Page 17 of Lethal Alliance

The door opens, and Alexei steps out, then holds the door for us. His face is stone-cold, with no trace of his earlier twisted smile. Part of me wonders if I imagined our entire conversation in the limo.

Armed guards fall in front of and behind us, leading us through the entrance and along a large marble corridor. It’s like being inside a museum, with large paintings on the walls and an arched ceiling overhead. There’s even a central courtyard like they have in Spain, with another fountain and scented plants all around it. We pass a huge old grandfather clock. Masha stares around her in amazement, clutching my hand.

Eventually we come to a set of double wooden doors with a big brass handle. Two armed men stop us outside and pat Alexei down efficiently.

The fat-faced man who tried to stop Alexei at the airport pushes past us, sneering unpleasantly at him as he goes.

“Let’s see who’s laughing after this, Petrovsky.”

Alexei takes off his sunglasses and hangs them from his shirt, looking at the man with as little interest as he might give to an insect.

“Men will always laugh at you, Junior. You’ve just got that kind of face.”

The two armed guards at the door smirk, then quickly compose themselves when the man called Junior scowls at them. He pushes open the doors, and we follow him inside.

There’s a big, heavy desk at one end of the large room, which has bookshelves all around the walls and brown leather couches set around a marble coffee table at the other. The man sitting behind the desk has an even fatter face than the man Alexei called Junior. They’re clearly father and son. They have the same narrow, piggish eyes and heavyset build, though the man behind the desk looks meaner than his son and is so fat his belly spills over his trousers. He’s smoking, and from the smell of the room and the overflowing ashtray on his desk, it’s far from being his first cigarette for the day.

He glares at Alexei, ignoring both Masha and me.

“Do you want to explain to me why two of my men are dead and you arrived on my plane instead of on the yacht I entrusted to you?”

“You’re lucky that plane arrived at all.” Alexei answers him with cool detachment and no hint of fear. “After the bomb you neglected to tell me about, half of Malaga’s entire force of Spanish Guardia Civil were chasing the car with the girls in it. The authorities were just about to order your plane to be grounded when I turned up.”

Okay, that’s his first lie.

The fat man blanches. Alexei nods coolly.

“Now the Guardia Civil are busy chasing an empty yacht instead of your plane. But if I hadn’t been listening to the police channel, or if I’d left it to your bunch of incompetent idiots, these two would already be safely back in their beds.” Alexei roughly pushes Masha and me forward. I stumble, falling to my knees in front of the fat man’s desk. “Your men had already given up their weapons when I turned up.”

That’s lie number two.

“I’m supposed to be in the middle of stealing a billion-dollar cyber project for you, and instead I had to drop everything to save our organization from being front-page news. Want to share why you got a second-rate pack of mobsters to set off a bomb, Vilnus, instead of just asking me to snatch these two for you?”

Vilnus Orlov.This is the man who Alexei told us about.The dangerous one.

This is the man who stole Darya’s home and kept her captive.

And that’s not all he’s done.

I’ve known the name Vilnus Orlov since the summer I was ten years old, when my parents broke up for the last time.

Vilnus sneers at Alexei. “You forget your place in this organization, dog. I don’t explain myself to you.”

“I never forget my place.” Alexei’s voice is calm and even. “I kill who you tell me to. I torture when I’m asked to. I burn and sabotage and do any other form of shit job you don’t want to dirty your hands with. Right now, I’m working night and day to steal a billion-dollar deal for you. If you wanted the Stevanovsky kids, all you had to do was ask.” Ignoring the men standing either side of him with raised guns, Alexei places his hands on the desk, leaning forward so he’s eye to eye with Vilnus. “You know there’s nothing I won’t do to get that vault open for you, just like there’s nothing I won’t stop at to steal the cyber project. I thought we were in agreement on both of those things. Instead, you set off a bomb that’s put unwanted attention on all of us. Which has also started a war with Roman Stevanovsky, right when we are poised to destroy the bastard. How does any of this help us get what we want?”

“We.” Vilnus leans back in his chair and studies Alexei through slitted eyes, a half smile on his face. “You might have that sparrow on your hand, Petrovsky, but don’t ever think that means I trust you. You say you can steal this cyber project, but we’ve only got your word that it even exists. You say thatifyou can steal his pet project, Roman Stevanovsky will definitely open the vault for us in return for getting it back.If. Can.I hear a whole lot of talking, but I don’t see any real outcomes. Taking the Stevanovsky girls, on the other hand, gives us actual leverage.” His lips curl unpleasantly. “Maybe you’re right, that stealing this project will make Roman come running to open the vault. But Iknowthat taking his children will achieve that. So you can look at it this way, Petrovsky: now, instead of having one thing to use as blackmail, we have two.” He tilts his head to one side, regarding Masha and me lazily. “Or should that be three?”

Alexei shakes his head. “I think this is a mistake. We’re not ready for a war—”

Despite being unpleasantly fat, Vilnus moves with a sudden, predatory speed that makes me jump back, leaping to his feet and slamming his meaty hands down on the desk in front of him, his face barely inches from Alexei’s.

“And that, right there, is why I didn’t ask you to get the Stevanovsky girls,” he hisses. Droplets of spit hit Alexei’s face, but I notice that he doesn’t move. He doesn’t even flinch. “How many times do I have to tell you not to think? You don’t run your family’s clan anymore, Petrovsky.Ido. I have for a decade. You’re nothing more than my dog, there to do as I tell you. No more, no less. You don’t have a brain, except for the one in my head that gives you orders. Or do I need to take your other eye out to remind you of your place?”

Vilnus’s head tilts to one side, as if he’s actually considering this.

“No,” he says eventually. “What good is a blind dog?”

His men snigger.

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