by Lana Sky
Or the contented purr of a cat too arrogant for stealth. I wonder if she heard me, tearing up and down the hall while smirking at the brilliance of her hiding place—within plain sight.
I start to grab my pistol, but I round the doorway of the room without drawing it. She leans against the wall near a row of windows, presenting a far different picture than the other day. Her blond hair has been swept into a low bun, her expensive outfit replaced by a simple light blue uniform.
As Danil remarked, her beauty clashes with the disguise. With that bold smirk, no one would mistake her as someone accustomed to lurking in the background.
“I’m surprised you aren’t pointing that gun at me,” she declares, hands on her hips. Confidence radiates from her posture—until I reach her eyes, that is. They flicker nervously, taking stock of the nearest exit.
“You and me both,” I retort.
She exhales, carrying on as if I never spoke, “Or launching into some cynical, threatening speech meant to send my poor heart into a flutter. Your man there—” She gestures in the vague direction of Danil. “He didn’t recognize me. Not to mention my photo wasn’t plastered all over the walls of this damn hospital. Don’t tell me that you kept our naughty secret?”
Despite her smile, she doesn’t sound thrilled at the idea.
“Does that upset you?” I enter the room fully, closing the door behind me—not all the way, just enough that she stiffens. That act alone tells me more than I think she realizes. She’s smart for one, but guarded, all while maintaining the illusion of confidence. It’s an act. But for whose benefit?
“It intrigues me,” she says, addressing my question. “Why a big bad man such as yourself would be so lax in my dear sister’s security. If my intentions were nefarious, you would have given me ample time to harm her.”
She’s right—and I don’t know what irritates me more. The fact that she knows as much, or that I’ve willingly taken such a stupid risk.
Time to reconcile both failures. I advance another step, keeping her cart between us. “So, what are your intentions?” I ask.
“What else?” She shrugs but quickly inches back, disguising the motion with a yawn. “To reunite with my beloved sister and nephew, of course, especially in their time of need—”
“So you break into a private wing under the guise of being a custodian?”
“This?” She fingers the hem of her blue uniform shirt. “I did this for you. I thought you would appreciate the effort.” Her eyes dart to her cart, and I suspect she has a weapon hidden there.
Aware of that, I position myself in front of it.
“By ‘appreciate the effort,’ do you mean alert Mischa of your presence and have you barred from the property?”
“So why haven’t you?” Her tone stays entirely level, but I don’t miss the subtle inflection. Or how she flinched at the utterance of a certain name.
So I say it again. “Mischa. You’re afraid of him.”
Her hard swallow tells me all I need to know. She is. Because she knows what I suspect—Mischa wouldn’t welcome such a reunion. Not now. Which only deepens the mystery of why she chose to return at all.
And Ellen to target, unconscious or not.
Time to ask her outright. “If you intended to visit as you claim, then why not go through Mischa directly?”
Her eyes narrow. She doesn’t like having her little game turned on its head. “Let me guess, he’s lurking in that hallway behind you, ready to kidnap little old me? At least this time, he might get the right sister.”
It’s a reference to the events preceding the end of the mafiya-Winthorp feud—Mischa attacked the family directly, kidnapping who he thought was Briar Winthorp. In reality, he took Ellen, his now-wife, unearthing a wealth of family secrets in the process.
“Ah, so you aren’t as ignorant as you look,” Briar snipes. “I’m sure you know the stylized version of events. Your wonderful Mischa rescued his lovely bride from her evil half-sister and my vicious monster of a brother, raising the son of his enemy as his own—”
“You toy with me,” I point out, ignoring her original question. “But you’re smart enough to avoid notice. Why is that?”
Her smile widens, and devoid of the red lipstick, it’s still disarming.
“Why not?” she asks. “Perhaps, I was ‘smart’ enough to do my research, Evgeni Volkolv.”
I can’t resist the grin that contorts my mouth—or perhaps it’s a snarl. “I doubt you could learn much from merely my name.”
She laughs, inclining her head with a knowing smirk. “You’d be surprised what information someone can garner. Especially with a few greased palms—the right palms. You are a hard man to understand, but shrewd. No wonder you were drawn to Mischa. Working for a murderer is par for the course for you. Do you think you find peace in it? Serving one happy family when you’ve slaughtered so many others—”
“You don’t know a damn thing about me.” I grit my teeth before I can stop the reaction, sending her grin widening further. She won that round. But I’ve gleaned a revelation of my own. “It’s not every woman who could come across such knowledge.”
I’m being polite. The few people who could have enlightened her don’t deserve the effort. Child killers. Murderers. The kind of men I refuse to associate with. Anymore…
“Who are you working for?” I hunt her gleaming eyes, scouring them for any hint of weakness—and I find plenty. But not in the form I expect.
“I’m working in the interest of my own bleeding heart,” she sneers, crossing her arms. Those eyes dart again, more wildly.
Especially when I take another step.
“Your bleeding heart,” I echo. “Or an opportunity?”
Her tongue flits across her lower lip, stealing the smile in its wake. An answer to my suspicion is written across her face—the latter.
