Page 52

Inside, dust covered the furniture and mouse droppings dusted the countertops. The faded quilt still hung over the couch, and notches marking our heights climbed one side of the kitchen doorway. Alina had added two inches to hers the summer she turned fifteen. Even then, she’d tried to cheat.

I moved through the rooms while the men stayed close without crowding me. The bedroom held nothing except rusted bedsprings. The pantry shelves stood empty until I climbed onto a chair and reached above the doorframe.

My fingers closed around a small brass key. Grandma's blue keepsake box waited beneath the window seat. The key resisted before the lock snapped open, and a stack of envelopes filled the inside from edge to edge. I recognized my handwriting on the first one. Happy birthday, jerk. Call me before I report you missing.

The next came from the year Nora was born. Another followed from the year Alina disappeared for six months, then one I'd mailed after swearing I would never speak to her again. Every birthday card I'd sent sat inside that box. Some had coffee rings or bent corners. One had been taped together after tearing along the fold.

“She kept them.” My throat closed around the words. “She kept every one while acting like hearing from me was a fucking inconvenience.”

Kirill sat on the floor beside my chair. “Keeping them doesn't make what she did acceptable.”

“I know.” A sob folded me over the box. “That's what makes it worse. She loved me enough to save scraps and not enough to trust me with the truth. She didn’t love me enough to try and keep me safe.”

Maksim crouched in front of me, but Roman remained several feet away. Always careful. Always waiting until he had proof he was permitted closer. I held my hand out to him.

He crossed the distance and took it. One pull brought him between my knees, close enough for me to smell smoke on his shirt. His thumb moved over my knuckles. “Tell us what you need.”

“I need you. And I need this.” I lifted the box of cards. “I want to go somewhere safe so I can work through all of this, and I want you there with me.” My sister was a complicated creature, and I wanted nothing more at the moment than to rage at her and comfort her at the same time. She’d been through so much without ever letting on. I might not be able to forgive her for what she’d done to me, but a small part of me could understand being willing to do anything to protect her child. I’d beg, borrow, steal, and kill for Nora. All of which might become a real possibility if I wanted to find her.

25

MAKSIM

We were almost completely silent the entire drive back to the safe house and while our men cleared the building again before we entered.

Roman carried the evidence cache directly to the dining room, and the doctor listened to our lungs again before clearing us once and for all. Only then did Anika take the box into the largest bedroom and wait while we showered away the soot in shifts.

She sat in the middle of the bed when I entered, wearing a white robe with damp hair spread out over her shoulders. The box rested on the dresser, close enough for her to see but far enough away she could breathe.

Kirill came through the adjoining bathroom in loose black pants and shaking water from his hair. “What a shit day.”

“Agreed.” Roman grunted from behind him, closed the door, and turned the lock.

Anika studied all three of us, her face slightly blotchy like she’d been crying while we showered. That hurt more than I expected, knowing she hadn’t trusted us enough to spill her tears under our watch. I’d have to do better.

Her lips quivered when she inhaled and patted the bed. “I still want you. I can’t explain why that hasn’t changed even though I can’t stop thinking about Nora and Mikhail. We have to find them.”

“We will.” I stopped at the foot of the bed, needing her to believe we would do anything for her. “Whatever you need, Anika. Whatever we can do to make this easier, we will provide it. And we will find them. Our men are working around the clock.” And so were we. Except for eating and sleeping, we hadn’t stopped, not for a second.

Some of the strain left her face, softening her features. She held out her hand toward Kirill, and I did my best to fight down the surge of jealousy. Of course she reached for him first. He was the softest of us, though not truly soft by any normal means. I simply wanted to be first, and I resented that part of my psyche that wanted to make her choose me.

Roman stayed by the door, one hand curling into a fist when Kirill climbed onto the mattress.

In five years, none of us had shared another woman. We tried once. Kirill left before her dress came off, and Roman invented a phone call. I’d ended the evening because another woman hadn’t been what we needed. Anika was.

She took Kirill’s face between her palms and kissed him. His usual humor disappeared, and he leaned into her, giving her enough time to change her mind before he slid a hand beneath the robe and squeezed her thigh.

Sighing into his mouth, she opened the robe and motioned me and Roman closer. “Please.”

Fuck. She said it so easily, like this one word was not practically banned from our fucking vocabulary from the time we could talk. I lost the ability to breathe or blink for several seconds when she nipped at Kirill’s lower lip and he kissed her with the hunger he’d hidden–that we’d all hidden–all day.

When she finally released him, he slid around behind her and settled her back against his chest while she held out a hand toward me. “Maksim.” My name carried so much emotion, so much longing. No one had ever said my name like that, and it fucking ruined me.

I crawled into bed beside her, stretching out and settling my hand on the side of her neck, thumb on her fluttering pulse. “Tell me what you want. Not what you think we need. What do you want?”

“I want Kirill’s mouth on me.” Her cheeks pinked, but she didn’t lower her gaze. “I want Roman holding me, and I want you to watch until I tell you to stop controlling yourself.”

Kirill released a groan and pulled the robe from her shoulders. “Darling, I’ve never loved an instruction more.” He switched places with Roman, then we both watched as Roman hooked her knees over his and opened her legs wider. One arm circled her waist while the other cupped her breast. Kirill kissed the faint scar on her stomach before easing her knees further apart and bending between them. His first slow lick lifted her hips from the bed.