Chapter 25
Lev
The elevator doors shut behind us with a hiss, sealing off the sterile glass world of ARCHEON’s tower. Two agents walked Roman and me through the marble lobby like we were important foreign diplomats instead of prisoners of circumstance.
They didn’t bind us, but they didn’t need to. Guns followed our every movement, and Roman’s hand had hovered near his jacket pocket ever since we’d left the vice president’s office.
I was fucking livid.
I hadn’t been able to do a damn thing to stop them from taking her away from me. I hadn’t even realized I’d shouted her name and rushed toward her until Roman grabbed my arm.
And right now, I was burning inside.
I needed to get her out.
Right. Fucking. Now.
There was a car waiting for us at the curb. It was one of ours—I recognized it—but that wasn’t important right now. The agents gestured us toward it, but my brother ignored them.
“You tell your boss,” Roman said pointedly, “that the deal isn’t over until I say it is.”
The agent didn’t respond. He simply opened the car door.
Roman got in first. I followed, every muscle tight.
The second the doors closed, the soundproofing swallowed the world whole. The driver didn’t speak. Neither did we.
Roman’s reflection in the tinted glass was a study in calculation. “Dmitri will have the others in position. Everything is going according to plan, brother,” he said finally.
I nodded, although my mind wasn’t on Dmitri.
It was on Kara.
The look on her face when they took her.
She’d known what was happening. It was almost like she’d known the whole time that would happen, but that didn’t change the way a part of my heart had cracked open when she was taken.
Because the truth had been waiting in me for years; I just hadn’t realized it until that moment.
I loved her.
It all started in Geneva that winter. She’d been wearing that ribbon in her hair, the one she always used to tie too tight. We’d been teenagers back then, fighting over words that didn’t matter, each daring the other to flinch first.
And then she’d kissed me. Just once. Just to prove that she could.
I’d hated her for it then, the way she’d won without ever raising her voice, but I hadn’t stopped thinking about her since.
Not for a single day.
Now she was gone again.
This time, though, it wasn’t a game.
This time, her life was on the line, and I would gladly pay whatever the cost to get her out alive.
We parked a few blocks from the ARCHEON tower.
The driver killed the engine and Roman stared straight ahead for a long beat before opening his door.
I followed, my every nerve vibrating with tension.
The others were already waiting beneath the skeleton of an unfinished parking structure, all concrete and shadows.
Dmitri stood waiting for us, his hands folded behind his back.
A few paces away, Viktor Dragunov lounged against a pillar, cigarette glowing like a small, indifferent warning.
A woman stood beside him. She had dark hair, green eyes, and the look of someone who had learned to accept that nothing would surprise her anymore.
Two other familiar faces greeted me, Demyan Vostrikov and Grigor Petrov.
At the sight of Viktor specifically, my jaw tightened. “Why the hell is he here?” I asked Roman without thinking.
Viktor lifted his chin and that familiar, smug grin cut across his face. “Look who finally crawled out of ARCHEON’s ass,” he said, voice theatrical and bored all at once.
Roman’s reply to me was flat. “He’s here because we need him.”
I shot Roman a look. “You trust him?”
“Not really,” he said. “But he’s useful.”
Viktor’s grin widened, the cigarette glowing between his fingers. “Oh, come on, Markov. Don’t look at me like that. I’m the fun kind of criminal.”
“You can just keep your distance,” I snapped. “My brother might be on board with whatever this is, but somebody better get busy convincing me this is a good idea.”
The woman stepped forward. She didn’t bother with smiles. “He’s joking,” she said. “Mostly.” She had an accent that folded Eastern Europe into every syllable.
Roman cleared his throat. “Lev, this is Katya. She works for a group called Revenant.”
I was familiar with the organization. I had dealings with them several times in the past, but they had always left a bad taste in my mouth.
I didn’t like them, not one bit.
I looked over at the girl one more time, and I’m sure that my distrust was written all over my face, but there was no time to delve into it any further because things changed in an instant.
“She’s moving,” Demyan spoke up, his face illuminated by the soft blue glow of his tablet screen.
Everyone went still.
I stepped forward, boots crunching against gravel and broken glass. “What? Who? Where?”
Demyan angled the screen toward me. “Your woman. They’ve taken her south of Jebel Ali. Looks like they’re heading straight for the port.”
“Can you tell where they’re taking her?”
Demyan adjusted the screen again, then locked in a zoomed feed. “There’s a ship already on standby. It’s a bulk freighter. Name’s Orion Dawn. Flying a Panamanian flag, but she’s been pinging dead zones for the past six months. This is a ghost ship.”
“They’re smuggling her out like cargo,” Katya muttered, her arms crossed, eyes narrowed. “The moment she’s below deck on that ship, the signal will be lost. She’ll be gone.”
“If we don’t move now,” Dmitri added, “we’ll never find her again.”