Page 69 of Lethal Alliance

“If she fucked you as well,” I finish for him. I shake my head slowly. “Jesus, Nicky. You really are a piece of shit, aren’t you?” I get my face right up into his, close enough that I can smell the blood and rancid sweat coming off him, the rottenness at the core of the littlemudak.

“Mikhail Stevanovsky was a brother to me,” I say softly, staring right into Nikolai’s bloodshot eyes. “I took a bullet for him, not just once, but many times during the war. I never once counted the scars. I’d willingly take a thousand more bullets if it would give Mikhail one more day on this fucking earth. I’d do it not because of your father, and not because of anything he could offer me, but because I fucking loved Mikhail, and always will.

“It was Mikhail, not me, who made the decision to keep you out of Hale. Because despite the fact that you were his brother, he didn’t trust you at all. Even so, he gave you Pillars and a chance to prove yourself. But that wasn’t enough for you, Nicky, was it? Nothing this world can give you will ever be enough.

“Not Inger, not even thepakhan’s chair you think you deserve—nothing will ever satisfy you. Do you know why that is?”

He doesn’t answer, just watches me. His eyes have grown increasingly wide and more fearful as I’ve spoken. He’s starting to understand what’s going to happen.

“Because you’re a cockroach, Nikolai. You creep around in dark places and feed on anything you can find. You don’t build anything. You don’t create anything. You just sit inside houses other people build for you and eat until there’s nothing left. Then when you fall down, you lie on your back with your legs waving in the air, because you’re too useless to pick yourself up and too fucking stupid to learn from your mistakes.

“I don’t mind cockroaches, Nicky. I’ve always held the opinion that there’s room in this world for all kinds of creatures.”

I stand up and nod at Dimitry.

“But that doesn’t mean I don’t step on the fuckers when they’re living in my goddamn kitchen.”

We put more bullets in Nikolai than is strictly necessary to end his life.

I don’t regret a single one of them.

21

DARYA

“Ireally am sorry I blackmailed you into helping me.” I squeeze Abby’s hand.

“If you apologize one more time, I’m not giving you any more of this wine. Oh, wait.” She looks at the lone wineglass on the table. “I haven’t given you any of the wine anyway. Which means I drank that whole bottle. Which means...” She makes a conclusive circle with her index fingers and holds them up with dramatic flair. “That you’re either someone impersonating my friend—or pregnant.”

“Abby!” I almost choke on my peppermint tea.

“Well, which is it?” She opens another bottle and fills up her glass. “I mean, I already have to learn to call you Darya, so I guess you are a different person. But if memory serves, you were supposed to be taking a test last time I saw you. Which leads me to conclude that option B is still on the table.” She closes her eyes briefly as she swallows a mouthful of wine. When she opens them to look at me, her wineglass pauses in midair and her eyes widen.

“Wait. You’re not really fucking pregnant, are you?”

I grimace. My right shoulder moves a hesitant inch upward, and I give her a tentative smile.

“Shut the front door!” Abby’s mouth is open, her wine threatening to spill onto the couch. I hastily take it from her hand and put it on the coaster. “I mean... wait.” Her eyes snap back into focus, and she pins me with a hard glare. “Tell me you didn’t know this when you ran.”

“There wasn’t much I could do about it—”

“Oh, dear lord.” She is shaking her head slowly, still staring at me. “No wonder CEO Man was ready to rip the entire town apart.”

“No.” I look around nervously. “He doesn’t know. Abs, you can’t tell him. He has enough going on with the children missing.”

“He doesn’t fuckingknow?” She snatches up her wine and downs most of it. “Are you insane? However much he might piss me off, even I know Roman Stevanovsky isn’t the kind of guy you keep secrets from, Luce—Darya. Fuck.” Her face screws up impatiently. “It’s going to take me some time to get used to that. Anyway. You can’t keep that from him. It’s not fair.”

“I know, Abby, alright?” I stand up restlessly, making myself more tea to keep my hands busy. “But I really don’t want him to deal with it now.Idon’t want to deal with it now. He needs to focus on getting the girls back.” The familiar horror presses against my chest. “We both do.”

The gleaming steel surface blurs with the memory of Ofelia and Masha’s terrified faces. They haunt my every minute, whether my eyes are open or closed. It’s hard to sit still. Hard to think, let alone speak, even to Abby, when I can so easily picture them in Orlov’s hands.

“You don’t know what Vilnus Orlov does to girls.” I start to pour tea but stop because my hands are shaking. “You can’t begin to imagine how sadistic he is.”

Abby looks at me for a long moment, her expression unusually opaque. Then she stands up abruptly. “Right. I’ve had a horrible day dealing with Nikolai crying about how unfair life is. You’ve had a horrible day dealing with... well, everything. We’re both going to take long, hot showers, then I’m going to make us a proper meal. And then”—she points a firm finger at me—“you and I are going to sit down and do something we should have done a long time ago.”

“What’s that?”

She fixes me with a stern eye. “You’re going to tell me the truth. Abby and Darya, two point oh. The reboot. This time with the life story. Therealone. Deal?”

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