29. Heart of Ice
Heart of Ice
Ilya was worried. Louna could see it in the way his gaze kept darting toward the door, how he watched her from the corner of his eyes when she stopped moving.
His scrutiny rankled, and after making the introductions between the boys, she retreated to the back rooms to change out of her wet clothes.
The bedrooms were more like dormitories, filled with rows of unmade bunk beds, and the bathrooms were each equipped with a nonfunctioning shower, sink, and toilet.
She claimed one of the bathrooms and stripped off her ruined dress, drying herself with multiple towels and running her fingers through her hair in an attempt to comb it.
She found a stack of sheets in a linen closet and wrapped one around her body, tying it off at one shoulder in a simple dress.
There was nothing else, but she could always teach the boys to tie togas if they were feeling modest.
Louna left her gown draped over the shower rod and returned to the main room, where Philippe was boiling water over the fireplace. Someone had coaxed Lindsey into a chair, and he was sitting on a towel with his arm elevated while Jean-Claude took a closer look at his wound in the lantern light.
Ilya snorted when she came in. “Leave it to you to find a way to make that look good,” he said, leaning against the wall by the door.
She waved down the hall behind her. “There are more sheets if anyone wants to use them.”
“My clothes are already drying,” Jean-Claude said, without looking up from his work.
“Mine too,” Philippe said. “We weren’t out as long as you two.”
“I’ll change later,” Lindsey said. His voice was heavy with weariness and pain now that the adrenaline had worn off, and he tipped his head back against the chair and closed his eyes.
Louna sat on the couch and looked up at Ilya. “All right. How did you find us?”
He folded his arms. “You missed your check-in. I was waiting at the Nest like you said, but when you didn’t text, I called.”
“My phone got wet,” Louna said.
Ilya nodded. “I figured, once I saw you. I thought you might need some help, so I tracked the van and followed you here. Sorry I didn’t bring any extra clothes.”
“He did have a better first aid kit, though,” Jean-Claude said, gesturing to the supplies laid out on the end table beside Lindsey’s chair.
Ilya’s gaze found hers, his expression solemn. “I’m sorry about Stone. I know he—”
“We need to figure out what to do next,” Louna said, looking to the others. “Lindsey, when will Blake arrive?”
“Not sure,” he said without opening his eyes. “She was in Naples when I called her. It’ll depend on how quickly the paperwork goes through.”
Louna nodded. “Now that Ilya’s here, we can split up in the morning. Lindsey, you and the Verdiers can go back to Bucharest to wait for Blake, and Ilya and I will go back to the castle.”
She expected argument, but the boys were quiet. Philippe had his back to the room as he watched his melted snow, and Jean-Claude kept his attention on Lindsey’s shoulder. Lindsey opened his eyes long enough to study her, then closed them again.
“Lou,” Ilya said softly. “What’s going on? You told me about the American, but I know there’s something else. Normally, I don’t have a problem letting you do things your way, but this...” He waved one hand to encompass the room. “I can’t help if I don’t know what’s happening.”
That was the problem, wasn’t it? If Louna had told them what was happening—if she’d told Tennyson—she wouldn’t have had to take out her earbud to meet with Hartmann.
She would have heard that Tennyson was surrounded, and she could have cleared the castle sooner.
They could have taken care of Hartmann together before they released Lindsey.
If she had, he might be sitting beside her now.
The room was warm, and the firelight cast a soft glow over the faces of the men gathered around her. She took a breath and held it, wishing she could talk to Charlotte, wishing she was not alone on the couch.
She had not told Tennyson when he asked for the truth. She wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
“Harlow’s after the ring,” she said.
Ilya inhaled. After a moment, he said, “That’s what you found in his studio. That’s why he let you go.”
“I found a picture,” she said. “It had the ring with the crest, and I played a hunch to see what he would do. He didn’t agree to let us go until I said your name, which means he knows the history.”
“What history?” Lindsey asked. “What ring?”
She turned to him. “Ilya’s great-grandfather was entrusted with hiding part of the Romanov treasure before the family was arrested. He lost most of it during a Bolshevik raid, but he was able to salvage some, along with a ring to prove its authenticity.”
“He passed it down to his son,” Ilya jumped in. “But my grandfather had a bit of a gambling problem. He lost it all except for the ring. My father has been obsessed with getting it back.”
