Page 58 of Lethal Alliance

“What’s that?” Mickey points to a dark hole in the door.

“It’s where the door handle was. Vilnus removed it right after the coup. He... didn’t like it when Alexei or I closed our doors.”

“That was your bedroom?” Roman’s voice is chilling.

I nod. When I glance sideways, his hands are clenched into hard fists. The tech kids exchange nervous glances. I scroll on hastily, slightly surprised at how little the compound has changed, even down to the places the guards are stationed. Looking at it through the video feed is like taking a museum tour, peering in at a place frozen in time. It’s unsettling.

I realize, with a faint sense of surprise, that I don’t want to go back there. Somehow I always thought that when we finally defeated the Orlovs—something I never allowed myself to doubt would happen—I would go back to the compound, pick up the reins of my old life. I never thought much past that, it’s true. But looking at the lush gardens and vast marble spaces now, empty but for the familiar guards stationed at every corner, I suddenly realize I don’t ever want to live that life again. The girl who once tried to slam her bedroom door in Vilnus’s face, who changed her clothes beneath the bed covers to avoid the camera’s ever-present eye, who obediently wore the dresses he laid out for her when he decided to parade her for the paparazzi—that girl died somewhere on the long trek to Argentina. I don’t want to be her again. I’ve come too far, survived too much.

When I think of home now, I think of Roman’s penthouse. Of the children’s apartment. Of the finca in the mountains, which I suddenly miss with a fierce ache.

I don’t miss Miami. Whatever happens after this, that life is over for me.

None of the cameras show any faces I know. Not Alexei’s or Orlov’s or Inger’s. There’s no sign of the girls anywhere.

Then again, I think,there wouldn’t be.Vilnus would never keep them in the upper rooms, where they might be easily taken in an attack.

Even so, the compound seems remarkably lightly guarded. Even before my family went to war, we had more security watching us than this.

“How do I switch to the underground feed?”

“There’s nothing there.” Mickey is clearly unimpressed by this development. He hits a key. “The rooms are bare, except for when the guards do a security pass every half hour.”

“We think Orlov is holding the girls somewhere else, or hiding them, just as you said he would.” Roman’s voice is tense. “But we have no idea where.”

I flick through the different cameras again, this time more slowly. I halt the camera on one point and zoom in, my heart sticking in my chest.

“What is it?” Mickey’s watching me.

“This isn’t right.” I point at what used to be Vilnus’s torture room. I remember every dip in the concrete floor, every old mark on the walls. I spent so many hours face down in that room I can remember the cold, musty stench of it even now. “The darkened glass on the far wall. See that crack in it?” I zoom in further, tracing my finger down the hairline fracture, right at the edge of the glass. It’s barely visible, only clear on a tight zoom. “That happened when Vilnus lost his temper one day. He threw a knife at the window.”

“Tell me how to get into the vault, and all this will stop, Darya...”

I suppress a shudder at the echo of memory. “That crack was fixed a few months later. This is an old feed.”

I turn to find Roman staring at the screen, his face hard. “You’re certain?”

I nod. “I... spent a lot of time looking at that window.”

His knuckles tighten on my chair back, hard enough to bend the plastic. The room is silent, every eye warily watching Roman.

Only Mickey seems unperturbed. He hits a few keys, frowning. “If there was another feed, I would have found it. This is it.”

“Ha.” The collective eyes in the room all swing to me. “Can I have a go?”

He raises a skeptical brow. “Do you have some inner tech genius you’ve been keeping under wraps?”

“Not me.” I smile faintly. “But my brother does. His best friend, to be exact.”

“Lars Andersson.” Mickey breathes the name with an almost religious reverence, and a ripple of interest travels through the room.

I glance around curiously. “You guys know him?”

“Everyoneknows him.” He throws Roman a rather challenging look. “We’ve been playing a bit of online hide-and-seek with him these past few weeks.”

By the way Roman is glaring at Mickey, I suspect this is one part of the story he’d rather have kept to himself. “We think Lars might be working with your brother,” he says tersely. “But we’re not sure how.”

“Well, I’m not sure either, but if you’ve found a connection between them, then I can almost guarantee they’re working together. Lars and Alexei have been best friends from the day they met at some gaming convention when Alexei was eight. Alexei pestered our father to let him go to boarding school in London just so they could room together.”

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