Page 16 of Her Silver Fox Mountain Men

“Elise?” his voice is cautious, uneven. He’s nervous.

“Mike. Yeah, it’s me,” I say, tears already stinging my eyes.

“Are you okay?”

“For the most part, yeah. I miss you. I was thinking about you.”

“Give me a second,” he says.

“Sure, kiddo.”

I patiently wait as he pauses the conversation. I hear familiar voices in the background—Lev, Andrei—and they sound irritated. Mike shouldn’t be there. He’s barely eighteen. I pick up on a few Russian words.Reckless. Foolish. Terrible idea.Then, a door closes, and their voices become muffled.

“Okay, we can talk now,” Mike says.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m always okay,” he says, laughing lightly. “It’s you I’m worried about. It’s you we’re all worried about. Why won’t you tell me what’s going on, Elise? Where are you?”

Closing my eyes for a moment, I take a deep breath. “You know I can’t tell you that, Mike. For my safety, and for yours. Just please, as always, don’t tell anyone we’re talking.”

“I haven’t told them. Not Papa, not Andrei or Kara.”

“Igor, in particular.”

“He’s losing his mind over you,” my brother sighs. “He’s still looking for you. Papa hasn’t seen him in days.”

The way he calls Lev papa makes my stomach churn. But I can’t blame the boy for seeing him as a father figure. Hewaslike a father to us. Still is. It’s the truth they buried at the center of the family that burns my throat and sickens me whenever I hear my brother call that man papa. I’m disgusted, but I need to keep it to myself. Mike is safer there, with them, completely ignorant of my whereabouts and my knowledge.

“Do you know where Igor is?” I ask Mike.

“I heard something about Idaho the other day, but I’m not sure. He usually comes back over the weekend, just to check in with Papa and the others,” he says. “He misses you, Elise.”

“Someday, I’ll be able to tell you everything. I promise,” I reply. “In the meantime, I beg you—”

“Yeah, I know the drill. Tell no one. I got it.”

“You sound disappointed.”

“I am! I miss you.”

The tears break free, rolling down my cheeks.

“I know you do, and I miss you, too. The day will come when we meet again, that I can promise. I don’t know when or how justyet, but it will come.”

“It’s been a long year since you disappeared, Elise. It’s almost destroyed our family and—”

“No, what destroyed our family was our parents getting shot and killed when we were both too young to fend for ourselves,” I interject. “Don’t you forget that.”

“The Konstantinovs are also our family, Elise. Come on, what the hell happened?”

“Nothing for you to concern yourself with right now,” I say. “Let’s talk about something else. How’ve you been? How’s school going?”

He groans slightly. “It’s going alright. I’m getting good grades. Papa says I’ll get into any college I want if I keep it up.”

“Good. You deserve that. What about the basketball team? You’re still co-captain, right?”

“Yeah, me and Johnny, as usual. We have a game this Friday. Wish you could be there.”

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