Another stab and another.
I couldn’t move away or even comprehend.
The woman from the wall had joined the assault. Without a shard she plummeted me with her fists.
The pain barely registered.
Instead, I believe it was shock flooding my waning circulation as the women shouted. The words were not any I recognized. They weren’t English or Russian. I didn’t understand what they were saying as my knees gave out and I crumpled to the floor.
Darkness covered the room like ink dripping over a page. Once white and clean, the ink, capable of recording words, was instead thick and opaque.
Through a fog a shot rang out and then another. Men’s angry voices, their language no longer important until…
When I woke, Irina was at my side with a damp cloth over my forehead as she stroked my hair away from my face. Though I spoke the question, I needn’t have. Irina’s solemn expression told me what I wanted to know. “My baby?”
She didn’t speak; only her head moved from side to side.
Grief washed over me in a flood as I mourned the child I hadn’t conceived in love but out of obligation. None of that mattered. I wouldn’t have loved him any less. And now my son was gone.
Over an hour later, the bedroom doors opened and the emotion I was the most familiar with radiated from Andros, filling the air around him like a cloud.
As usual, Adrik and Sasha were a step behind.
“Why?” Andros asked me as he sat on the edge of the bed.
My eyes were nearly swollen closed from the tears and trauma.
“I was summoned for my job,” I managed to say.
Andros’s dark eyes narrowed. “Nyet.”
“Yes,” I argued. “I was told to go, that there were two women.”
“You walked alone to the other side of the compound?”
“No.” Though my head ached, I shook it from side to side. Moving about unaccompanied was against one of Andros’s rules. I knew my boundaries. In nearly two years, I’d learned them well. I lifted my chin to Adrik. “Adrik came for me.”
Andros turned. “You did this?”
“Nyet. I heard screams and saved her. She lies. I didn’t know she was there. The women hadn’t been drugged yet and I killed them…”
I didn’t understand why he was lying to Andros, but he was. I lifted my bruised and bandaged arm and laid my hand upon Andros’s sleeve. When he turned, I simply shook my head.
Who would he believe, me or his trusted man?
I’d never seen a dead body or witnessed someone dying. Unconsciousness had overtaken me by the time my attackers were killed. When I lived on the streets there were often rodents, cats, and dogs, usually having been dead for a while, covered in flies or maggots.
Andros stood and before I realized what was happening, he drew his gun. Quicker than the sound, the shot reverberated through our bedroom and before I could blink, Adrik fell, lying upon the carpet in our room.
I gasped.
“Dispose of him,” Andros told Sasha.
Once we were alone, I reached out to Andros. “You killed him. You liked him.”
“I killed him. It would have been you if I believed his story.”
“What did he say?”
Taking a deep breath, Andros sat again on the bed. Turning back the covers, he undid the buttons on my nightgown until my torso was exposed, completely wrapped in bandages.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “We will try again.”
“I killed him because he killed my son.”
Tears filled my eyes. “He was my son too.”
“Rest. Heal. We will make others. And your job…”
“Yes?”
“Never again. I’d told them that after we learned of your condition. I didn’t send you there, Madeline.”
My chin fell to my chest as new tears flowed down my cheeks. I hadn’t wanted to think that Andros had intentionally put me in that danger, but I couldn’t be certain, not until now.
He cupped my cheek and lifted my face. “Ruby shouldn’t see you like this.”
What?
“Andros, I just lost my son. I need my daughter.”
“She will be here when you’re better. Get better. That is again your job.”
“Yes, Andros.”
Patrick
“I found out about Nikita Gorky and Sasha Bykov,” Reid said as we gathered on 2. “Some of the information was online and more about the command center of the bratva was from Ruby.”
My neck stiffened. “You spoke to Ruby about the Ivanov bratva? She’s a kid.”
“Relax, she’s not a kid,” Reid replied. “She’s lived her whole life in their compound. She volunteered some information in a conversation at dinner. She spoke about the infrastructure of the Ivanov home base.”
“It started about snow,” Mason added, coming to Reid’s rescue. “She mentioned it was weird to stay indoors all the time, and to be up high in the sky. Someone asked about her school and that led to where she lived. The conversation was innocent enough, but it gave us some good intel we hadn’t received otherwise.”
I shook my head. “I don’t like the idea—”
“Relax, Patrick,” Reid said. “She didn’t have an issue talking about it. And it was the best way to get information. Ruby has no reason to lie or enhance.”
“Are you saying that Madeline does?”
“No, I’m saying that out of the mouth of babes and all that shit,” Reid replied as he displayed a satellite image on the screen above. “We found it.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, the muscles in my neck and arms tightened as I stared up at the screen. We’d been right about the headquarters being in a populated area of the city. It appeared to be an affluent neighborhood. Unlike our command center that was isolated at the top of a skyscraper, Ivanov’s appeared large and isolated from the rest of the properties by tall concrete walls. From the aerial view, it looked as if there were four connected structures with a type of courtyard in the center.
“Is the courtyard what Ruby meant about going outside?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Mason replied. “She talked about it being protected on all sides. She said she’d go out there in all seasons.”
I inhaled, my gaze narrowing at the image on the screen. “So this is where they lived?”
“And according to Ruby, it’s also where Ivanov works when he’s not away. She said there were a lot of people, mostly men, who came and went as well as staff, cooks, maids, and the like. I asked about Bykov and Gorky. She said they have both been around for as long as she could remember.
“Apparently, Madeline did her best to keep Ruby away from this area…” Reid moved an arrow over the largest structure within the walls. “Ruby said she and her mother had an apartment in the opposite building, but when she was younger, Ruby liked to explore. The man she called Oleg would stay with her, trying to keep her out of trouble, and the other men left her alone.”
“I think Ruby’s more broken up about Oleg’s death than she’s letting on,” Mason said.
I ran my hand over my hair. “That fucker Hillman killed Oleg right in front of her. I’d take him out again if I could.”