Page 106 of Lethal Alliance

“It isn’t like you had a whole lot of options.” Dimitry looks as tense as I feel. “And at least we know it’s secure.”

“Vera’s being a cunt.”

He snorts. “What else is new?”

“I should have moved her out.”

“No.” Dimitry shakes his head. “Not worth the risk. Good thing you got Bryce to take her phone, too. She’d already be complaining in Yuri’s ear, and that’s the last thing we need, on top of everything else.”

I know he’s right, but I hate the thought of Darya anywhere near Vera. The woman was always toxic, even before Yuri went to jail. She never approved of Yuri adopting me, not that I cared. Mikhail and I lived in our own place, and if we showed up for Sunday lunch, it was usually with crippling hangovers and dark sunglasses. I’ve always been astonished that Vera’s bitter anger and Yuri’s boastfulness could have produced a son as warm and generous as Mikhail. I never particularly liked the children spending time with Vera, but Inger and she were always close, and it seemed a small act of kindness given all Vera has lost.

Still, I’ll breathe easier when Darya is out of that house, secure though it might be.

I glance at my phone, mentally doing the math.It’s one a.m. in London.

I know Darya won’t be sleeping, will be staring at her phone, waiting for my call.

My fingers tap my leg impatiently. I know Mak’s men will be waiting with weapons inside the hidden tunnels as we speak. But I’ve never itched to feel steel in my hand more than right now.

I feel naked without it.

The miles inch by, my tension ratcheting up with every one.

We pullup at the tall iron gates, and our driver hits the intercom. The gates open, and we head down the wide approach to the circular driveway around a fountain at the entrance. Orlov isn’t trying to be subtle about the force he has guarding the place. There are combat suits and dark glasses hidden behind every fucking shrub on the way to the front door.

Our lone vehicle, with barely half a dozen men, looks pitiful by comparison. Then again, we are supposedly here to trade, not to fight.

The open vault in exchange for my daughters.

We step out, gravel crunching beneath our shoes, and submit to being patted down by Orlov’s men. Loathing crawls down my spine as I watch hands tattooed with red sparrows touch my body.

I remember hands just like those around my father’s neck. Torturing people across Miami in their search for me.

Hands like those carved lines into Darya’s flesh.

The killing fury simmers just under the surface, white-hot but carefully restrained. There’ll be time for killing, soon enough. Until then, I have to play the game.

We are led through the wide marble corridors toward what I know, from studying the schematic, was once Sergei’s study. Darya told us that is where Orlov would make the meet.

“It’s where Papa always met his men,”she said.“Vilnus loves that room. Sitting in my father’s chair makes him feel powerful.”

Sure enough, heavy doors open to a bookshelf-lined room with rich leather couches set around low coffee tables. A wide, heavy wooden desk stands at one end, beneath an exquisite painting I recognize as a Natalia Goncharova, a pre-revolutionary Russian artist. It’s a family portrait, set in the Russian countryside. There’s something poignant in it, a sense of nostalgia edged with darkness, as if the artist painted a world she already knew was about to disappear.

It’s an odd thing to fix on, given why I am here. But for some reason it gives me strength.

I can imagine Sergei there, in that painting. My father.

The world they were born to was stolen from us all, and a lethal legacy has been left in its place.

Or perhaps I just don’t want to look at the motherfucker in the chair beneath that painting.

“Roman Stevanovsky.” Vilnus Orlov doesn’t stand up. He sprawls in the leather armchair, cigarette in hand, watching me approach. The bloated fat of his face is even more obvious in person, the narrow blue eyes gleaming maliciously.

“Orlov.” I nod coldly. The last time I saw him he was in his prime, a barrel-chested wall of muscle, if an unattractive one.

Now the barrel chest is more fat than muscle, his jowls thick with drink and good food, face red veined. His fingers are stained with nicotine, and his eyes dart furtively around the room, as if to reassure himself of his own guard. By the way his nose is running, and his constant licking of lips, I’d say he’s been sampling way too much of the product produced by his Colombian allies.

After so many years of living with my hatred and fear, standing in front of him now, Vilnus seems strangely inconsequential. I’ve squashed better men than him with my bare hands. It’s like seeing a childhood nightmare in the daylight, reduced to nothing more than flesh and bone.

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