Page 20 of Sapphire Tears

“And you found… like, a trail? Evidence?”

He gives me only a cursory sideways glance, and I find myself wishing we were sitting across from one another, face to face. So that I could see his expressions. So that I could judge them.

“I know my brother.”

I frown. “That doesn’t make sense.”

He looks surprised by my insistence, and more than a little bit irritated. “Are you trying to tell me that you’re disappointed I saved you?”

I almost rise to the bait. But I’m not going to let him turn this around on me. “I’m asking you a question,” I say firmly.

He sighs and regrips the steering wheel. “I know how Kolya operates, and I also know where his safehouses are, where he likes to do business. I had heard rumors a few years ago that he brought women out here when they were changing hands.”

It strikes me as just vague enough to be true. Then I catch myself combing through it meticulously and I shake my head. Adrian is right—I’m acting ridiculous. He just saved me from someone who very obviously had bad intentions. I should be grateful, not suspicious.

I guess I just can’t help but feel like anything is possible right now. My life is operating on dream logic.

If anything is possible, then the ones you thought you could trust can turn out to be the enemy.

If anything is possible, then the ones you thought abandoned you can come back to haunt you.

And you won’t know which is which.

9

KOLYA

I throw a dart at the bulletin board. I had it erected less than twenty-four hours after June disappeared, and it’s already bristling with papers, pictures, maps, scraps of evidence. All of Ravil’s properties are marked in red pins across a map of the city.

Every single one of them has been turned inside out and upside down over the last few days by my men.

Every single one of them has come up empty.

Scowling, I march over to the board, rip the dart free, and march back to my spot. I have my arm cocked back to hurl it again when a sound comes from the door.

Knock-knock-knock.

“Enter.”

Milana slinks in wearing a gleaming cream-colored pantsuit and a pinched expression. The only pops of color in her ensemble are her blood-red heels and dark burgundy lipstick.

“You hate knocking,” I point out, rolling the dart between my fingers.

“And you hate darts. Yet here we are.” She sits down gracefully in the armchair across from me and eyes the board with a mixture of disappointment and resignation. “Kolya—”

“Don’t.”

She sighs. “Kolya, we have very few stones left to turn.”

I don’t look at her. “I’m aware.”

The fabric of her clothes shuffles as she leans back and crosses one leg over the other. “I’m on your side. You know that, right?”

“Are you?”

Her eyes go wide with disbelief before she composes herself. “You’re joking,” she says. “After all our history together, I know you can’t possibly be—”

“I can’t just let her slip away, Milana,” I growl, abandoning the dart and dropping myself hard into the other armchair. “I can’t just stop searching.”

---