Chapter 24
VIVIKA
The train rocks as it speeds through the Russian countryside.
I press my forehead against the cold window and watch the darkness blur past, city lights giving way to empty fields and scattered farmhouses.
My reflection stares back at me in the glass—mascara streaked, lipstick smeared, hair falling loose from its careful styling that made me so much like Ana Veche that Lev couldn’t keep his hands off me.
Now, I look like hell. I feel worse.
Never in my life has my heart felt so hard and dead.
I'll admit that I was lonely before I met Lev.
At times, I wished I could find a man to start a family with, but dating in this world is a nightmare.
I was waiting for Mr. Right to come along and find me, and little did I know when Lev snatched me off that street that he would be my Mr. Right. Now I don't know how to feel.
I'm in love with him, and I'm on a train speeding away from him as fast as it can carry me because being with him isn't safe. The man I love, and I can't even reach out and touch him.
The cabin's quiet and I close my eyes and try to sleep, but my mind keeps returning to the station, to the desperation in Lev's eyes when he pushed me toward the platform.
His voice cracked when he told me he'd keep fighting until he could find a way to bring me back, but I saw what happened in that warehouse. I know he won't find a way.
He stayed behind to fight off those men I saw pushing through the crowd toward the train, and he was outnumbered six to one. Lev stayed there to fight them so I could escape to safety.
And I let him.
The guilt eats at my gut, making me nauseous.
I should've refused to board this train no matter what he said.
But I was scared and he was insistent, and now I'm speeding toward Moscow and I have no clue what's going on back there.
Is he dead? Did they get to him? What about his family?
Yuri has a child on the way and he held back the tide so that Lev could get me away from there. Does Yuri know where I am?
My panicked thoughts don't stop, not even when I go to the drinks car and order a double Scotch on the rocks.
But it does help me feel more tired. When I find my spot and sit back down, sleep eventually pulls me under.
I dream of Lev—his hands, his voice, the farmhouse porch during the storm.
Then the dream shifts and he's falling, bleeding, dying alone while I run away.
I wake gasping when the train lurches to a stop.
It's been hours and the pitch black of night cloaks everything in darkness.
The engineer's voice crackles over the speakers, announcing our arrival in Moscow, and passengers begin gathering their belongings and shuffling toward the exits.
I remain in my seat, staring at the platform through the window, unable to move.
If I step off this train, it's over. I'll hide in Moscow and wait for news that might never come. And I have no idea how they'll even contact me.
Is that what I want? To be trapped here? But what is there to go back to? If Yaros finds me, I'm as good as dead, and what about those women who need rescued?
I stand and make my way to the exit. The platform is cold when I step out onto it, night air biting through my wrinkled suit.
I scan the crowd and see a man holding up a cardboard sign with the name Vivika scrawled on it in thick, dark letters.
He locks eyes with me and I see recognition there.
It's like he's seeing a ghost, the way every person who has looked at me since this entire thing began has looked.
I'm not her, and he knows it, but it still speaks volumes how much I resemble the woman I've been impersonating.
I walk toward him with my chin lifted and my shoulders back.
"Rurik?" I ask.
"Yes." His voice is gravelly and rough, but he seems polite. "You're the woman Lev sent."
"I am."
He folds the sign and gestures toward the exit. "I have a car waiting. Lev's message said there might be people following you."
I follow him through the station and out to the parking area where a black sedan idles with its engine running. Every few steps, I check over my shoulder, though if Yaros's men were on that train, they'd have come for me during that eight-hour trip.
When we get to the car, Rurik opens the rear door and I slide inside, grateful for the warmth and tinted windows.
He climbs into the driver's seat and pulls out of the lot comfortably.
He obviously knows this place well and doesn't need a map or GPS to direct him, but I don't know this man, nor do I trust him.
I need to be with Lev, and I need to go back to St. Petersburg.
"I can't stay in Moscow," I say.
His eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror. "Excuse me?"
