Page 90 of One For my Enemy

Yaga nodded carefully, brushing Marya’s hair back from her face.

“Sasha was always the most resistant of all my daughters,” Yaga said. “You doubted she was ready once yourself, didn’t you, Mashenka?”

“I didn’t doubt her,” Marya said. “I just didn’t want this life for her.”

“And now?” Yaga prompted.

“And now I know this is the only life possible for any of us,” Marya said, “and that anyone who promises otherwise is a fool or a liar,”or they are Dima,she thought,who may very well be both.

It was impossible to tell whether this was an answer Yaga was pleased to hear. She was a hard woman, difficult to read, and even with a little brush of death to put things in perspective, Marya could not consider herself any wiser with regard to her mother’s intentions.

Marya knew, though, when it had mattered, she had not abandoned her mother. And when it mattered—when it was impossible to consider such a thing could even be done—her mother had not abandoned her. After everything she’d already lost, Marya Antonova would not stray from her mother’s side, and she wouldn’t allow Sasha to do so, either.

“I’ll talk to her,” Marya said, and slipped out from her mother’s room, padding quietly down the hall to Sasha’s bedroom.

The door was ajar; Sasha, too, was staring out her window, eyeline cast among the stars. For a moment, Marya only stared at her, at the shape of her sister’s narrow shoulders and the tilt of her stubborn chin, and knew instinctively that Sasha could feel her there. Marya knew that now, more than ever—whether Sasha knew it or not—the two of them were more similar than they had ever been, or would ever be.

They both knew the same ache, though Marya’s was only a memory. Only an echo, rather than the too-sharp ache of it. Dimitri had remembered his promise to her, and now it was serving her well.

Still, she painted on a little sympathy. “Is it a pain that can be eased, Sashenka?” Marya asked softly, and Sasha turned to look at her, gaze still dark with contemplation.

“I don’t think so,” Sasha said. “Not yet. Not until—”

She trailed off, eyeing the stitching of her duvet.

“Not until I’ve made him pay,” she murmured, drawing her fingers along the shape of the threading; tracing a line of inevitability, looping back and forth in an infinite wave.

“And until then,” Marya said, stepping further into the room. “What can be done until then?”

“Nothing,” Sasha said, “unless you can make Eric Taylor less of an asshole.” She paused the motion of her finger. “I know we need his network, Masha, but having to be near him is—it’s horrible. It’sunbearable,and all I can think is that L-”

She broke off.

She couldn’t say his name.

I understand, Marya wanted to say—because truly, she understood few things better than the crippling taste of a lost name on her lips—but she didn’t. She merely took a seat on Sasha’s bed and reached for her hand, gently placing her fingers on top of Sasha’s.

“Even good men will stand against you,” Marya warned. That she understood more than anything. “Even good men will let you down.”

Sasha glanced at her hands. “Well, it’s worse to have to deal with the awful ones.”

Marya nodded. “Then don’t,” she said, and Sasha looked up, surprised.

“But—I thought the point was to expand our network, and then—”

“You don’t need Eric Taylor to do that for you,” Marya said. “You can forge your own way forward, Sashenka, if that’s what you want.”

“Only men are making deals this stupid,” Sasha said, grimacing. “And none of them will ever listen to me.”

Marya tightened her grip on Sasha’s fingers.

“Thenmakethem,” she said quietly.

Sasha gave Marya a fleeting half-smile. “You say that like it’s so easy, Masha.”

“Because it is,” Marya said. “Because nobody will deny you anything the moment you stop denying yourself. Who could possibly have sovereignty greater than yours?” she asked, insistent. “Who on earth could have the right to refuse you, if you do not permit it? If this isn’t the way, Sasha, then find another one.”

Sasha nodded slowly, and Marya shifted to take her sister’s face carefully between both hands.

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