“You must like me, soldier,” she says in a simpering tone meant to charm. “To risk provoking the wrath of the man holding your leash, not once but twice. Quite the feat. I’m starting to think you enjoy our little clandestine meetings.”
“I’m starting to think you don’t give a damn about meeting with me at all. And…you don’t,” I suspect out loud—her swift frown confirms it. “You want me to alert Mischa about you. Why?”
She shrugs with a sigh. One I’m now close enough to feel sear my cheek.
“Why would I want you to alert a dangerous madman that I’ve returned in my estranged half-sister’s time of need, you ask? Word of advice, Evgeni, if something sounds as ridiculous out loud as it must when thought inside that devious brain of yours, maybe it’s just that? Ridiculous—”
“Don’t play coy.” My hand is on her wrist before I even realize it, gripping so tightly I can feel the slender bones beneath. For all her bravado, she’s slight. Weak. Just a woman.
A desperate one. The cadence of her breathing falters despite her confident smile. The stench of perfume can’t hide the faint scent of sweat, and that pretty makeup can’t disguise the dark shadows beneath her eyes.
She hasn’t been sleeping. Judging from the pallor of her skin, she hasn’t been eating much either, and even as brazen as she is, I doubt any woman in her position would prance into a hostile environment twice in as many days.
Not unless she wanted something. Desperately.
“What do you want from Mischa?”
She wrenches away from me while taking a step back, effectively placing herself against the wall. Her hand slips into her pocket, and I stiffen with the realization that she could have a weapon.
But even as her pulse flutters madly at the base of her throat, she doesn’t draw it.
“Let me ask you a question. Why haven’t you alerted your employer that your security has failed to protect my sister, more than once? You haven’t dragged me before him kicking and screaming. Are you afraid of the punishment you might receive for such a failure?”
Her tone is sufficiently cutting. I figure any other man would miss the hitc
h in her voice.
She’s more than desperate. She’s terrified.
“What are you after?” I demand, taking another step toward her.
It’s a mistake. She’s thin enough to slip past me and pivot on her heel, betraying a lithe grace that reveals some level of training. Not in fighting, but something more feminine. Dancing?
“I told you,” she says, her hand still in her pocket. “I’m here only to reunite with my dear, ailing sister, though maybe it is time I contact my brother-in-law directly? We’re all so long overdue for a reunion.”
Her threat would be convincing if it weren’t for how she tenses, her right foot twitching against the floor.
With one shift of my stance, I move to block her in.
“Give me a reason,” I demand. “Is it money you want?”
“Do I look like that much of a cliché?” she murmurs, insulted.
She doesn’t. “Women like you typically sport tans this time of year, but you aren’t,” I point out. “Your nails are unpainted as well. Either you’ve come into hard times, or you are a very frugal heiress.”
Or, she’s been too busy for those small luxuries. Busy running from something.
Or someone.
“You soldiers, so astute,” she simpers, batting her eyelashes. “Though should I say mercenary, in this case? Seeing as how the man you take orders from is no ordained government. This time. Though that means he’s prone to chasing after dead ends. Ignoring the real threat until it’s too late—”
“A woman who consults with child murderers and the criminal underbelly,” I say coldly—the only people she could have learned this information from. “Those aren’t the sort to populate some high-class ball.”
“I haven’t been to one myself in a long time,” she counters in a softer tone. “But even I know when something seems too good to be true.”
“So what are you saying? Someone else attacked Mischa?”
“No.” Her eyes dart to the doorway and back to me. “I’m saying…what if Mischa was never the intended target?”
I feel my brow furrow. “Mrs. Stepanova?”
She scoffs, tarnishing her cool façade. “As if Ellen could ever make herself relevant enough to be targeted by anyone. I want you to think bigger, Mr. Volkov. Colder. Everyone in this business is no more than a snake—so slither into your deepest darkest impulses. Think of it this way—it all has an…air of mystery about it, doesn’t it? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m late for my next room.”
As she starts past me, I snatch her arm, surprised when she darts out of reach. She’s quick, and I feel the knife she pulls from nowhere biting against my wrist before I even see the blade itself.
“Play nice,” she warns in a trembling voice. “I may not be a soldier, but I suspect that you wouldn’t like it if I hit this security button and cried rape, sending the entire hospital running, now would you?” She wiggles her other hand, now in her pocket, presumably poised to strike the alarm.
Son of a bitch. She’s smart, and I’m not in the position to assume she’s bluffing.
“Fine.” I step back, keeping my hands in view. “So you’ve done your research on me,” I admit. “But I’ve done my fair share on you. I will say there isn’t much news about the Winthorps recently.”
She chuckles without any amusement reaching her eyes. “No. But I wouldn’t be so naïve as to think the Winthorp name ended with my brother Robert. Don’t tell me Mischa is? His wife had a child by another man, as did our mother. Surely he knows that husbands and wives stray from their marriages. I wonder if he has bastards running around behind my sister’s back?”
“He may,” I concede. “But I have to confess that it is odd behavior for a woman so concerned for her ailing sister to mock her marriage.”
“Right you are.” Pink paints her cheeks, and her nostrils flare. Her frustration is ugly. Raw. And yet, I can’t help thinking the realness suits her better than the fake grins.
