Page 184 of Cashmere Ruin

Petra.

I steel myself. With everything that’s happened in the past few hours, there was one question I was forced to table for later. Because I didn’t have the bandwidth. Because there were other priorities.

Is Petra working against me, too?

“Petya!” Vlad bellows. “I told you to go home.”

But she ignores him. Instead, she makes a beeline for me, elbowing her father’s men left and right to get there. “Tell me it’s not true,” she demands. “Say it.”

I turn to Vlad. “What the hell is she doing here?”

“She was with me when you called.”

“And you let her listen?”

“How was I supposed to know you were going to drop a bomb like that?!” he scoffs. “I tried to keep her away, but you know women. Long legs, even longer ears.”

“Quit talking like I’m not here!” she cries out. “Especially you, Matvey. You’ve never done that to me before. Don’t you dare start now.”

I clench my jaw. Petra’s face is a mask of heartbreak, hurt and confusion swirling together in the pools of her eyes.

But is that all it is? A mask?

Just then, my phone rings.

“Ignore it,” she growls. “Look at me, Matvey. Tell me I heard wrong. Tell me that Yuri didn’t…” She swallows a sob.

Fucking hell.If she’s acting, she’s doing a damn good job of it.

And if she’s not…

If she’s not, I can’t tell her what she wants to hear.

So I pick up the phone. “You have five seconds to tell me who you are, how you got this number, and why I shouldn’t have you killed,” I snarl.

“Only five seconds for all that?”

The voice on the other side of the line hits me like a sucker punch.

It can’t be. It’s not possible.

But it is. Because there’s no one else that voice could possibly belong to. “April,” I rasp. “You’re okay.”

“Kind of?” She laughs awkwardly. All this hell breaking loose, and shelaughs.My woman was always the strongest soldier among us. “I’m in mafia jail.”

“In what?” A thousand questions crowd my mind. “Wait—how are you calling me? Where are they keeping you?”

“We don’t have time,” she cuts me off. Suddenly, her voice fills with urgency. “Matvey, it’s Yuri. He’s the mole. He’s working with Carmine, and they… They have our daughter.”

I grit my teeth. Somehow, April got hold of a phone. She went to God knows what pains to secure that, to dial my number and warn me…

And it’s too late.

“I know. I swear to you, April, I won’t let anyone harm either of you. Not Carmine, and not…” My mouth fills with bitterness. “Not Yuri. He’ll pay for what he’s done.”

“No,” Petra whispers. Her face fills with the kind of heartbreak you can’t find on TV, the kind that destroys empires.

“Grisha’s gathering thevoryas we speak,” I tell April, forcing my gaze away from her grief.

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