Louna inhaled the smell of woodsmoke, wishing it would soothe the headache pounding through her skull.
“There have been rumors of a lost Romanov treasure—they come up every few years, and then die down again—but when I saw the picture in Harlow’s studio, I suspected that he’d made a connection.
I think he was trying to forge it. He maybe already has. ”
“Why?” Philippe asked.
“I spoke to a professor at St. Petersburg,” Louna said, looking to Ilya and swallowing back the guilt boiling through her. “She said the ring is a key.”
A frown settled over Ilya’s face. “A key to what?”
“I don’t know,” Louna said. “But whatever it is, Harlow wants it.”
The fire crackled, and the room was still as they considered. Then Ilya let out a breath and raised his hand, and the lantern light flashed off a gold signet on his little finger.
If Louna had been able to smile, she would have. Instead, she held out her hand, and Ilya removed the ring and set it in her palm.
“Papa will kill us both if you lose that,” he said.
Louna held up the ring to examine it in the flickering light. It was the same design, the same eagle and crown, and she ran her finger over the tiny crest.
“Does Harlow know what the treasure is?” Ilya asked. “Or where to find it?”
Louna shrugged, sliding the ring onto her pointer finger. “All we know is that he hasn’t gone after it yet.”
“No,” Lindsey muttered. Jean-Claude did something that made him hiss, and he let his head fall back on the chair and stared up at the ceiling. “He’s been a little busy.”
Busy with Lindsey. Busy with Tennyson, and with Louna, and Polina, and probably even with securing Argenis’s bail. He had an interest in too many things, and Louna was tired of playing defense.
His actions would not go unanswered.
A roll of thunder shook the windows, and Ilya startled away from the wall. “We should set watches,” he said, frowning at the door. “I can take the first one.”
“No,” Louna said, at the same time as Lindsey. She glanced at him, and once again, his expression cut her. She swallowed. “I’ll take first watch. I won’t be able to sleep right now, anyway. Lindsey, you should sleep here, by the fire.”
He nodded, and Philippe lifted his pot of boiled water and set it on the stove. “Drink some when it’s cool,” he told Lindsey. “You need to stay hydrated.”
Lindsey promised he would as Jean-Claude finished his new dressing and sling. He stood to go, but Lindsey caught his hand and held it firmly, attempting a wan smile. “It’s good to see you.”
“You too,” Jean-Claude said sadly.
He met Louna’s gaze and headed for the back rooms, Philippe trailing behind with one of the lanterns. Ilya crossed the room toward the hallway, but hesitated in front of Louna.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to watch?” he said in a low voice.
Louna shook her head. “I’m all right. Go, get some sleep, and I’ll wake you in a few hours.”
He put his hand on her arm, giving it a gentle squeeze before following the Verdiers down the hall.
For a few minutes, she stayed where she was, trying to keep her gaze from wandering toward the door. A clock on the mantel ticked softly, barely audible over the rain and wind outside. A shiver worked its way down Louna’s spine, and she stood to pace toward the fire.
“I mean what I said before,” Lindsey said. “He’ll find us.”
Louna glanced over her shoulder. “You should try to sleep.”
“You haven’t known Tenny long,” Lindsey said. “But he doesn’t stay down. He never has. It didn’t matter how badly he was beat, he never stayed there. This isn’t any different.”
“Falling off a cliff isn’t different?” Louna asked bitterly.
“No.” Lindsey stood, his movements slow and stiff, and shifted his towel over to the couch.
There was a blanket folded over its back, and he pulled it free and wrapped it around his shoulders before settling down again.
“One time in Argentina, we got separated when we spooked a cartel in the jungle. He took a bullet to the hip when we were running, but I couldn’t get back to him.
When the cartel cleared out, I spent days looping back through the area, trying to find his trail.
I figured they must have caught him. When I couldn’t put off going back any longer, I left thinking I’d abandoned my best friend.
” A smile lifted one corner of his mouth.
“He was already waiting at base. He’d come in an hour before me, and was mad that I didn’t go straight back like I was supposed to.
Told me that as long as I returned to base, he’d find me. ”
“This isn’t base,” Louna said.
“Then he’ll be waiting for us there,” Lindsey said. She was still facing the fire, but she could feel his attention on her as the rain pelted the windows.
