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Ping.I grab my phone and check the text.
MILANA: We found the traitor. You were right.
I close the thread without replying and glance at June. She’s pale and trembling and she seems to be ripping her nail beds to shreds. A nervous habit I’d noticed at the funeral.
“Do you want some water?”
She nods silently. I grab the bottle tucked into the side door pocket and offer it to her. As soon as I’m within reach, though, she lunges forward and sinks her teeth right into my outstretched hand.
I curse in Russian, drop the bottle, whip the car to the side of the road, and slam on the brakes for the second time in as many minutes. Once again, the surrounding traffic goes berserk.
But I don’t give a fuck. My focus is on June.
I grab her by the throat and pin her against the passenger door. She gasps as my fingers tighten around her windpipe. The fear in her bright hazel eyes—that’s what I was looking for. The realization that there are things happening here at a level far beyond her understanding. That the game is so much bigger than she’s ever grasped before.
But as soon as the sight of that fear satisfies, it gives me pause, for one reason and one reason only.
She’s pregnant.
Fuck.
That’s the only thing that could make my fingers loosen. My hand falls slack and she breathes in desperate sucks of air. But the fear remains, simmering and toxic. That’s good. She needs to be scared. Fear is the strongest motivator. The most efficient, too.
“If you insist on acting like a wild animal, I’m going to treat you like one.”
Her eyes widen, even as her irises darken. “Or what?”
She must be a slow learner. Either that or she’s much braver than I’ve given her credit for. I’m inclined to be tolerant of bravery, but only to an extent. There’s a point at which it crosses over to stupidity.
“Or I’m going to give you another reason to mourn.”
I don’t have anything specific in mind when those words pass my lips. In my experience, open-ended threats are the most effective. The nightmares we conjure for ourselves are a thousand times more terrifying than anything someone else could craft for us.
But whatever she assumes is clearly far worse than I intended. She pales instantaneously. She goes limp all at once, too, as though my words have managed to kill the last vestige of fight left in her.
There’s something about her desperate expression that makes me feel uncertain. And Ineverfeel uncertain.
Asking her to explain what’s happening in her mind would only defeat the progress I’ve made, though. Like it or not, this is where we are. Regret is for the weak and the dead. I am neither.
So instead, I take my hand from her lap and re-grip the steering wheel. “Are you going to cooperate?”
“You’re not giving me much of a choice,” she spits.
I nod. “Glad you understand the situation.”
“Why are you doing this?” she asks. “I thought you were Adrian’s friend.”
“Maybe I was overstating things a little,” I say with an uncaring shrug. “He’s not so much a friend as an acquaintance from my past. If Adrian were around for you to ask, he might even call me his enemy.”
I should turn back onto the road, but I want to make sure that the little minx has truly sheathed her fangs. She’s looking docile at the moment, but I’m not prepared to risk another accident on the road. Not in her condition. Not with what’s at stake here.
“Adrian didn’t have enemies.”
“If you really believe that, then you didn’t know him as well as you thought you did.”
“People in real life don’t have enemies,” she asserts. If only she knew how foolish that makes her sound. “Everyone has people they don’t like, but no one hasenemies. That’s… that’s comic book stuff.”
“What word would you use to describe the man who killed your father?”
