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I look at her face. She’s crying again, but she’s watching me carefully now, as if she’s waiting for me to understand without making her say it.

My hand stays still against her stomach. “Elara,” I say.

She nods. “I’m pregnant.”

For a moment, I cannot answer. I look at her, then at my hand resting over the child she has been carrying while I made plans to leave without her.

“You were going to tell me?”

“I tried.”

“When?”

“Several times.” Her voice breaks. “Then you kept talking about Russia, and I thought you were only going to take responsibility because you had to.”

I pull her against me before she can say anything else.

Anya is between us, still crying, so I bring her into the embrace too. She lets out a small laugh when I squeeze her, then wraps her arms around both of us.

My daughter is alive. Elara is alive. There is a child growing beneath my hand.

I close my eyes and hold them tighter while the men move around us, and Evan continues shouting somewhere behind Sergei. I cannot think about what happens next yet. I cannot think about the house, the traitor inside it, or the people who will have to pay for what happened.

For this moment, I keep my hand over Elara’s stomach and my arms around both of them.

I keep one arm around Anya while looking at Elara. “What were you doing out here?”

“Galina told me to come and find Anya,” she says. “She said she was waiting for me in the garden.”

Anya lifts her head from my chest. “She told me the same thing. She said you had a gift for me.”

Elara and I look at each other.

Neither of us says anything. We don’t need to. Galina had sent them both to the same place, at the same time, while the men were gathered at the front of the house. She had known exactly where they would be and exactly how long it would take before anyone noticed they were gone.

I move my hand from Elara’s stomach and rise to my feet. “Sergei,” I say.

He looks over from where Evan is being held. “Yes?”

“Lock down the entire property. Nobody comes in or leaves. I want Galina found and brought to me.”

32

ELARA

The men take Anya inside before they bring Galina out.

She cries when Sergei tries to guide her toward the house, so I kneel in front of her and hold her face between my hands.

“I’m coming in soon,” I tell her. “Dr. Levin is on his way to check you over, and Nikolai will be there.”

She looks past me at the garden, at Evan being held against the wall and the blood soaking through the cloth wrapped around his hand.

“I don’t want to leave you.”

“I know.” I smooth her hair back. “But you need to let the doctor make sure you’re all right.”

Nikolai crouches beside us. Anya immediately turns toward him, and he pulls her into his arms. He says something too quietly for me to hear. By the time he lets her go, she is still frightened, but she walks inside with one of Sergei’s men.