Chapter 26
ALEKSANDER
I check my watch for the third time in as many minutes.
They’ve been gone too long.
From where I’m standing on the tarmac, I can see the small terminal building, one strip of frosted glass lit from inside. Bella and Lily went in there for the bathroom. Simple. Two minutes in, two minutes out.
It’s been ten.
The crew is ready. The jet is fueled. The engines are on standby. The captain already came down the stairs once to tell me we can depart as soon as we’re boarded.
“We won’t wait long,” he warned politely.
“You’ll wait,” I told him.
Now I’m just standing here with my hands in my pockets so I don’t reach for my gun every five seconds, staring at that door and counting breaths.
Nikolai is about ten meters away, talking to the ground handler. His weight is shifted to one leg. I notice, distantly, that he favors the other.
My phone is in my palm. I’m one second away from texting Bella to hurry when I hear it.
Engines.
Not the jet’s soft whine. Cars.
Headlights swing across the fence, too many at once for a place that’s supposed to be quiet. I turn toward the access road.
Three black cars roll through the open gate in a neat line, like they own the place. No markings. Too clean. Wrong for this airport.
Cold settles in my chest.
Nikolai breaks off his conversation and strides back to my side, his hand instinctively going to his jacket, to his own gun. “Expecting company?” he asks.
“No,” I say.
The first car stops a few meters from us. Doors open in practiced order. Men step out first, scanning the area, hands near their weapons.
Then she steps out.
Irina.
My mother is dressed for a meeting, not a raid. Dark coat, simple blouse, hair smooth, makeup perfect. She looks like she’s on her way to dinner. The only hint of where we are is the way her hair moves in the wind from the idling jet.
I feel my jaw lock.
“How did she even—” Nikolai starts under his breath.
“Don’t,” I cut him off.
She starts walking toward me like this is a social call. Two of her men flank her, hanging back just enough to make it clear they don’t think they’ll need to step in.
I stand my ground.
“You thought you’d get one on me and sneak them away?” she sneers. “Put them on a little plane and make all your problems disappear?”
“They’re not your problem,” I say. “They never were.”
Her lip curls. “Everything connected to you is my problem. You don’t get to decide that.”
We stand facing each other, the wind tugging at her coat, the jet humming quietly behind me, the terminal lights throwing long shadows across the tarmac.
One of her men shifts his weight. I catch the movement. His hand is too close to his jacket.
I take my hands out of my pockets. “Careful,” I say.
“Or what?” Irina asks.
I don’t answer her. I watch the man. He touches the grip of his gun.
That’s all I need.
Mine is out before he clears leather, the weight familiar and steady in my hand. I level it at his chest, and hear another click behind me. Nikolai. His gun comes up, angled at one of Irina’s men.
That’s all it takes.
In a heartbeat, the quiet tarmac turns into a standoff. Every man on her side has a gun in hand now. The captain on the stairs freezes. One of the crew ducks back inside the plane. The air feels wired, ready to snap at the smallest mistake.
Irina doesn’t flinch. She looks from my gun, to her men, then back to my face. Slowly, like she’s bored, she reaches into her coat.
Every muscle in my body tightens.
“Easy,” I say.
She brings her hand out with her own gun and lifts it, smooth as a rehearsal, until it points directly at my heart.
“Do you really think I came here to talk?” she asks.
The rest of the world narrows. I can hear my own pulse in my ears.
One wrong move and there will be bodies all over this concrete.
Nikolai’s stance beside me shifts just enough to tell me he’s ready to shoot or die.
For a second, it’s almost funny. We have done a lifetime of violence together.
It might all end here in a parking lot with my mother.
“I told you,” she says. “Two days. No more. You brought them to me instead. Convenient.”
“You pull that trigger,” I say quietly, “and half your crew dies before they hit the ground.”
She shrugs. “Half is still better than what I lose if that drive stays missing.”
Her finger is resting near the trigger now. Not on it, but close. The man in front of Nikolai shifts his stance. I adjust my aim a hair, keeping Irina in my sights.
The wind gusts hard. Somewhere behind me, metal rattles on the boarding stairs. No one moves.
“This is how you want it to end?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says. There is no hesitation. “With me winning.”
She starts to tighten her finger.
“Stop!”
The shout cuts across the tarmac, high and sharp.
Every head turns. The sound of it hits me like a slap. I know that voice.
Bella is running toward us from the terminal, hair whipping around her face. She doesn’t stop at the line where any sane person would. She keeps coming, sneakers slapping the concrete, breathing hard.
