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I light another cigar and inhale the smoke deep into my lungs as though its burning pain can erase this hollow ache in my chest. I hear movement behind me and glance around to see one of Nero’s Doberman’s trotting across the living room excitedly. I barely notice the shadowy figure lingering at the bottom of the stairs until the dog stops in front of her. Una watches me through narrowed eyes, her hand behind her back, no doubt reaching for a gun.
“You’re going to him,” I say. I think I knew she would because I would. I only have to look at her to see all of my own feelings mirrored back at me. We’re both helpless, but she has the power to do something.
“Do not try and stop me. I do what I must.”
I lean forward, allowing the cigar to hang loosely from my fingers as I prop my elbows on my thighs. “You will sacrifice yourself for her?”
“Yes.”
“And your child? You will sacrifice your child for her?”
Her eyes flash, her jaw ticking. “I thought you…felt something for her.”
I sigh and push to my feet, guilt and sheer fucking desperation riding me as I step in front of her. “Yes,” I breathe, swallowing heavily. “But Anna would never wish you to sacrifice an innocent child, Angel.”
“I have a plan.”
I lift the cigar to my lips, taking a slow drag. “Ah, you and Nero and your plans.”
“This one…it doesn’t involve Nero.” So she’s turning on him for her sister, running off to Russia with his child in her belly. This will break him. I imagine Anna. What would she say to this? I know she’d never allow it. Maybe I should stop Una, but I fucking can’t because I know that without this, Anna is lost to me. Love is selfish for a man like me.
“How do you know he will release Anna?” What if he simply keeps them both?
She pinches the bridge of her nose. “I don’t.” When someone as accomplished as Una looks so unsure, you know shit is bad. “I need you to do me a favor,” she says. I nod. “If he doesn’t release Anna, bargain for her return. Once he has me, he doesn’t need her. Let him put her to good use elsewhere.”
“Bargain what?”
“You have a port…”
“Yes.”
“Offer him the use of it. Getting arms over the southern border is the easiest access point into America, but the cartels won’t allow the Russians any foothold.”
I say nothing, my thoughts racing through my mind at a hundred miles an hour. “That would cause problems,” I murmur, even knowing that there is nothing that I would not do for Anna.
She glances nervously towards the top of the stairs. “Look, it won’t be for long. Anyway, Nicholai is not one to break his word. I think he’ll let her go.”
I shake my head. I don’t think he’ll let her go. I wouldn’t if I had that kind of collateral. “You are his favored pet, Angel. And you have proven unruly. He has the means to control you. Do not think that he will give that up easily.” I sigh and rub a hand over the back of my neck. A strange sense of guilt niggles at me, not for any kind of moral obligation but simply because I know Anna would hate this. She’d hate me for letting Una do this. “Go. I did not see you.”
“Thank you.”
“And Una…”
“Yes?”
I glance at her rounded stomach. “Be safe.”
She walks out of the room, and I hear the muted ding of the elevator before I push to my feet, stubbing the cigar out in the ashtray. Sooner or later someone will realize she’s missing. I’m not sure how she slipped away without Nero noticing in the first place. I’m not sure I want to know.
I ascend the stairs to the second level where Nero allocated us guest rooms. I open the door at the end of the hallway and slip inside. My head is swimming with whiskey, but still, I can’t drown out my own thoughts. Like a swarm of furious bees, they black out everything, stinging me over and over with vile possibilities and what ifs. What if I can’t get her back? What if Una can’t get her back? What if Nicholai keeps her? What if he kills her? And most of all, what if I do get her back, only to have lost not only her sister but also an innocent child? Will she hate me?
I fall back on the bed and clutch at my head. In times of war, we do what we must. My father used to say that to me to justify the blood and death that I would bathe in for him. This is war, isn’t it? The Russian and I, we are standing on two sides of a board with opposing wants. In essence, I should have no fight with him, no cause for offense. Anna should never have been worthy of any such cause, and yet she is.
A great man once said that wars are fought for many reasons, so why not love? Isn’t that the greatest cause of all? Or perhaps it just blinds us so absolutely that rational men become wild.
To love is one thing, but the loss of love…well, that will corrupt a man’s soul entirely.
