Page 133 of Surrender to Me
Frantically I try to calculate the value of something like that. My dad’s guess that his take would be at least a hundred million is definitely right.
“The nobleman fled Russia, fearing the Bolsheviks and other criminal factions.”
I nod.
“He made his way to Colorado, which wasn’t unusual. But there was a trail of death associated with the Tear.”
Which added to the mystique.
“Alexei had a mining background and supposedly built a vault in the Rockies to protect the Tear. He created a vellum map and a ceramic fob—together they form the instructions to open the vault. He locked both items in a safe-deposit box. He was murdered for the box key.”
How have I never heard this fantastical story before?
“From there, everything goes quiet for about fifty years. Then supposedly the items were stolen, and the map was almost destroyed.”
Which explains the one surviving piece of vellum that was in my locket.
“Then a couple of months ago, we heard that the Bratva had been robbed. We knew of the map, not the locket.”
“Bratva?” As in Russian mafia?
The clearing flashes behind my eyes in perfect, brutal clarity: the black coats, the calm efficiency of men who didn’t flinch when bullets started flying, the way they fanned out like wolves who’d done this a hundred times before.
Remy on his knees, blood pouring between his fingers, still trying to shield me even after taking bullets.
Bratva.
I killed one of theirs.
My stomach lurches so violently; I have to press a hand to my mouth. Remy is dead because of me. Stryker could have been killed.
They weren’t random thugs. They were soldiers. And soldiers have brothers.
Stryker’s watching me, reading every flicker across my face. He closes the locket with deliberate care, the soft click loud in the sudden silence, then cups it between both his palms—like he’s shielding the thing that almost got us all killed. Like he’s shielding me.
“Even if they get the fob and the locket, I will never be safe.”
Remy never knew. He died thinking he was pulling me away from some greedy collector or a rival crew. Not the Bratva. If he’d known, would he have come at all?
I stare at the closed locket in Stryker’s hands and feel the weight of every choice my father ever made settle on my shoulders like a shroud.
I’m not just a thief’s daughter anymore.
I’m a Bratva target.
And there is no alias on earth deep enough to hide me from that.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Stryker
In my arms, Lyra has gone rigid, her spine tight as a drawn wire.
Lyra thinks she’s dead.
That Bratva is coming, and she’s their next target.
But she’s wrong.
