Page 90 of Lethal Alliance

It’s taken me most of the past year to train her out of sucking her thumb, a habit that started the day Papa died. Seeing her do it again is somehow devastating proof of our horrible reality.

“Dima will stay with you tonight. Make sure nobody else comes in here.” Alexei is watching me closely.

“What about you?” My voice is barely a whisper. “Won’t you get in trouble?”

“He won’t remember any of it tomorrow.” His mouth twists contemptuously. “As far as he knows, I’m locked in a room down the corridor. That’s where I’ll be when he wakes up. We’ll work out a story to explain the missing guard.” His eye drops to Masha. He says her name gently.

Her head lifts a fraction, her eyes peeking at Alexei then dropping again.

“Your sister is very brave,myshka. And so are you.”

Masha turns her head, looking at Alexei directly. Her thumb slips just below her mouth. “I don’ like it here.”

“I know you don’t. But soon your papa is going to come to take you home. I need you to be a brave girl until then. Can you do that?”

“Papa?” She frowns. “My papa dead.”

I swallow hard, barely able to breathe through the painful lump in my throat. “He means Roman.” I kiss the top of her head. “He means that Roman is coming for us.”

Masha nods slowly. “Roman is papa now? Roman an’ Luce?”

“Yes, Mash. Roman is our papa.” The tears slip from my eyes, tracking down my face and into her curls.

“Papa Roman.” She nods as if this makes perfect sense, still staring at Alexei. “You made the bad man go away.”

“For now.” He doesn’t smile. His eye shifts to me. “I’m trying to get a message to Roman. My friend Lars has been using a code I thought Roman would understand, but so far, no luck. Is there any word I could use that would convince him the message comes from you?”

“Just give me your phone. I’ll call him right now.” My heart leaps at even the thought.

Alexei shakes his head slowly. “I wish it was that simple. Orlov has taken our phones. We’re all confined to the grounds and under close watch, especially after what went down at the airport. Lars, my friend, is on the outside, but we have very limited contact. He’s been hacking into the Hale computers to try to get a message through.”

“Hacking?” I feel a surge of hope. “Then it’s my brother, Mickey, you need to get to. He’s like a computer genius. Seriously,” I say when he looks skeptical. “Mickey actually works with Roman. If your friend can get to him, he’ll tell Roman.”

“Okay.” Alexei still looks unconvinced. “Do you have a code word Lars can use? Something that will make Mickey believe it’s coming from you?”

“I do.” I smile shakily, tears hovering on the edge of my lashes. “Poppins. Tell him to use Mary Poppins.”

“Poppins!” Masha beams, her thumb slipping out of her mouth. “Luce is Poppins!”

“Yes, sweetheart.” I kiss her cheek. “Luce is Poppins. She and Papa Roman are coming to rescue us, soon. Alexei is helping them.”

Masha slides away from me. Standing up, she walks hesitantly over to where Alexei is still kneeling. Reaching out one small hand, she tentatively touches his eye patch. He flinches slightly.

“Where is your eye?”

Alexei gently removes her hand to stop her lifting the patch. “The bad man took it,” he says quietly.

“Does it hurt?”

His mouth twists. It’s almost a smile. “Not anymore.”

There’s a noise from the corridor, and Alexei glances toward the door. When he turns back, his mouth is a grim line once more. “If anyone asks,” he says curtly, “the guard left while you were sleeping, and you don’t know where he went. I’ll try to get the code word to Lars, but I’m not sure when I’ll get a chance.”

He stands up, and so do I, pulling the torn remains of my dress around me. Given how much of me he’s seen already, it’s probably stupid to feel self-conscious now, but I do. “Thank you,” I say quietly.

His eye drops to the purple bloodstains on my gown, and his mouth hardens. The life in his eye dies, replaced by his customary flat, opaque detachment. “Don’t ever thank me,” he says curtly. “Not after what I’ve done to you.”

He leaves the room with the silent, lethal swiftness with which he arrived, there one moment, gone the next.

---