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But herlivingface—thank God.
“Kat,” I whisper, staggering forward. But I stop, whipping my rifle up, swinging it around, level, at each of the doorways in the house. “Are we alone?”
She nods, but can’t answer. There is a gag in her mouth, fixed in place by a swath of duct tape. She’s bound to a kitchen chair by a pair of zip-ties, another binding her wrists where they restin her lap. She makes a weak mewling sound; I try not to study her wounds too closely, but a cursory check tells me she’s not bleeding out, and not wounded but superficially.
She is, however, grimly drenched in blood.
And it’s still warm.
“Aleks,” she gasps, as soon as I pull the tape, and then the gag. It’s then my eyes drop to something clenched in between her hands, flat where they’re bound together—it’s a piece of paper, and there’s something scrawled on it in pen. “Aleks, wait—”
In Russian, and undoubtedly Konstantin’s handwriting:Come and save your son.
“Aleks,” Kat whispers, and before I can even formulate the words to ask the question, I know the answer.
Maybe I already did.
My eyes shift to hers. My heart is beating slow and steady; too slow, too steady. I take a step back from her. It shouldn’t—but the betrayal feels like a knife in my heart, straight up between the ribs. I don’t know what to say. What to ask. Where to begin.
“Please,” she whispers, big tears filling her eyes, spilling down her cheeks. “Please, let me explain.”
Yuri appears then, giving me a startled look when he sees Kat in the state that he is, and me, a few feet away, not lifting a finger to help her. Wordless, he drops to his knees, flicks a knife from his pocket, and begins to saw away at the zip-ties that bind her.
“I couldn’t tell you,” Kat gasps, sobbing weakly. “How the hell could I tell you? We walked away from each other for a reason. I knew something like this would happen. I knew Adam would never be safe—”
“Icould have kept him safe,” I shout, unable to curb my anger as I swing back around to face her. “I could have prevented all of this, if I had known to. He would always have been a target of my enemies, Kat,always, whether he was in my care or not.”I feel so stupid. What a fool I am. “I trusted you,” I say, almost stunned. “That is the one and only reason I never eventhoughtto look more closely at him. I didn’t think in a thousand years that you could lie about such a thing to me.”
“That is theonlything I could lie to you about,” she shoots back. Yuri has finally finished sawing through the zip-tie binding her ankles, and despite the pain and terror and exhaustion she must feel, Kat leaps to her feet. “He ismy son.He is all that matters to me, Aleks. All that will ever matter. He comes first, before anything. You and I—we made our choices, and we continue to pay for them today. But Adam is a child. He is the only innocent in this. Theonlyone.”
I stare at her, almost speechless at the gall of her. And at the resilience, and the courage.God damn this woman. God damn her.
“I thought that I was doing the right thing, by doing everything on my own.” Her voice wavers, and her knees give just a little. But she manages to stay upright, though both Yuri and I reach for her, as if to catch her if she falls. She recoils from both of us, clearly determined to stay on both feet, all on her own.Stubborn, this one—so damn stubborn.“I was wrong, Aleks. OK? Look at me—I was wrong. I…” The tears flow, and her eyes drop away from me. “I need you. Your son needs you.”
Everything in me screams to go to her. But I can’t shake the betrayal. And yet…everything she’s saying is true, and honest. And I know it isn’t easy. She is sacrificing her pride in every way that I haven’t been able to.
Who the hell am I to hold it against her?
“I’m not sorry,” she says, squaring her shoulders and raising her chin. She looks like a warrior, beaten and bloodied, still standing. Still fighting.
But I am not her enemy. God help me if I look like I am.“Kat.”
“I won’t,” she says, fiercely. “You would have done the same and been praised for it. But I’m his mother. I did everything I could.”
“Kat—”
“I did. Everything.Everything.”And like that, she dissolves into sobs, and her knees give again.
But I’m there to catch her this time, and my anger evaporates. She’s so small as she collapses into my arms, trembling like a leaf. “Shh…” I say softly into her hair. I cradle her against me, against my chest. “Alright. There’s no need for that, Kat. I know that you did everything. And I’m glad that you’re not sorry. You’re right—I wouldn’t have been, either.”
“We have to find him,” she sobs, burying her face in my neck. Despite her shaking, her arms around me are strong. “Aleks—please. Please, we have to find him. All of them. He said he would kill them, James, and my mom. And that he would take Adam to Russia and raise him as his own, and never tell him who his real—”
“It’s alright, Kat,” I say softly, leaning back to gaze down at her. She’s tear-stained, a bloody mess. “You’ve done all that you could. You’ve fought as hard as you could. And now…I need you to trust me. I need you to let me take it from here.”
“No,” she whispers, but very firmly. “No more of this. No more acting alone. No more trying to save the other person behind their back. No more fighting each other, we can’t afford it, Aleks. If I’m your wife, treat me like I’m your wife—treat me like I am your equal.”
Despite everything, I sigh softly, and feel a wan smile rise to my lips. When I glance to Yuri, I find him sheepishly averting his eyes, as if to say,well, she has a point…
And she does. The last thing in all the world I want to do is take Kat with me to face Konstantin. She is barely standing. She’s been through hell. She’s shaking, bleeding, sleepless.Judging by the hazy look in her eye, she may have some kind of concussion; or else she’s operating on little more than the dregs of adrenaline. She’ll be useless in a fight. She’ll be terrified the whole time, and more apt to sacrifice her own body than ever.
