Page 36 of Lethal Alliance

Apart from a few short breaks when he’s used the same sink to wash or to change his clothes, Alexei hasn’t left us alone for a moment.

He has, however, used his knife.

More than once.

I shift slightly and try not to wince. The cuts Alexei made are shallow, but they still sting. They’re under my armpits.

“Cut her where the marks won’t show,” Orlov said. His voice comes through a speaker on the wall most days, but I know he’s watching us from behind the smoked glass on the wall. The wounds bled a lot when Alexei made them, but oddly, I barely felt them at the time. I have an uncomfortable suspicion that he knows exactly where to cut for maximum blood and minimum pain.

I don’t like to think about how a man might learn skills like that.

Masha, of course, believes it is a game. Which is why I have to pretend the cuts don’t hurt and that the blood is fake.

A guard appears at the door and murmurs something in Vilnus’s ear. He smiles, the unpleasant, leering smile I’ve come to dread, and nods. “Bring them here,” he orders, and the guard disappears.

“Well, Ofelia.” Vilnus’s piggish eyes roam over my torn dress, lingering on my almost entirely exposed breasts. “It seems you’re about to have some visitors.”

In the corner, I notice Alexei stiffening.

It’s an odd distinction, given that he barely moves at all. Being so close to him for so long, though, I’ve started noticing the smallest changes in him. The way his face shuts down before he cuts me, for example, his fierce blue eye going strangely dull, as if part of himself has disappeared. Or how gently he hands Masha the food he seems to know she will like the most. How he changes the instant one of Orlov’s guards opens the door, becoming weirdly invisible, so it seems like they don’t even notice him.

And then there are moments like now, when every muscle in his body seems drawn tight, like my piano strings when they’re freshly tuned. He does this any time Vilnus Orlov or one of the guards is in the room. This time, he seems particularly tense, as if he can sense that what is coming is bad.

Which makes me more nervous than I’ve been since we got here, and that’s saying something.

“Where are you taking us?” The voice is loud and injured—and I’d recognize that whining, childish tone anywhere.

A moment later, Uncle Nicky stumbles into the doorway.

He’s still dressed in the tuxedo he was wearing at the ball. His eyes are red rimmed and exhausted, and there’s dried blood from a blow someone has given him to the side of his head. His hands are cuffed behind his back, and he looks dirty and disheveled.

He glances at me briefly, then his eyes slide away and fix on Masha. “I want my daughter.”

Oh, no.

Suddenly it’s all starting to make sense.

Uncle Nicky thinks Masha ishisdaughter.

That’s why he took photographs of her. And why he helped kidnap her.

Not that it explains why he’d want to take me as well. It isn’t like Nikolai has ever even liked me.

But there’s clearly something going on that I don’t understand.

I’ve been trying to make sense of Vilnus’s comments about daughters ever since we’ve been in this room. Some of them make sense now, but not all. I can hardly ask Alexei what they mean, not without upsetting Masha. It wouldn’t make any difference if I did.

Like I said, Alexei doesn’t speak.

Vilnus sneers at Nikolai. “No wonder Borovsky never trusted you with anything more than that pathetic nightclub.”

Borovsky. That name again.

“You really are the dumbest Stevanovsky, aren’t you, Nikolai?” Vilnus puts his face close to Nikolai’s. “Masha isn’t your daughter, Nikolai. She’s mine.”

Masha looks up from her grapes, frowning. “What that mean, ’Felia?”

“Nothing,myshka,” I murmur, tucking her head against me and praying she can’t feel the frantic pace of my heartbeat. “They’re just talking, that’s all.”

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