Page 137 of Blood & Snow
"It's the most beautiful thing I've ever owned."
It's the most expensive thing she's ever owned too.
She opens the lid again, and the tiny ballerina begins her eternal dance.
"You know me very well."
Yes. He knows us all very well.
"We should go inside," I say, standing and taking her hand.
"It's too cold out here."
We return to the warmth of the apartment, where Mikhail is making airplane noises while flying his model through imaginary combat missions.
Irina watches from the kitchen doorway, her expression thoughtful and wary.
"Feeling better?" she asks as I close the balcony door.
"Much," I lie.
But I'm not better.
I'm drowning in the realization that love and fear can occupy the same space in a human heart, that wanting someone and being terrified of them aren't mutually exclusive emotions.
I love Xander Morin with an intensity that frightens me.
And because I love him, I have to find the strength to walk away before his world destroys everything I'm trying to protect.
Even if it destroys me in the process.
23
XANDER
The warehouse crouches on Moscow's eastern edge, where industry meets the frozen wasteland beyond the city's reach.
Concrete walls rise from snow-covered earth, windows dark except for the occasional flicker of movement inside.
Intelligence reports put twelve Sokolov soldiers within those walls, armed and desperate men who believe concrete and steel can protect them from me.
They're wrong.
The night air burns my lungs, each breath forming clouds that dissipate into darkness.
Eight of my best men spread through the shadows around me, weapons cleaned and loaded, faces painted with the black stripes that mark us as predators in the urban jungle.
"Radio check," I whisper into my throat mic.
Responses crackle through my earpiece—Igor on the west side, Ivan covering the rear exit, six others positioned to catch anyone who runs.
The warehouse has three ways in and out, but we've sealed them all.
No one leaves breathing.
Arkady isn't here, at least intelligence doesn't suggest it,but more than half of the men on my list left to remove are positioned inside this building probably planning their assault on my life.
The main entrance is a steel door set into concrete, secured by chains and padlocks that won't slow us down for more than thirty seconds.