"I have to go back to St. Petersburg." I lean forward, gripping the back of his seat. "The only way to help those women and save everything Lev has been fighting for is to finish what we started."
"Back to—" He shakes his head. "Lev nearly died getting you on that train. Going back is suicide."
"I can go back without your help, but I have to go back.
" I hear steel in my own voice, something that wasn't there before Lev taught me to be Ana Veche.
Though, I am relieved to hear that Rurik believes Lev is still alive.
"Yaros thinks he's won. He thinks I'm gone or dead and that I can't interfere with his business, but that makes it the perfect time to strike. "
"Strike?" Rurik's voice rises. This time when his eyes catch mine in the reflection, he looks surprised. "You're one woman against the entire Veche organization. What do you think you can accomplish?"
"The same thing I was supposed to accomplish before Yaros ambushed us." I hold his eyes in the mirror. "Luka Kolar still believes Ana Veche's alive. If I can get to Kolar and make him understand what Yaros has done—"
"The plan that failed? That got Lev ambushed?" Rurik chuckles a dark, rumbling sound that oozes with disbelief and contempt.
The men in this family are rude and ignorant. I know what I'm doing and I will do it, even if I have to sneak away from this man to do it. Lev told me they have proof that Ana Veche is dead and that Yaros killed her. I have to get that proof to Kolar.
"The plan that failed because Yaros got there first. But he thinks the threat has been neutralized now." I let that sink in. "He won't be expecting me to walk back into St. Petersburg."
Rurik is silent, hands tight on the wheel. I can see him thinking about what I'm saying. His face is scrunched in concentration as he glances at me a few times. He's a soldier who follows orders and trusts his commanders. Right now, his commander needs his help and he fucking knows it.
"Lev told me to keep you safe," he finally says.
"And the only way to truly keep me safe is to end this war." I straighten and let Ana Veche settle over me like armor. "I'm going back to St. Petersburg, Rurik. The question is whether you help me or try to stop me."
His eyes narrow. "You're ordering me?"
"I'm telling you what's happening." My voice drops into the commanding register I've practiced. "If I'm going to save the Gravitch trade route and help those women, I have to become Ana Veche, fully. And Ana Veche doesn't hide in Moscow while her allies fight and die."
"You're insane," he says, but something in his voice sounds like respect. "You know that?"
"Maybe. But I'm the only chance Lev has. The only chance any of them have." I grip his shoulder. "Yuri, Dimitri, Fyodor, everyone at that warehouse—they're counting on the plan working. I'm the only one who can make it happen now."
Rurik wrestles with his loyalty and the impossible situation I've put him in. He owes allegiance to Lev and Yuri, and right now, the Gravitch family needs someone willing to walk into fire to piss on the flame Yaros lit and save them.
"Lev's going to kill me," he mutters.
"Lev is going to thank you." I squeeze his shoulder. "He knows me well enough by now to know I was never going to stay hidden while he fought alone."
When I sit back, I know the decision is already made, but Rurik hums and haws for twenty more minutes as we get stuck in traffic.
His forehead remains continually knit in dark concentration, but when he looks over his shoulder at me, I see the gaze of a man who sees an equal, not a woman he's assigned to protect.
"Seven hours to St. Petersburg," he says.
"Then we should get moving."
He takes the next exit and merges onto the highway heading north. Moscow's lights fade behind us as the road opens ahead. I settle back and watch the darkness rush past. I'm done running from problems.
Three months ago, you'd have asked Vivika Rozhkova if she could see herself being a hero and I'd have told anyone I am just a woman. The only special power I have is that I can translate a sentence into twelve different languages.
Now, however, after Lev trained me to be ruthless and cunning, I know my superpower is confidence. If I can convince myself something is possible, then anything is possible, and all I have to do is act like it.
At least I hope so.
And I hope Rurik has enough brains to know how to find Luka Kolar once we're in St. Petersburg without tipping Yaros off. Everything hinges on that. Without that, I'm toast.