Page 124 of Devotion

And Ero just watches us, a smug look in his eyes.

“This is impossible. How did you find us?” I finally stutter out.

“Well, it actually is a funny story. You found me.” He steps from the shade of the overhang, spinning his mask on one finger.

“You bastard. You killed my family!” Vanya growls, taking a step forward. It’s then that it all clicks back into place. That my brother is responsible for…

Shit.

And we don’t have any weapons. Ero on the other hand has two pistols, knives, and who knows what else.

“Take it easy, Ivanka,” Ero frowns, holding up his hands placatingly. “I was just?—”

“Her name is Vanya, and everyone just…wait.” I snap, blocking her path, hammering my brother with a vicious glare.

“Huh. A girl finally got you good. Never thought it was possible.”

“A lot has changed.” I need to get a handle on this. Now.

“Clearly. I barely recognize you. I certainly didn’t in Russia. But I heard rumors about an American. Even shot at you without realizing it. Then you showed up here, looking for the Mocro…looking for me, or this mask anyway.”

“That is why you wanted his name. To know for certain.” Vanya shakes her head. “All of that torture. And thenyouconvinced Adil to let us live.”

“It was you?” I ask, feeling two steps behind.

“No shit. We also tortured you to see if you knew where Pyotr was. You were a little delirious, though.”

“Fucking murderer!” Vanya shouts, her eyes wild. I share her anger, her outrage, but I can’t reconcile it with my brother being the one in the mask, the one who killed Matvey.

“That’s my job. Now can we get going? Lotta ground to cover.”

“I will go nowhere with you, I will bury you—” Her words are cut off as Fiero flips out a gun and pops off a shot at her.

No! I rush for Vanya as she falls. It hits me how quiet the gun was as I lift her body.

“Relax. She’s just unconscious. I figured she wouldn’t be keen on me.”

“Neither am I.”

“We need to talk. Get in the car.”

I hesitate for a moment, anger and frustration warring in my head and heart like a wheel of fortune but with emotions. Only the pie slices on the wheel are almost all titled “strangle your twin brother.” The wheel slows, stopping halfway between “dissociate” and “freeze up.” So I head toward the car.

After sitting Vanya in the back, gently propping her head on a blanket, I slide into the passenger seat, my heart pounding. Ero eases into the driver’s seat, giving me a side-eye.

“What?” he chirps, starting the car.

“This is fucking weird.”

“You’refucking weird.”

I start to argue, to snap back. Instead, I close my mouth as he pulls out along the deserted road. For a split second, I have a flashback, severe déjà vu. The two of us in a sports car, road-tripping and totally wasted across the Mojave Desert. We were barely eighteen.

Then I’m back in the present.

And Ero looks like a stranger sitting next to me.

“Where are we going?”

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