Page 21 of Lethal Alliance

“Except one distant hit to a Colombian family name: Cardeñas.”

He glances at me. “That was when I tested you. I remember you saying something about your mother being Colombian. And I thought... well.” He shrugged. “When I ran your DNA, it came up as the direct descendant of an unsolved murder case twenty years ago. A man named Aleksander Borovsky.”

Every word cuts through some part of me, crumbling me further.

“I looked him up. Aleksander Borovsky was married to someone called Rosa Cardeñas. They had one son: Roman Borovsky.” He meets my eyes, his own shadowed. “And when I tested you against Ofelia, it was a one-hundred-percent match.

“You’re her father, Roman. That’s why the Orlovs took the girls, and not me. Masha is Vilnus Orlov’s daughter. Ofelia is yours.”

Mine.

My daughter.

My child.

Ofelia ismine?

Recollections pass through my mind like a disjointed slideshow.

Mikhail’s resigned laughter when he learned Inger was pregnant:“Must have happened the first damn night we slept together. Condoms should have a bigger warning on the packet...”

Mikhail, the night Ofelia was born:“She’s a little early, but she’s perfect, Roman. Her eyes are the same color as yours.”He’d looked sideways at me, but I’d ignored the unspoken question in his eyes. Said instead,“She looks just like you.”

Had I known even then?

Ofelia, glaring at me with iron-hard cobalt eyes.

Ofelia placing herself between her siblings and every threat that comes for them.

No, I acknowledge to myself,I didn’t know Ofelia was my daughter.

But maybe that was simply because I didn’t allow myself to actuallysee.

And Masha. Did Nikolai suspect that Masha was Orlov’s daughter? Is that why he was taking photographs of her?

Inger.

My fists clench, my gut lurching with sudden, horrible suspicion. Apart from Nikolai’s phone call to say he was taking Inger to the hospital, I haven’t seen or heard from either of them. For all I know, they could be anywhere.

If she’s involved in this, I will fucking kill her.

I keep my face even with no small effort, dragging my attention back to Mickey, who is still staring at me accusingly, his eyes piercing my own.

“I spent the last few days reading all of Pavel’s research and Lance Ryder’s work,” he says in a low voice. “The Naryshkin treasure isn’t just a myth, is it? It’s very real. And your father built the vault that holds it.” He stares at me, but I don’t respond.

I’m not sure any response I have will help.

“That’s why you changed your name,” he goes on. “Why you’re so secretive about your past. The Orlovs believe that you know how to get into the Petrovsky vault.” He shakes his head. “They didn’t kill Darya or her brother when they had the chance, which means they must need them to open it, too. I imagine the Orlovs thought they hit the jackpot when they realized they had you and Darya in the same place. All the keys to the treasure they’ve been coveting for years, right on their doorstep for the taking. All they had to do was take the one thing they knew you’d trade anything for: your daughter.”

His eyes harden. “That’s what I think Alexei came to warn his sister about. I think he realized who you are—and why you wanted Darya in the first place. And you were waiting for him to come, weren’t you, Roman? You wanted the same thing the Orlovs have all this time. To have control over Darya and her brother, so you could open the vault yourself.”

I stare at him across the table, the air around me swirling and rearranging itself, coming in and out of focus so I feel vaguely nauseous.

“Is that what you think?” I barely manage to rasp the words out. “You think I deliberately hunted Darya down? That all of this has been some kind of elaborate plot to recover whatever damn bullshit is in that vault?”

Mickey’s eyes narrow. “Isn’t it?”

“No! Christ!” I shake my head in frustration. It’s the same accusation Darya hurled at me at the ball. “She knew,” I say, my tired mind trying to sift through the facts. “Darya knew the Orlovs were coming for the children. There’s no excuse for that—”

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