Page 102 of Lethal Alliance

“Ah. I see Sergei told you that much, at least.” Her mouth tightens. “They’d never stopped looking for me. I was my father’s only child. He had promised me as wife to the head of a rival cartel. Traded me like livestock. When I ran, I shamed my father and caused a war. Families like mine don’t forget insults like that. And there’s always someone willing to hand over information when the price is right.”

“I understand why you left Roman and ran.” It’s true; I do. “I know you were afraid that your family would hurt your husband and son. But I’m not sure I will ever understand why that vault was so important to you all, no matter what is inside it. Why would you risk losing your own son, just to protect his inheritance? It makes no sense to me.” I frown, staring at her. “There is nothing—nothing—I wouldn’t do to protect my children. I can’t imagine thinking a vault was so important that I would leave my child in danger.”

Rosa flinches slightly at the last line. “We thought that linking all three of you to the vault mightsaveyou from danger.” Her voice is subdued. “It wasn’t what was inside the vault that we were trying to protect, but the opposite,” she says quietly. “We thought that one day that vault might be the thing that protected you. A bargaining chip to trade for your lives, if you had to.”

I swallow a sudden, bizarre urge to laugh.

Or throw up.

“It didn’t quite work out that way.”

“No, it did not.” Rosa doesn’t try to defend herself, for which I’m grateful. “What I can say is that I never thought the Cardeñas cartel would come at us with the power they did, nor that the war would rage on so long. They didn’t have that kind of power when I left Bogotá.” Her face darkens. “If we’d known Vilnus Orlov was bankrolling them behind the scenes, not to mention selling Sergei out the entire time, it might have made more sense.”

It wasn’t the Orlovs bankrolling them. It was Fedorov.For a moment I consider telling Rosa about Ilyan Fedorov. I have so many questions, things she might be able to answer. But then I remember Roman’s warning not to mention even the name to his mother.

Following his directions has never been more important than now.

Are they fighting now? Is Roman standing in front of a hail of bullets while I sit here?

I shiver.

I’m almost grateful for the interruption when the door opens and Vera enters the room.

My gratitude lasts about as long as it takes to absorb the scowl on her face. A scowl which, after even the few hours I’ve spent in her company, I’ve begun to think is a permanent fixture.

“You’re both up late.” She glares pointedly at first Rosa, then me. “Is anyone ever going to actually explain to me what is going on?”

She speaks English with a heavy Russian accent. Perversely, I haven’t actually told her I speak Russian, not least because Rosa doesn’t, and I don’t have the energy to deal with Vera’s seemingly permanent state of bitter discontent alone.

“Your guards have taken my phone,” Vera continues in a strident tone, “and the landline is dead. I’ve been given no explanation for why my home has been invaded. The only contact I’ve had from Roman in weeks was the call to inform me that you were coming to stay, but what you’re doing here without the children, when you aresupposedto be their au pair, I’m sure I don’t know!”

She pauses to inhale. Her nonexistent bosom heaves up and down on a chest so thin it’s hard to believe a morsel of food ever passes her lips. Her penciled eyebrows arch so high they almost disappear inside her enormous blue-rinsed coiffure, over black eyes that watch us as beadily as any crow’s.

“I haven’t heard a word from Inger,” she snaps, fingering a diamond necklace so heavy it’s a wonder it doesn’t crack her skinny neck. “And I don’t understand why I’m not allowed to call darling Nicky.”

Darling Nicky?

Oh, God. Nobody has told her about Nikolai being dead.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, given the tension we’ve been living with. But still.

Nikolai was her son.

She’s lost both of her children now.

I want to feel the horror of that.

But the truth is that from the moment we walked through her door, Vera Stevanovsky has been so damned nasty to us both that it’s difficult for me to feel anything for her other than distinct dislike.

From being openly insulting about Roman to never allowing me to forget that I’m the hired help, she’s made it perfectly clear at every possible opportunity that our presence in her house is an enormous imposition.

“I will be having words with Roman when he returns from wherever he is, you can depend on that. What are we coming to, if I must entertain his staff as if they are royalty?” Vera stabs a wooden side table with one sharp fingernail. “Two strangers in my house,” she mutters, glaring at us. “Yuri should never have handed that bastard boy thepakhan’s chair.”

“Mrs. Stevanovsky.” Rosa stands up, her normally soft brown eyes flashing with a rather dangerous light. “Roman placed us under your roof because he wants to keep us safe. I doubt he would appreciate his...Luciabeing treated with disrespect.”

According to Roman’s instructions, we’re in Vera’s house under our cover names. Lucia, in my case, and Sofia, in Rosa’s.

I didn’t realize quite how grating it would be to disappear back into the shadows of Lucia Lopez, nor how accustomed I’ve become to being seen, if not as Roman’s wife, at least as his partner.

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