“Stop, please!” she yells again.
“Bella, go back inside,” I shout. My voice comes out harsher than I intend. “It’s not safe, go back now.”
She doesn’t listen. Of course she doesn’t listen.
She comes all the way up to me, close enough that I can reach out and grab her if I let go of the gun.
Her chest is heaving. There is fear in her eyes, but she’s not backing down.
Somewhere behind her, in the doorway, I see a small shape and a flash of blonde.
Lily, held back by someone inside. Selene, probably. Watching.
Irina lifts one brow, amused. “You brought your mistress to a gunfight,” she says. “How romantic.”
Bella ignores her. She looks at me first, then at the gun in my hand, then at the one in Irina’s.
“I know where the drive is,” she says.
I stare at Bella, my heart pounding against my ribs. “What did you say?” I ask.
Her breathing is still rough, but her voice is clear. “I know where it is,” she repeats. “I know where the drive is.”
She turns, lifts her hand, and points.
At Nikolai.
“He has it,” Bella says. “Nikolai has the drive.”
For a second, nobody moves.
I feel, more than see, Nikolai’s whole body go rigid beside me. Then he lets out a short, incredulous laugh.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he says. “She’s concussed, Alek. You’re really going to listen to this?”
Irina’s eyes light up. She looks from Bella, to Nikolai, to me. “Now this is interesting,” she murmurs.
“Bella,” I say, keeping my gun up, my voice tight. “Think about what you’re saying.”
“I have,” she fires back. She’s shaking, but she doesn’t back down. “I remember more now.”
My mother gestures lazily with her gun. “Go on then,” she says. “Entertain me.”
Bella swallows, but her voice stays clear. “On that flight,” she says, looking at Nikolai, “Elena wasn’t the only one who killed Kirov. You did it together. You and her.”
The wind cuts across the tarmac. Nobody moves.
“You knew he was carrying something for Irina. I’m betting you got wind of it during your time in Russia,” she goes on.
“You were Aleksander’s right hand. You had access to his plans, his schedule, his seat.
Elena had access to the cabin, to who sat where, to who got bumped where.
Between the two of you, you had everything you needed. ”
Nikolai’s jaw tightens, just a fraction.
“You waited until the lights were down, until everyone was half-asleep. You and Elena went to his row. One of you distracted. The other did it. Quick. Quiet. You killed him and walked away like nothing happened. And then you pinned it on Aleksander.”
She looks at Irina now. “You wanted someone to blame, someone to ask questions about. And who better than the son you already hated?”
Irina’s face doesn’t change, but her gun doesn’t waver either.
Bella keeps going.
“You got the drive off Kirov’s body,” she says, turning back to Nikolai. “But you couldn’t just walk around with it. Everyone was looking for it. Everyone on both sides. So you hid it somewhere no one would search.” Her eyes flash. “In one of Lily’s toys.”
It hits me like a punch.
“Elena helped me out on the flight,” she says, voice trembling but steady. “She was kind to me. She even offered to help with my luggage when I was struggling with Lily and all the bags.”
She swallows, glancing at me, then at Irina.
“That’s when she did it. She must have slipped the drive inside Lily’s bunny.
It was the perfect place. No one would check a child’s toy.
And we left early, thanks to Aleksander’s connection.
The police never questioned us, and that’s the way you intended it to be. ”
Nikolai is still silent, tense.
“You couldn’t get it back,” Bella says. “Not until yesterday. Because Lily wouldn’t let it go. She held that bunny everywhere she went. Slept with it. Walked with it. Clutched it like her life depended on it.”
She draws a breath. “And then, conveniently, she gets sick. Suddenly she’s in a hospital. Exhausted. Hooked to IVs. Sedated. Out of it. And you just happen to be around, with every excuse to go in and out of her room, go through our things, take whatever you want.”
Her voice hardens. “If I had to bet, I’d say you had something to do with that too.”
Irina’s eyes narrow, finally turning fully on Nikolai.
“And when you still couldn’t be sure where the drive ended up,” Bella says, “you went back. With Elena. You tried to take me out of the hospital, away from Aleksander, so you could squeeze answers out of me and search anything I’d touched. That’s when I cut you.”
She takes a step closer, still between me and my mother’s gun, like she doesn’t even realize what she’s doing.
“On that flight,” she says, quieter now, “you and Elena killed Kirov together and pinned the blame on Aleksander. And if I had to bet, I’d say you had something to do with putting him on that flight in the first place.”