Page 112 of Lethal Alliance

“Masha.” Ofelia steps forward, her eyes still trained on the man standing slightly behind me. The opaque mask she wears breaks my heart. “Come here, to me. You know Dimitry will keep us safe. Roman has to do something before he can take us home. Remember, we told you?”

We?

So Alexei has been explaining this fucking treachery to my daughters?

Vicious savagery clenches my gut.

The bastard used his knife on Ofelia. Scared her so much she knows the vault has to be opened before she’s safe.

Oh, that fuckingmudakwill pay for this, and for every other minute of pain he’s inflicted on us all.

“Masha.” Ofelia is still watching Alexei, who is no more than a solid shape in my peripheral vision. She puts her arms out, gently prying Masha from my grasp. “It’s all going to be okay now. Papa is here, okay?” Her face flushes slightly as she says the word, her eyes touching mine then sliding away. I can’t tell if she is just indulging Masha’s use of the wordPapaas reassurance or if there’s more to it.

What has Orlov told them?

But now isn’t the time for those questions.

Mak’s voice crackles in my ear again. “Fedorov is in Spain. Stick to the plan until you get Petrovsky’s key, then it’s go time.”

Fuck.

I’m so stunned that I almost drop Masha as I transfer her to Ofelia’s arms. My eyes meet Dimitry’s over their heads. He’s heard the radio transmission too, as has every one of our team.

“Ofelia, Dimitry and two of his friends will stay here with you and Masha. But I’ll be back very soon, okay?” She nods, glancing in the corner again, then away.

My mind is racing, but time has slowed down. The fight isn’t here anymore.

This is all just a fucking decoy.

But somehow, I suspect Orlov doesn’t know that. And that’s to our advantage.

“Right.” I glance at Orlov, not least to avoid looking at Alexei Petrovsky. “Let’s do this.”

“Petrovsky.” Orlov is actually grinning. “Looks like it’s your moment in the sun, boy.”

The bulk in the corner moves, but it isn’t Petrovsky I’m looking at. It’s Ofelia. She’s watching Alexei Petrovsky like he’s the only person in the room, her eyes wide and luminous with fear. Her neck moves as she swallows convulsively, clutching Masha hard against her.

I wait as Petrovsky moves past me to the door, taking him in for the first time with a queer inner jolt. It’s like looking at a younger version of Sergei, one just as formidable. Alexei’s lone eye is the same hard blue as Sergei’s, his face stark and angular, hair almost white blond in contrast to Darya’s dark mane. He is taller than his photos suggest and almost as broad as the door. He might have been handsome, were it not for the eye patch and the extensive scarring on his face, fine lines that could only have been made by multiple knife wounds.

I brought him to heel years ago,Vilnus said of Alexei. Taking in the vicious marks on his face, I don’t doubt that is true. There’s only so much torture any person can withstand, and I’d say Alexei reached that threshold long ago. He’s clearly turned himself into a lethal weapon in response, going by the hard muscle filling out his suit. Alexei would be a match for either Dimitry or me in the ring, that much is clear. In the brief moment he passes me, his lone eye meets mine, hard and glacial. There’s not the slightest flicker of recognition, no acknowledgment of any kind.

There’s no emotion in that eye at all.

The fucker is a stone-cold killer. One who used a knife on one of my daughters and terrified the life out of the other one. He has no conscience. Whatever Alexei Petrovsky was once, the man with me now is someone else entirely, forged anew in violence and savagery.

He’s beyond saving.

Maybe I needed to know that before I took the life of Darya’s brother, even though I’ve known for a long time it was going to come to this. I needed to know so I can look her in the eye when I tell her Alexei is dead.

“This door stays unlocked,” I say, pausing in the doorway.

Vilnus scowls. “Not a fucking chance.”

“It stays unlocked.” I don’t move. “One unlocked door for another, Orlov. You’ve got guns covering every move we make. Nobody is getting out of here without your permission, but my girls have suffered enough. That door stays open, or the fucking vault stays closed.”

His mouth works, his eyes narrowed as he tries to think this through. It’s like watching a snail on valium attempting to cross a road.

“I don’t have all day, Orlov.”

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