Page 63

The last time I had seen her awake — the last real conversation, the last evening, the last cup of tea she made and only half finished — she had been sitting at the kitchen table with the claw necklace in her palm, running her thumb over it. I had kissed her cheek, gone to bed. In the morning she had not gotten up. She had gone to sleep with a smile on her face.

I had hated that smile for years. The peace of it. I understood it now. She had loved a black wolf and lost him. My father.

How had I forgotten my father?

I jolted awake. Everything hurt. My ribs. My shoulders. The side of my head.

The room was moving. The steady, rhythmic movement of something on water. The faint sound of an engine beneath me. The smell of river water and diesel. I was on a boat.

I lay still for a moment and took inventory. Even though I was awake, I kept my eyes closed to process my condition. My hands were not bound. My feet were not bound. I was on something soft — a berth, a cot. I was damp, which meant I'd been here for a while as I wasn't still drenched. I remembered being dragged through the water by Magnus.

Magnus.

I remembered the bridge. The trucks. The car going over. The water — black and cold and shockingly fast, filling the car with a speed that left no margin.

And Magnus.

I opened my eyes. Magnus was not in the room with me. But he was nearby; I could smell him.

The cabin was small and functional, everything bolted down. A single lamp. A porthole showing darkness outside. Across from me, in the only chair the cabin contained, a woman.

She watched me with a blank expression. She was perhaps in her mid to late twenties, with the kind of bone structure that would age well. Her blonde hair brought to mind icicles, pulled back with military precision. She was dressed practically, all in black.

"You're harder to kill than you look," she said. Her accent was thick Slavic; the consonants landing like decisions. "Most humans don't survive a car going off a bridge."

I sat up. My ribs formed opinions on the motion. I ignored their protest.

"Katya Volkov," she said, with the flat delivery of someone who expected the name to land. "You've cost my family a considerable amount of money."

I kept my face expressionless, letting my resting bitch face ask Am I supposed to know you? Problem was, I did. At least on paper. Katya Volkov. The business I had gone nuclear on in order to secure my name on a New York sky rise.

"It would appear that you're worth more alive than dead. If it were my decision, I would break your neck and drop you back in the river. But no one said I couldn't take my frustrations out on you."

She was out of the chair before I finished processing that she had moved. The first hit caught me across the cheekbone — open hand, not a fist. The impact snapped my head to the side. I saw white. I tasted copper.

It hurt, but it didn't make me go down. I swung back. My fist connected with her jaw. Katya's head moved. For one satisfying second she looked surprised.

The surprise did not last.

She hit me again. This one was a fist. The punch landed in my ribs. The air went out of me in a rush. I grabbed the edge of the berth and stayed upright through what was essentially an act of pure stubbornness. I turned back to face her.

Katya's free hand came up. Her fingers elongated. The nails darkened and extended past any natural length. They curved slightly, extending approximately four inches from my face.

I did not close my eyes. Closing my eyes in front of predators was the one thing I was not going to do. Whatever happened, I was going to see it.

The claws came closer. My gaze narrowed, but my eyes remained opened. The door opened.

Darius Omondi walked in.

My first thought was that he was here about a missed meeting. His face had the operational focus I had not seen in my office, the expression of a man running multiple calculations simultaneously in a situation where the margin for error was small. He was not wearing a suit. Just a t-shirt that exposed his collarbone. At his throat, on a cord against his brown skin, rested a claw.

Black at the base. Pale ivory at the tip. Identical to mine.

"I negotiated for Ms. Odhiambo to be delivered unharmed."

Katya held my gaze for one long moment. Her lips had the petulant pinch of a child being scolded for making a mess. She lowered her hand. The claws retracted.

"It's fine. I'll go and take it out on her boyfriend."