting them, he should have—no. Had he not been here, he wouldn’t have known this new information. He’d been right to trust.
He reached Barclay. Waited, half expecting Be still to echo through his soul. Instead, Pearce told him the address, right down to the flat number, and even some rudimentary directions.
He didn’t wait around for anyone to argue. He flew out, legs pumping as hard as they’d done the day the news of Ivy came. To the nearest tube station, onto the train just pulling in. He caught his breath during the ride. Charged upward into the sunshine again as soon as the train squealed to a halt at his destination.
He’d done his best to protect Evgeni and his girl. He’d gotten Hall to agree to let them slip from the country with false information to deliver to their superiors. They’d be as safe as Zivon could make them, but they wouldn’t be able to interfere in Europe.
All that could go up in smoke now, though. If they hurt Lily . . . He choked on the breath he dragged in. They couldn’t. If there was one thing he must do today, it was stop that tragedy. Lily must, above all, be safe. For her sake. For her parents’. And even for Evgeni’s. Because if any harm came to her, all deals would be off. Zhenya would pay the price too.
He couldn’t let them hurt her. That was the thought that became clearer with every footfall. Whatever it took to save her, he would do it. Lord, guide me. Show me how.
Pearce’s instructions had been flawless. Once he reached the right building, he slowed. It wouldn’t do to pound up the steps and alert them too soon that he was coming. After pausing to catch his breath, he walked into the building and up to their floor.
For a long moment, he stared at the door with its tin 5F. Behind that door, his past and his present and his future were all a-tangle. His brother. The Bolshevik who had killed Alyona. The woman he loved with all his soul and never would have met had circumstances not brought him here.
The unanticipated.
A year ago, even with all his watching, all his decoding, and every pattern he saw, he never could have predicted where he’d be standing now. For every detail he thought he knew, God had proven him ignorant of many more.
But He had been Lord through it all. He’d known. He’d seen. And He’d delivered Zivon to this moment, to this door. He raised his hand and knocked.
28
Zivon stepped inside with his hands held away from his body, wanting to do nothing to inspire Nadya to pull the trigger on the gun that she’d pointed at him.
His gaze, however, wasn’t still. He found Evgeni with it in the first second—sitting at a small table and looking as though he might collapse onto it at any moment—and Lily in the next, spooning up a bowl of broth.
She nearly dropped it when he came through the door. “Zivon! What are you—”
“Milaya.” On second thought, he’d risk the bullet to hold her again. How could he ever have thought he could leave the country without doing so one more time? He rushed in her direction, and she met him halfway, his arms closing around her. “What were you thinking? Why would you come here?”
“The album.” She held him tight, then pulled away enough to catch his face between her palms. “You’d have let them leave with it, never thinking of yourself. I had to think of you for you.”
“Step apart, now!” The command was in French.
“Nadezhda. Relax. Let them have a moment.” Evgeni sounded terrible, if one were to listen only to the quality of his voice. But if one listened to the tone, he also sounded amused.
Zivon turned his face enough to kiss Lily’s hand. “The album does not matter. My reputation does not matter. All that matters is that you are safe.”
“And that I’m with you. You’re not leaving without me, Zivon. Where you go, I go.”
How could that be possible? When it meant leaving all she’d ever known, the parents who loved her and needed her, her work here? Yet, as he looked deep into her eyes, he saw she did mean it. Somehow, this woman loved him that much. A blessing he’d done nothing to earn and could never deserve.
Evgeni coughed, a hard, racking sound that drew Zivon around to face him. Nadya had crouched beside him and was rubbing her free hand over his back.
Clearly, she’d been lying this morning when she said he was fine. “You are ill,” Zivon said.
Zhenya waved that off. “Was. I am on the mend.”
“He has no fever.” Lily wrapped her arms around one of his, as if to make it clear he wouldn’t walk away without her again. “I think he only needs to regain his strength.”
“Which he’ll do in France. In Russia.” Nadya pressed a kiss to his brother’s brow and then stood again, her eyes cold and hard when she turned them on him and Lily. “We are leaving today. With the photograph. Hand it over now, English girl. You have dawdled enough.”
In English, so quietly he barely heard her, Lily murmured, “How far behind you are the rest of them?”
“Only a few minutes, I should think.”
Evgeni narrowed his eyes at them. If he’d been able to hear, then he would understand.
Zivon stepped forward, putting himself between Lily and the pistol. Hands out again, so Nadya could see he had no weapon of his own. “Please, lower the weapon. We are family. I have negotiated for your freedom, but you will compromise it if you use that.”
“Our freedom?” Nadya barked a laugh. “You don’t know the meaning of the word. You who would grow rich while others starve. Freedom comes only when the people steal the power from their oppressors and force them to do the right thing.”
Zivon’s chest ached. How many times had he heard that sentiment being shouted in Russia over the last year? A cry from a desperate people who had been pushed past their breaking point. He commiserated. He cried for them, with them.
But they were wrong. “No. Freedom comes only when the people realize that it cannot be stolen and forced. Freedom that is denied to anyone who disagrees is no freedom at all.”
Lily had reached into her pocket, and she held out a photograph that he would have sworn was the same one from the passport, had he not seen that one tacked to her wall an hour ago. She must have made herself a duplicate too.