Quietly, I push open the door to Slava’s bedroom and step in. As usual, he’s on the floor, diligently working on his LEGO castle. Lyudmila told me once that my son has a remarkably long attention span for a child who’s not yet five, and I suppose that must be true. From what I can recall of my younger brother, Valery, at this age, he was always running around and getting into trouble. Slava, on the other hand, is quiet and focused, much more the way Konstantin was as a child. I wonder if Slava has inherited my older brother’s aptitude for math and programming as well. I should probably introduce him to these subjects and find out.
At my entrance, his eyes—my eyes in miniature—shoot up to my face, the look in them equal parts quizzical and wary. My chest tightens with the usual discomfort, but I ignore the urge to back away, distancing myself from the unsettling feeling. Instead, I crouch in front of my son, giving his LEGO creation my full attention, the way I’ve seen Chloe do.
“That’s a very nice castle,” I say in Russian, studying the carefully assembled building blocks in front of me. Though Slava’s English skills are rapidly improving under Chloe’s tutelage, he’s far from fluent in the language of our adopted country. “Did it take you long to build it?”
He blinks at me for a couple of moments before a shy smile blooms on his face. “You like it?”
“I do.” I mean it, too. The castle displays admirable symmetry and complexity, especially given the fact that it was put together by such tiny hands. Even if math and computers turn out not to be Slava’s strengths, he might have a future in architecture and structural design.
That is, if he doesn’t take after me and Valery—and every other Molotov before us.
My mood darkens, but I force myself to maintain a calm, inquisitive expression as I ask again how long it’d taken him to build the castle.
“I worked on it in the morning and again after I came back from the woods,” Slava says, visibly more comfortable with me now. He’s still nowhere near as chatty and animated as he is with Chloe, but I consider this progress. Before, he’d reply to most of my questions with just a word or two, or stay completely silent.
For the next few minutes, he shows me all the ins and outs of the castle—there are turrets and towers and big windows, the latter similar to the ones in our house—and then he shyly asks where Chloe is and why he hasn’t seen her all day.
“She’s resting,” I tell him. “A branch injured her arm, so we had to have some doctors come out here and fix it. She’s all better now, but she’ll be staying in bed for a couple of days while it heals.”
As I speak, his eyes grow wide with worry. “Chloe is hurt?”
“Only a little bit. She’ll be better soon.”
He still looks concerned. “She won’t die, like Mama?”
It’s like a shard of glass goes through my chest. “No, Slavochka. I won’t let that happen.” Alina told me he occasionally asks her about Ksenia, but this is the first time I’ve heard him talk about his mother—and I hate it.
I hate her for hiding him from me all those years, and I hate even more that she got herself killed in a car crash, leaving him with her vile family.
At my words, Slava brightens. “Can Chloe stay with us forever?”
Now this is a question I’m happy to answer. “Yes.” I look my son square in the face. “She can, and she will.”
No force on earth is powerful enough to take Chloe away from me now that I have her back. I will do whatever it takes to keep her—both for Slava and for myself.
She’s asleep when I stop by her room on the way to my office, so I let her rest. That’s what she needs now. Her physical injuries will heal in a matter of weeks, but the emotional wounds are a different matter. I contemplated not telling her what Konstantin uncovered about Bransford and his relationship with her mother, but I decided it was important that she know—that she understand the full extent of the danger she’s in.
I didn’t tell her everything, though—like the fact that her teenage mother slit her wrists after she’d learned she was pregnant. Or that after that unsuccessful suicide attempt, she visited an abortion clinic twice, only to chicken out both times. None of that is important. What matters is that after Chloe was born, Marianna was able to power through her trauma and become the caring mother Chloe had known and loved.
The first thing I do upon stepping into my office is call Pavel and tell him to come up. The second is videocall Valery.
“I need you to send a dozen of your best men here,” I tell my younger brother in lieu of a hello. “I need them right away.”
“On it,” Valery says, as coolly emotionless as always. Konstantin must’ve already briefed him on my situation. “Anything else? Weapons? Explosives?”
“Yes. Everything.” I already have a large stash here at the compound, but more won’t hurt. “Also, send over some pharmaceuticals.”
“You got it.”
He hangs up just as a knock sounds on my door.
I walk over to let Pavel in.
My right-hand man’s gunmetal eyes are unblinking. “War?”
“War,” I confirm grimly.
I’m not waiting for Bransford to send more assassins after Chloe.
Now that we know who her enemy is, we’re taking the fight to him.
6
Chloe
My eyes pop open as I wake with a gasp, my heart racing and my hospital gown soaked with sweat. Only the throbbing pain in my arm and the paralyzing soreness throughout my body keep me from reflexively sitting up. Instead, I force myself to lie still and take in the stunning view of the sun descending behind the distant mountain peaks outside my floor-to-ceiling window.
Slowly, I begin to calm.
A nightmare.
It was just another nightmare.
Unlike the vivid, horror-movie-style dreams that have been tormenting me since Mom’s death, this one was more of a jumble of images and impressions. The whine of a bullet past my ear, branches hitting me in the face as I run through the woods from some kind of beastly creature, a heavy weight knocking me down—it doesn’t take a psych degree to know that my mind was replaying my encounter with the assassins in an attempt to deal with the lingering terror.
A quiet knock distracts me from the gorgeous view. Before I can say anything, the door swings open and Nikolai steps in, a warm smile curving his sensual lips as he sees me awake.
My heart rate kicks up again, but with an emotion far more complex than fear. He’s changed yet again, this time into one of the perfectly tailored suits he favors at dinnertime. A crisp white shirt and a skinny black tie complete the formal outfit, setting off his masculine beauty in a way that should be illegal—not that he’d care about something as trivial as legality.
Given what I saw him do earlier today, my captor is not exactly big on the rule of law.
At least I suspect he’s my captor. We still need to have that conversation.
“How are you feeling?” he asks softly, stopping next to my bed. Before I can reply, he feels my forehead with the back of his hand and frowns, then pulls out a thermometer from the inner pocket of his jacket.