Page 28 of Lethal Alliance

“Are you sure about that?” He’s watching me closely. “Because that’s the next item on my agenda. You said you didn’t know Ofelia is your daughter. But I imagine youdoremember sleeping with my mother?”

I wince. “Jesus, Mickey.” This car ride is worse than open heart fucking surgery.

“So? What’s the story there? How long were you together?”

“Maybe you should talk to your mother about this.”

“I don’t ever want to talk to my mother again.” His voice is chilling enough to freeze fire. “Inger took my sisters. She kidnapped them and put them in danger. I won’t forgive her for that. Not ever.”

I don’t bother trying to argue with him. I know that kind of anger. It settles in your bones, deep and painful, and calcifies there. It isn’t the kind of anger that is fixed by a cozy conversation over a kitchen counter. Inger has endangered the two people Mickey cares about most in the world, taken the only true family he’s ever known, and held them hostage.

When he says he won’t forgive her, I believe him. I also don’t blame him. Fuck knows, I won’t ever forgive Inger myself.

“They’re my sisters.” His voice is low, slightly unsteady. “They were my responsibility, Roman. My job to look after. I should have seen what Inger was up to. I was so stupid. It was right in front of my face. Iknewsomething wasn’t right about those pictures Nikolai took on the yacht, and there was something weird about the way Inger suddenly wanted us all to go to that ball. She’s never wanted us around when she’s attending those kinds of things. I knew there was something wrong, and I just—I didn’t—” His voice breaks, and he buries his head in his hands.

I pull the car into the gravel and am out of it in an instant. I pull his door open and haul the lanky length of him into a hard embrace. For once he doesn’t argue. He stands stiffly for a moment, then his head falls onto my shoulder. His sobs are not the hiccups of the child he was, but the broken, rasping tears of the man he is becoming.

“It’s not your fault, Mickey.” I hold his head, my voice fierce against his ear. “You hear me? None of this is your fault. It was me who failed. It’s my job to protect you all, and I dropped the fucking ball. Don’t you ever blame yourself for this.”

His head twists against my shoulder, his whole body tense and shuddering. “I should have seen it.” His voice is muffled, but the self-recrimination in it hurts me inside.

“You listen to me.” I pull away and put my hands on his face, making him meet my eyes. “You hear this, once and forever. You. Did. Nothing. Wrong. This is all on me. I run the security in my organization. I do the risk assessment, and I take care of business. There’s only one person who fucked up here, and it was me. You know me by now, Mickey. Do you honestly think I wouldn’t tell you if I thought you’d messed up?”

I hold his eyes until he finally gives a slight shake of his head.

“Right. Do you think Pavel and his team would want to work with you if they blamed you for the girls being taken?”

This time his shake is a little firmer.

“Exactly. They all know, Dimitry included, that this is my fuckup.”

I step back slightly and grip his shoulders, still holding his eyes.

“They also know there’s no point talking about whose fucking fault this is. There’s only one thing that matters now: getting the girls back. There isn’t anything I won’t do to make that happen. My people know that.

“I will fix this, Mickey. No matter if I have to get a whole army to Miami. I’ll get the girls back. That much I swear to you.”

He nods slowly. “Will you promise to let me help? Not keep me on the outside?”

I nod. “I promise I won’t keep a single thing from you, Mickey. From now on, we do this as a team.” I pull him into a rough hug.

Eventually he pulls away, and I let him go. I give him a half smile as I open the passenger door. “Does this mean you’ll stop grilling me in the fucking car? I don’t know if I can take another hundred miles of this shit.”

Mickey gives a shaky laugh and wipes his arm across his face. “Truce,” he says. “For now, at least.”

I roll my eyes. “I suppose I should give thanks for small mercies.” I pull the door closed and give his shoulder a final squeeze.

“Come on, then. Let’s go and bring Darya home.”

10

DARYA

Iavoid thinking about Roman and the children by wandering the hills above Granada, gazing down at the peaceful gardens of the Alhambra, feeling the mountain breeze sharp on my face, tasting the traces of snow from the peaks above on the air. If I sit still, my mind plays horrible tricks. I need to be physically exhausted to get even a few hours of sleep.

It’s also harder to cry when I’m walking.

The rustling of the ancient olive trees and haunting cries of the mountain birds are the only things that even slightly calm my soul. I walk back down toward the city, along the road that runs past the Alhambra, accompanied by the rushing of water from old aqueducts and stone sculptures that have stood for centuries. I know I need to leave Granada tomorrow, but I can’t begin to think of where to go next. It’s exhausting even contemplating it.

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