Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Xeniya Morozova
Istepped out of my black SUV with tinted windows, my two Irish guards following on my heels. My phone rang, and I glanced down at the screen.
Sabine was calling again, for the third time in three weeks. I ignored the call. I took two more steps up the gravel driveway, and my phone buzzed again. This time, it was Seraphina Keres calling, the consultant from the FBI on serial killers.
I pushed my side button again, ignoring the call.
There was absolutely no way those calls weren’t related.
Sera and Sabine were good friends and often worked together on projects.
We were sometimes like Greek Furies, seeking justice together, and I sometimes aided them in their causes…
especially Sabine, since she had once saved my life.
But I had a job to do and Russians to hunt. I could save their serial killer issues for later.
Unless… they were trying to warn me that the FBI was onto my victims. Hardly. All my targets were made men or men who simply disappeared, and my face would never show up on surveillance footage. I was a ghost. Besides, I always wiped the footage. So it was nearly impossible for me to get caught.
No, I was fine.
So why were they calling?
My phone buzzed again, and I groaned. “The absolute worst fucking timing, Sera,” I answered, holding the smartphone up to my ear.
“Good to talk to you, too,” Seraphina said on the other line.
“Is this vitally important?” I asked.
Seraphina let out an audible sigh. “It’s about the Embroiderer. You were—”
And that’s where I cut her off. “Great, well, good talking to you, Sera, but I’m incredibly busy.” I hung up and put my phone on my most restrictive Do Not Disturb. I turned to my guards. “Sorry about that, gents. Shall we?”
Neeve would not have approved of me ignoring Seraphina’s call, especially about the Embroiderer, but as I told her the other day, I am only one person. One vigilante man-hunting killer. Sera and presumably Sabine could hunt down the Embroiderer without me.
I glanced up at the menacing mansion standing before me. Goosebumps rose on my arms. This place always made me feel a little sick, and I was intentionally walking back inside—a place I once thought of as a prison, until I knew what confinement actually was.
My two Irish guards, Donal and Liam, whom I once thought of as babysitters but now considered friends, stood beside me.
They were two of Cormac’s most trusted men and knew exactly why I was here.
They hunted the Lethean Order too. Because the Order had gone after one of their own, and now the Irish and I would destroy every single piece of them.
“Do we knock?” I asked, awkwardly, as I stepped up to the massive carved wooden doors.
Everything about the Russian compound was built to intimidate.
It was built into a renovated Gilded Age mansion, hidden behind stone walls and among hundreds of acres of woodland, with an artificial lake nestled within.
The property had ten buildings, from security buildings to staff quarters to a training unit, plus three smaller houses. It was like its own small city.
The first time I remembered coming here was when I was four years old, holding a stuffy in one hand and my father’s hand in the other. I remembered looking up, seeing the lions carved into the door, and being very impressed.
I reached up to knock, but the door swung open. My sister’s face appeared before me, my hand still hanging in the air between us.
“Oh, hi, again.” Surprise scattered my thoughts as I stepped back, my hand dropping to my side.
“I saw you pull up on the cameras,” Nika said bluntly. “Who was on the phone?”
“I’m not certain any of that would be any of your business,” I responded before thinking it through, but so had Nika, probably.
It was not appropriate for her to ask such a thing of her boss’s fiancé.
“You’re here for Severin?” she asked, blocking us from entering.
I ran my sweaty palm along my jeans. “Yes, he asked me to come.”
“I see,” Nika said, stepping out of the way and allowing us to enter a great entrance hall with a massive spiral staircase. “I will let him know you’re here.”
“Thank you.” I flashed a false smile.
Nika started up the stairs, presumably to find Severin, when a storm of blonde hair appeared out of a side hall.
A blonde child, maybe around seven or eight years old, marched straight up to me and stomped on my foot.
Hard.
“Ouch,” I said slowly, staring at this little wild creature.
“Good.” She glared up at me with fire in her eyes. “You will never be my mother.”
I let out a snort. “I don’t ever want to be your mother. Who even are you, little spawn?”
I bit the inside of my cheek. It might have been a little too harsh to tell a young child I didn’t want to be her parent. Did that cause emotional damage?
I was not maternal. Except…
Well, that didn’t matter. I certainly wasn’t maternal now. I barely even knew how to speak to a child. What did one even say? It was not like I could talk to her about coding or cutting open a body to prolong life and suffering.
That did not feel remotely appropriate.