A wave of pain swept from her head to her stomach, and she blinked to clear it, searching for a distraction. “What did he say to you when he left the Marines?”
He was quiet, and she turned to look at him. “Our last mission,” he said, his gaze holding hers. “It involved a political opponent in the Balkans—I can’t say any more. Our mission was to dispatch him.”
“You were ordered to kill a foreign candidate?” Louna asked. “That’s election interference.”
“He was extremist,” Lindsey said. “His policies would have put a lot of people in danger. But Tennyson said it wasn’t our business to interfere.
He said...” He took a breath, glanced at the ceiling, and focused back on her.
“He said we weren’t wanted there, and that we had no right to force our will on the country. ”
“You disagreed,” Louna said.
Lindsey shook his head. “No. But it’s what we signed up for.
We knew exactly what we were getting into, and we’d agreed to follow orders.
We didn’t have all the information. We didn’t know what other chess pieces were at play.
Our only job was to do what our commanding officers asked of us.
He said I was a coward for not taking responsibility for my actions. ”
He let out a breath that might have been a chuckle, if it hadn’t sounded so dark.
“You were right. He always was Huckleberry Finn—the pragmatist. I was the idealist. I wanted to believe in a greater good, in the ends justifying the means. When he left, he didn’t even say goodbye.
I thought he’d go back home, but when I called, his mom said she hadn’t heard from him.
I tried to track him down, found he’d hired himself out as private security for rich jerks, but then after a while he disappeared from that too. And then the rumors started.”
“When he started working for Harlow,” Louna said.
Lindsey nodded. “That world is small, and people talk. The things I heard...” His gaze settled on the fire. “I believed the worst of him.”
Louna hesitated, but when Lindsey didn’t speak, she crossed the room and joined him on the couch. “I don’t know specifics,” she said. “But I know it was bad. He thought he was working outside the system to achieve the same goal you were—keeping people safe. He thought it was all he was good for.”
“What changed?” Lindsey asked.
The pressure in her chest fragmented, piercing the tender fissures that had cracked in her heart of ice. “He did. He realized who Harlow was, and he left. But Harlow knows how valuable he is—what he can do, what he knows—and he won’t let him go. That’s why he went after you.”
“And why he’ll go after Blake,” Lindsey said.
He rested his head on the couch, then lifted the blanket for her to share.
She eased in, careful of his shoulder, and tucked the blanket around her arm.
When she was settled, he let out a long, slow breath and spoke without looking at her.
“You’re going after Harlow, aren’t you? That’s why you want us to split up. ”
“Yes,” Louna said.
He was silent for a beat. Then, quietly, “Can you beat him?”
Without Tennyson? Louna’s heart gave a painful lurch, and she gathered her strength to encase it in ice once again. “Yes.”
He nodded. “I’ll keep Blake safe. You... do whatever you have to do.”
She leaned her head on his bandaged shoulder. “I plan to.”
A metallic click pulled her awake. She hadn’t realized she’d dozed off, but the sound was one she’d recognize anywhere, any time, no matter how exhausted she was.
A lock pick.
She sat up, but Lindsey set his hand to her arm to hold her on the couch, then put a finger to his lips. The fire had burned low, but he looked as though he hadn’t slept—his eyes were bright, and his expression was focused.
“The lock,” she mouthed, and he nodded. He passed Hartmann’s gun to her, and got up to move silently to the fire, where he drew an iron poker from the stand of hearth tools.
The pick scraped again, and Lindsey positioned himself beside the door while Louna went to the center of the room.
In the darkness, her white dress would draw the intruder’s attention, leaving Lindsey an opening to attack from his side.
Metal scratched, and she held her breath, waiting for the final tumbler to click into place. The clock ticked. Outside, the rain had stopped.
The lock gave way, and the knob turned. The door opened. Louna raised the gun as a shadow filled the doorway, saw her, and stopped short. Lindsey lifted the iron over the man’s head.
“Stop,” she breathed. The shadow had heard Lindsey’s movement and twisted to catch the iron, but froze at the sound of her voice. She backed toward the side table and fumbled for the lantern Jean-Claude had left there, swinging it around so the light fell on the intruder’s face. Lindsey swore.
Tennyson had found them.