Page 26 of Tarnished Queen

I gasp. “No.”

“Yes,” Nikolai bears down. “She slaughtered innocent people who were there to help her, and then fled. That’s the kind of person you were working for.”

“I wasn’t working for her! I was working for… for myself,” I fumble. “It didn’t have anything to do with her.”

He snorts. “Great. So you’d have worked for anyone who offered you a one-way ticket out of the country? Good to know your loyalty is only worth a couple hundred bucks.”

I groan. “That is not fair. You didn’t give me many options.”

Nikolai lets go of my arm and spins around. We’re too close, my chin nearly against his chest. He throws his arms out wide.

“Tonight, I gave you a world of options. You were free and you could have gone anywhere, done anything. You could have searched women’s shelters for Elise. You could have had missing posters hung up over half of downtown by now. And instead, you came traipsing right to the fucking cops. Which is almost worse than if you’d gone straight to Xena.”

I frown. “Would you rather I betrayed you again?”

“Rather than being dumb enough to accidentally rat me and my entire Bratva out to the morons in blue? Yeah,” he says. “Because at least I know how to handle traitors.”

The implication there is hard to miss. If I had gone to Xena, Nikolai would have killed me.

“But this…” He gestures to me and sighs. I feel like I’m wilting in place, getting smaller and weaker and sadder with every passing second. “I’ll have to find a way to deal with you now.”

“You could let me go,” I say softly. “I’ll promise not to go to the police or tell anyone—”

Nikolai laughs, stopping my words in their tracks. Then he grabs my arm. “Get in the car, Belle. I have better places to be.”

9

NIKOLAI

Fifteen minutes after I get Belle back to the house—and locked in a room that isn't designed to be easily escaped this time around—I get a call from one of my lieutenants, Yuri.

"I found Elise," he reports. "She's at Urban Family Center. Just checked into a communal room an hour ago."

"Did she look okay? Any injuries? Was she with anyone?"

"Alone and unharmed as far as I could tell," Yuri replies. "I kept my distance, though. Like you asked."

All of my available men had the same mission: find Elise. I may have told Belle I'd let Elise die on the streets, but even I was surprised how easily she believed me. Then again, I don’t think she could have fucked me the way she did if she really, truly thought I’d abandon her baby sister to die.

“Good work. Call the rest of the team off. All of you pivot to searching for Xena.”

“Do you want me to pick Elise up?” he asks. “I’m already here.”

“No. Send Ars—”

I wince and the words die on my lips. Sending Arslan is no longer an option. This fucking ache in my chest every time I think of that miserable bastard’s name will not go away.

“I’ll handle it,” I finish gruffly. “She knows me.”

I hang up the phone before Yuri says anything else.

* * *

The place is a dump.

Junked, rusted-out cars line the curbs on both sides of the street. Trash gathers in the gutters and blows across the pavement, the urban equivalent of tumbleweeds. Plywood boards cover shattered windows and seal off buildings that have been abandoned longer than Elise has been alive.

A couple teenagers are standing under a streetlight halfway down the block, passing a glowing joint back and forth between them. They close ranks as I walk past.

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