Spawn was probably not the best choice of language either.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Nika rushed in and put an arm around the girl’s chest, pulling her back. “Svetlana is not supposed to be in this part of the house right now.” Nika directed the last bit to the girl as a reprimand.
“Is she your daughter?” I asked. If I tilted my head to the side, I could see the resemblance, but the girl also looked nothing like Nika. She had platinum-blonde hair, light skin, and forest-green eyes.
Nika had hazel eyes and a more olive tint to her skin.
“Oh, no, she’s a Volkov.” Nika messed up the girl’s hair. “Volkov blonde, after all.”
Wait. The pieces of the puzzle slammed together… Volkov child… attached to Severin. And she lived on the compound. Holy fuck. Severin had a daughter.
I took a step back, all the blood rushing from my face. Fuck. I rubbed my chest. That hurt more than I expected.
I dragged myself back under control and forced a smile.
But how was this even possible? I’d done my research. I’d spent years stalking the Volkovs. Years.
And I’d never seen this child on any video footage.
Ever.
Not a single instance on camera in eight years… how?
Unless they knew I had hacked their surveillance systems. Was this a trap for me? Severin was clever enough for it.
“Oh, she’s not Severin’s either,” Nika said, examining my face.
Was I that obvious?
Probably. I had taken a full step backward as if I’d been hit.
The one saving grace was that I was supposed to be Severin’s fiancée, so it was legitimate for me to be concerned about a bastard child.
But Nika had just said the girl was a Volkov… then who else could it be?
Instead of playing this guessing game, I asked, “Who’s her father, Aleksandr?”
“Oh, God, no,” Nika laughed. “She’s Mikhail’s daughter.”
Mikhail. I exhaled a relieved breath. Somehow, it was important that Severin hadn’t gotten another girl pregnant, even though I had every intention of killing him. He didn’t belong to me, and I didn’t want to lay claim to him, and yet…
Somehow this mattered.
In the awkward silence, Nika continued, “Her mother died in childbirth, and because Mikhail travels so much to Russia, she lives here.”
“I didn’t know Mikhail had a—” What was the appropriate name for a baby momma?
“Apparently he was rather devastated when his wife died.”
“I mean it feels like an appropriate thing to be devastated about.”
Nika nodded, the vein in her jaw pulsing. “Yes, of course.”
Oh, that was a big reaction. Nika didn’t like me implying she didn’t have empathy for Mikhail’s deep grief.
I turned back to the girl, Svetlana. “I am not marrying Mikhail. Why would you think I’d become your new mom?”
I wasn’t sure if that was an age-appropriate question. I seriously knew nothing about children. It was a problem.
“Because he’s not my father,” Svetlana spat. “Severin is—”
“Sveta is very attached to Severin,” Nika cut in quickly.
“I see…” I said slowly, looking back at the little blonde hellion.
“Hurt my dad, and I will hurt you,” Svetlana said through her teeth before turning on her heel and stomping out.
“Noted,” I called after her, then turned to Nika. “She’s a little fireball, isn’t she?”
“Yeah, she’s very protective of anyone she cares about.”
A very Severin thing. Maybe the child was his, not by parentage but temperament.
Wonderful. I sighed. When I did kill Severin, I was certain this little girl would one day hunt me down and try to end me for it. And by then, I might welcome it.
“Oh, you’re early,” a low, velvety voice echoed from up the stairs.
Severin Volkov. He wore a perfectly pressed suit with navy blue accents. Unfortunately, he looked dashing.
But then he always had.
“I am not early,” I said. “I am precisely on time.”
“Ah, I see.” He smiled, and his gaze latched onto Nika. “I’ll take it from here. I wanted to get to know my new fiancée.”
A flat-out dismissal of Nika. Hmm, Severin really didn’t trust the Morozovs, did he?
Nika pinched her lips into a flat line before responding. “Of course. I’ll get back to work then.”
Severin smiled and nodded. “Yes, good.”
I tipped my head up to view him better; he still hadn’t come down. “Should I meet you up there then?”
“Yes, if you would.”
I rubbed my hands down my jeans—they were unreasonably damp today—and started up the steps.
It felt like, with each step, my heart slammed into my ribcage like a bird trying to escape a cage.
Step.
Slam.
Step.
Slam.
Step.
Slam.
It felt as if I were walking to the executioner’s block. Except, I was the executioner here. I was the predator, infiltrating my prey. I was the dangerous one.
But tell that to my overworking fucking heart.
When I reached the top of the stairs, I plastered a bright, fake smile on my lips.