Page 50 of Lethal Alliance

He’s speaking to Roman as he would one of hisvor. I can see it in the lethal stillness of his shoulders, the harsh set of his mouth.

“Anything that will help us when we attack.” Roman’s response is equally curt. “Hidden traps, obstacles our men will encounter. Anything you can tell us that will help us gain access.”

“I’ve noted them all. And there are tunnels.” Papa shifts the top paper to reveal more drawings beneath. “Each has a door with a digital code. I’ve written the codes beside each one.”

Roman’s eyes narrow suspiciously. “And you’re sure the Orlovs don’t know about these?”

Papa nods briefly. “Alexei has been using them for years. The Orlovs have never caught him.”

Alexei has been using them? For what?I conceal my surprise with an effort.

I stare at the drawings, mentally recalling the places Papa has marked. Some of the tunnels I know about, but there are many others, carefully concealed in the architecture, that I never suspected existed.

“Why didn’t I know about these?” I ask carefully, reluctant to meet my father’s eyes in case he sees the anger simmering in mine. “Some of these tunnels come out onto the street. If I’d known about them, we might have escaped the first time we tried, instead of running into the woods and getting caught. We could have been gone, and the Orlovs never would have known.”

“Because your father wanted to keep them safe for the moment he was ready to return.” Roman’s lip curls in contempt. “Because the vault is all that has ever mattered to him. Isn’t that right, Sergei?” His hands don’t move, but his eyes glitter with a fierce, dangerous light as he holds Papa’s gaze. Despite my love for my father, I share his anger.

Why did he never tell me about all of the other tunnels?

“You are right in part. I did keep that secret safe, or at least I did for a long time, but not for the reasons you think.” My father’s tone remains even. He doesn’t react to Roman’s hostility. “At first I had no choice. Initially, after my stroke and the Orlov coup, I was unable to either speak or move. I wasn’t able to tell my children about all of the tunnels even if I wanted to. I was also not permitted access to my wife or either of my children, except to see them through soundproof glass when Vilnus tortured them.”

I look at him in surprise. Papa has never told me that.

Vilnus did the same thing to Alexei and me, made us look at Papa’s prostrate body through a large glass window that faced onto the clinical room in which Papa was kept. He told us Papa was dying, that he would never regain consciousness. But the room in which Vilnus tortured us was in the underground chamber, far from Papa’s clinical bed. That room had a wall of darkened glass through which I assumed Vilnus’s men were watching us suffer. I figured Vilnus just got off on having an audience.

Never did I suspect that my father might be the audience to which Vilnus was playing.

To me, my father was unconscious in his bed, far from where we were screaming under Vilnus’s knife. It was one of my only comforts in the time Vilnus tortured me, that Papa couldn’t actually see it. The thought that all of Vilnus’s depredations were, in fact, carried out in full view of my father makes me sick and ashamed to the core.

Papa watched, I think, twisting inside with horror.He saw the way Vilnus touched me, how he violated me.

Another thought, even more terrible, strikes me:Papa must have watched them rape Mama. Watched them tear her apart.

Roman’s expression of contempt has remained unaltered throughout Papa’s words, as has his posture. Now he takes a slow, deliberate sip of tea, his eyes not leaving Papa’s face. “Before you start trying to justify your betrayal of my parents, and the greed that you placed over the lives of your own family, I suggest you disclose anything else that might actually fucking help.”

In another time, I might have leaped to Papa’s defense.

I don’t.

Roman’s loss is mine, too. No matter my love for my father, Roman’s family is mine now. I resist the urge to place a hand on my stomach. Roman is my family now. The father of my child. Father to the children I have come to see as mine.

As he said, nothing else matters. Not until the children are safe.

“You were right when you said I wanted to keep the tunnels safe.” Papa inclines his head in Roman’s direction. “I argued with Alexei about the one we did use, in his room. I was worried they would find it and search for others. But Alexei was careful, just as we planned, and they never did.”

He leans forward. “But you’re wrong in thinking that decision was mine, Roman. After I woke, my first thought was to take my children and run. I’d have used those tunnels without hesitation and never cared about whether Orlov found the others or not. But someone asked me not to. They reminded me of an old promise, and they held me to it.”

Roman’s eyes narrow. “I suppose this is the point in the conversation where you reveal all those deep dark secrets of yours.”

Papa’s expression is as fierce as Roman’s contemptuous sneer. “There is only one secret that matters, and had you given me the chance to talk, Roman, it would not have remained a secret after the first day I realized who you are.” He stubs out his cigarette and folds his hands in front of him. Sitting back in his chair, he eyes Roman directly. “The person who asked me to keep the tunnels a secret was your mother. She’s alive, Roman. Rosa is alive.”

16

ROMAN

Rosa is alive. My mother is alive.

My vision blurs, the world swirling around me as his words sink in.

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