“So allow me to cut to the chase as any concerned family member would,” she snaps. “While Mischa is chasing phantoms in the shadows, the real threat is growing stronger. The next time they attack, I can assure you, the victims won’t land in a hospital. If there is anything left of them to bury, that is.”
“Is that a threat?”
She laughs. “No. It is an honest warning. You’re a bodyguard, aren’t you? Shouldn’t you be acting on intel like this to…I don’t know. Guard bodies?”
Her seething rage hits a target. How ironic that she understands my job better than Mischa seems to.
“But let me guess,” I say. “You’re willing to divulge all you know of this mysterious threat, but only if rewarded. What’s your price?”
That coy smirk returns. “My apologies, soldier, but I don’t bargain with the help. Anything I know goes only to Mischa.”
“Mischa, who would rather run you through with a blade than hear a word you have to say, is that right?”
The corner of her mouth falls, but the expression reveals another hint of the real woman lurking beneath her mask. Someone with so few options, she’s already seriously considered that possibility. She’s still determined to go down this route anyway.
“That’s where you come in, dear soldier. You convince him not to.”
“Tell me what you know,” I suggest, making my tone softer. I try to, anyway. “And if it’s convincing, maybe I’ll let you take your chances.”
“Oh no,” she scolds, waggling a finger disapprovingly. “And spoil my own fun by letting you take all of the credit? I will speak to Mischa on my own—”
“But you need a way to get to him,” I interject.
A muscle in her jaw twitches. Just as quickly, she disguises the unease behind another blinding smile. “Perhaps I do need to change my tack after all. While we’re busy playing word games, the threat to all of you grows more real by the second. I can assure you that the next attack won’t end in a near miss.”
“Is that a threat?” I demand, reaching for her again.
She easily evades my grasp, pivoting on her heel. “No. Think of it more like a friendly warning. The game is only beginning, Evgeni. Will you let your employer be caught unaware simply because you have too much pride to act on the intelligence provided by a woman? I don’t even know if I should waste my breath on stating the obvious of what will happen if you don’t.”
“Intelligence you don’t find fit to share with just anyone but the person who destroyed your family?”
Her lips press together so quickly I almost miss it. That’s the third time her mask has slipped. Sparkling blue eyes blaze with more than enough pride to outlast the mistakes, though.
If she’s good at anything, it’s acting.
“You don’t believe me,” she says calmly. “I wonder how your boss will feel if the worst happens and he finds out that his most valued lackey withheld information from him that could prevent it? Trust me, you have no idea as to the forces at play. What happened to my sister and her son? That was merely a gentle opening salvo. You can take that as a threat, if it will help you listen.”
Her tone is convincing enough. Too convincing.
“You want an audience with Mischa, but I think he’d be more skeptical of you than I am,” I say, turning on my heel. “As for me, I’ve decided that you have nothing. You think you can convince or blackmail Mischa? Do it. Maybe he’ll give you the pennies your family left behind—”
“As if that bastard has any right to control my family’s estate!” Real anger colors her cheeks red, and her free hand curls into a fist I doubt she’s even aware of making.
“Give me something,” I tell her, done with this game. “Something to pique my interest. Something other than vague, half-empty threats and a mysterious bogeyman. Then you can leave.”
Slowly, she rebuilds her armor, swapping a glare for a stern frown. “Here—” She reaches into her pocket before I can stop her. Rather than a weapon, all she holds is a slim slip of paper.
�
�I’ll do both,” she snaps, shoving the paper toward me. It’s a card, printed with the address of a nearby motel. “The name is Alexander, and his life is just as important as your precious Eli’s. Do you want the lives of two children on your conscience?”
“Two.” It could be a boast. A sick attempt at manipulation. If it weren’t for her eyes. They blaze with a raw hint of an emotion I haven’t seen in her until now. Honesty?
“Who is Alexander?”
“I gave you something worthy of piquing your interest,” she says, pushing past me. “Now, you uphold your end of our bargain. Let me speak to Mischa. Keep him on a leash. I get what I want, and you can sleep peacefully at night knowing that you subverted a war.”
“And if I don’t?”
“The blood will be on your hands. Given your past, I don’t think you can live with that. Can you?”
“Enough!” Anger flares, unfolding across my expression before I can suppress it, and she pales.
A good man would ignore the way she shudders. The sight wouldn’t make his heart race, his mouth dampen. A good man wouldn’t imagine how far such a woman’s expression might transform when she’s in the throes of true fear.
It’s a way I haven’t thought in a long damn time. Like a predator. To suppress it, I think of my freedom. My future. I think of sanity.
The feeling subsides.
“Did you hear me?” Briar asks. I blink and find her watching me, an eyebrow raised. “I must not be such a threat, after all.”
She stands on tiptoe, bringing her face near mine. I should recoil. I don’t, and she inches even closer, swiping her lips across my cheek. “Remember our bargain,” she murmurs. “Once you decide to stop playing the obvious game, come find me. I think you’ll know how.”
She saunters from the room, leaving her cart behind.
“Wait!” I start after her, but she’s already exiting into a stairwell. By the time I snatch the handle, it’s locked.
