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“Excellent plan.” I kissed the inside of her wrist. “I still hate every fucking part of it.”

For twenty minutes, I attacked Anika with questions about Dmitri, Mikhail, and the jobs Alina had done for Sokolov. By the third round, I wanted to apologize, which probably meant Sokolov would want to shoot her.

The door opened while Alina corrected Anika’s chin. Mikhail had slept for less than half an hour, then woke and demanded his mother. He stopped inside, staring from Alina to Anika in the dark wig while Miss Helen and Nora waited behind him.

Anika stripped off the wig and crouched. “It’s me. We’re practicing a trick to bring Maksim home.”

Mikhail touched one of her curls and looked at his mother. Nora tucked herself against his side and held up the polish. “Micky and me are saving this for Daddy Maksim.”

“All ten nails.” Anika closed her hand around the bottle. “Prince Kirill promised.”

So much for keeping my dignity intact.

Nora kissed my purple thumbnail, and Miss Helen led them downstairs. I rubbed the dried polish against my knife hilt and decided Maksim would get all ten nails painted even if Roman and I had to hold him down.

Roman hid one transmitter along the underwire of Anika’s bra and threaded a relay microphone through her necklace clasp. “The release phrase is moonbeam. Use it anywhere in a sentence, and the evidence goes to every official, rival, and organization named in the files. We breach whether you’ve found Maksim or not.”

She kissed Roman, then came to me. I caught the back of her neck, her mouth tasting of lipstick while her fingers trembled against my chest. A box of gauze bounced off my shoulder when the kiss went on several seconds.

Alina settled deeper into the pillows with a huff that could have been laughter. “She needs the lipstick intact.”

“Buy better lipstick.” I kissed Anika again, shorter this time. “Bring Maksim home, darling.”

36

ANIKA

“You look like hell, Alina.” Sokolov stood in front of the windows with a drink near his lips and the city spread out behind him. Iron-gray hair swept away from his face, and a perfectly tailored suit made him look more like a wealthy grandfather than the monster who’d kept Mikhail in a cage and kidnapped my daughter.

Be Alina. Anika did not exist in this moment. I looked past, taking in the two doors and three cameras, then the gun beneath his jacket and another tucked under the desk,the butt of the pistol noticeable at the edge. The fire burning in the stone fireplace would destroy the account phone if I needed it to, and the decorative poker beside offered me a weapon to shove into Sokolov’s skull if it came to that.

Only then did I let my attention settle on him. “You look exactly like I remember. My condolences.”

His mouth twitched, but he didn’t invite me to sit. Alina didn’t need an invitation, so I dropped into the chair across from his desk and crossed my legs. My heart pounded hard enough to shake the transmitter hidden beneath my bra, but I smiled as though he’d already bored me.

“Where is my evidence?” He set his glass on the desk and remained standing.

“Where is Maksim?” I opened my empty purse and turned it upside down. “You searched me, scanned me, and made me sit beneath that hideous portrait in the hall. If I intended to hand over the only thing keeping me alive without seeing him first, I would’ve done it downstairs.”

His fingers flattened against the polished wood, his sneer twisting his face. “The evidence keeps you useful. Nothing more.”

“Then you’d better make sure I remain interested.” I eyed the second glass waiting near his hand. He’d poured it before I arrived, confident enough to assume I would sit exactly where he wanted. I picked it up, smelled the vodka, and put it down without drinking. Rejecting it too quickly would make him suspicious, even though Alina would never trust a drink she didn’t pour herself. Alina had taught me that, along with a thousand other ways she’d survived this man. “Show me Maksim.”

Sokolov studied my face long enough for sweat to slide between my shoulder blades. My sister had spent years swallowing fear until men mistook it for arrogance. I’d spent years hurling mine at the nearest person in a storm of sarcasm and profanity. Apparently, trauma came with options.

“Your sister made him weak.” He circled the desk and sat. “All three of them, in different ways, but Maksim most of all. No man should turn himself over to an enemy to save a woman.”

My first instinct was to defend them, but Alina wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. I stood and poured my own drink from a decanter on the shelf, picking the one Alina had told me about. Watching him over the rim, I lifted the glass and took a tiny sip, letting the burn cover my need to tell him exactly how badly Kirill wanted to decorate the building with his insides. “Anika has terrible taste in men. It isn’t my problem.”

“She is your favorite problem.” His gaze dropped to my hand, then returned to my face. “You sent her into that ballroom.”

“You required a distraction.” The words tried to catch in my throat, but I forced them out with a shrug. “She volunteered.”

“No.” Pleasure warmed his expression. “You chose her.”

The bastard wanted guilt, and I’d be damned if I made Alina weak enough to give him what he wanted. I swirled the vodka and pictured the purple glitter on Kirill’s thumb instead. We’d beaten him, he just didn’t know it yet. The children and Alina were safe, and Roman and Kirill were somewhere beneath my feet, coming for the man Sokolov never should’ve touched.

“And it worked.” I set the glass down before the tremble in my fingers betrayed me. “You’re welcome.”