Page 97 of Lethal Alliance

Roman stands on the tarmac as our plane takes off. I stare at him out the window as we roar down the runway, drinking in his tall, wide-legged figure, his arms folded across his chest. Clad in black, face grim and set, the sun gleaming off his aviator sunglasses, every muscled inch of him spells darkness and danger.

I’ve never loved him more.

I put my hand on the window, not knowing if he can see me or not. He raises his own in a final salute. I watch until his figure fades to a speck far below and the plane turns west.

I turn back to find Rosa watching me. Her sunglasses are gone. Her eyes are a soft brown, shadowed with old pain. I can see Roman in her face, in the determined set of her jaw, the high forehead and sculptured lips. They curve now in a half smile so similar to her son’s it makes my heart twist.

“You love him.” It isn’t a question.

I nod. “I do.”

Her eyebrows arch curiously. “How did that happen?” Then, as if recalling the circumstances of our meeting, her smile falters, the light in her eyes fading. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“I don’t.” I take the ginger tea the stewardess offers and sip it gingerly, though my sickness is notably absent, probably scared away by the drama of today. “I was working in a café across the road from Roman’s business. He came in every morning for coffee.”

I realize I’m smiling. Those days seem so far away now, like another life.

“Ah!” Rosa’s eyes sparkle. “So it was love at first sight?” Her voice has a faint lilt, a singsong accent that is a reminder of her Colombian heritage. It reminds me painfully of my own mother.

“Not exactly.” I actually laugh softly. “We used to try to outsmart one another. I would do the crossword in his favorite paper. He would try to... make me uncomfortable. Every day was like a little battle of wills, I guess.”

Rosa’s smile widens, and when it does, her entire face lights up. “But this is exactly how love begins, I think, no?”

I lift a shoulder. “Maybe, yes.”

“But he didn’t know who you truly were? Or you him?” Her forehead wrinkles when I shake my head, her eyes searching my face. “How can such a coincidence happen?”

“I don’t know.” My smile fades. “It wasn’t... easy, for either of us, when we found out the truth. I was working as Roman’s au pair by then, living in his house.”

“Yes.” She sips her glass of champagne. “Your father told me this, but I could hardly believe it. I thought that he must be losing his mind at first.” She smiles at me apologetically.

“Didyouknow who he was by then?” It’s something I’ve wondered ever since Papa told me about Roman opening the vault. “Roman, I mean. Did you know he had changed his name to Stevanovsky? Where he was?”

“No.” Her face falls, and she seems to shrink into herself. It’s awful, like watching the sun disappear behind the clouds. Worse than that, because I know intuitively that I’m watching Rosa slip back behind the running mask. I know that mask. I wore it for six years.

I can’t help but wonder how it would feel to have worn it for over two decades.

“The alert system from the bank was set up more than twenty years ago, when technology was much different than it is now. And it was set up carefully, to avoid any kind of trap. It took months for news to reach me that someone had accessed the safety deposit box. When I finally came to Switzerland I was cautious. You must realize.” Her eyes meet mine, opaque with old pain. “At that time, Roman had been thought dead for nearly a decade.”

“My father said you never believed that.”

“No.” Her mouth almost smiles, then falls still again. “No, I never did. But what mother wants to believe her child dead? It was all I had, the only reason—” She cuts off abruptly, but she doesn’t need to finish the sentence.

The only reason I had to stay alive.

I understand that better than she could ever know.

She takes a deep breath. “I still didn’t know much. The biometrics Roman used to enter the bank showed his fingerprints, but there wasn’t an optical scan when I first closed the box, so that didn’t help, and I know better than anyone that fingerprint casts can be made. The bank wouldn’t show me the footage of the person who opened the box. And then there was the fact that the egg was still inside it—along with the key. Afterward, when I told him, Sergei and I argued about that, about what it might mean.” She smiles at me sadly. “We argued about everything. It was when you were still in Argentina. Sometimes we could manage to meet, when you were working.”

I tense, and she touches my leg, a gentle gesture of apology. “You must not judge your father for keeping my secrets. I had been running a long time by then. I was... hardened. Fearful. And, I confess, I was angry, too. Sergei still had two children. I had lost everyone, everything, that mattered to me. He didn’t want me to go to Switzerland at all, but I insisted.” Her mouth twists. “After Switzerland, we swapped sides in our argument. I was convinced that whoever had opened that box was impersonating my son, trying to draw us all out. Sergei argued that anyone other than my son would have taken the egg and run.

“In the end, it was Alexei who initially made the connection. Or rather, a journalist whose articles he was following.”

“A journalist?” I frown. “Not Lance Ryder?”

Rosa nods. “He did a piece on your family that concerned Alexei deeply, since it used your photo.”

I nod. “I saw it, in a doctor’s office in Spain.”

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