Harper didn’t answer. There was nothing to say that the snow wasn’t already saying. It fell soft and indifferent across the yard, settling in Olga’s hair and lashes, whitening the blood by degrees. She’d made the reckoning so Harper didn’t have to, and now she was lying in the snow and the world would keep turning anyway.
Pav’s hand stayed on her shoulder and let the silence stand. Harper concentrated on breathing. The backs of her eyes burned. Her throat hurt.
Engines roared. Headlights swept across the yard. Two vehicles came through fast, snow kicking out from beneath their tires. One skidded to a stop near the loading bay, the other angling across the open space to shield the women from the tower line.
Doors opened.
Fox appeared, rifle up. Zak followed.
Then the passenger door of the lead vehicle swung wide. Katya. One hand braced against the doorframe, the other holding what looked like a length of pipe.
Harper’s breath left her in a broken rush. “Katya.”
Katya limped toward her, face swollen along one cheek. She looked at Olga, then at Harper.
Harper swallowed. “You okay?”
Katya wiped blood from her mouth with the back of her hand, then studied it as if seeing it for the first time. Her gaze flicked back to Harper. “The guard who tried to stop me is having a worse night.”
Fox came around behind her, expression grim. “By several measurable metrics.”
The laugh that escaped Harper was small and cracked and completely inappropriate. It saved her anyway.
Fox’s eyes landed on her, and something hardened in his expression. “Are you hurt anywhere serious?”
She shook her head. “I’m fine.”
Pav rose first, then offered her his hand.
Harper looked back at Olga lying still in the falling snow. Then she took Pav’s hand and let him bring her to her feet. Around them, the women were moving. Fox and Zak guiding them toward the vehicles.
Harper wiped her face with the back of her hand. A shaky breath escaped her. Then she turned toward the living.
47
Pav contemplatedthe rain-slicked city through the car window.
Ekaterinburg carried on around them. Traffic lights cycled from green to amber to red. A woman walked a small dog along a swept sidewalk. In a restaurant window, people leaned over dinner beneath warm gold light, laughing at something Pav would never know.
The city had been here all week doing exactly this while they bled through a compound in the dark. It hadn’t noticed.
The hotel Fox had chosen occupied most of a city block, all pale stone and brass fittings beneath rain-polished lights. The doorman didn’t even blink when two vehicles full of exhausted, blood-spattered people pulled up outside.
The lobby was warm and high-ceilinged and smelled of cut flowers and money. Marble floors. A chandelier throwing amber light across everything in soft, expensive pools. Pav stepped inside and the temperature difference landed on his skin like a physical thing.
His body didn’t know what to do with it.
Fox was already at the desk, charming the receptionist in fluent Russian. Zak appeared at Pav’s shoulder, carrying twoequipment cases and the focused expression of a man recovering from a firefight by thinking about food.
“I checked.” His voice was grave. “Five-star kitchen. Alina says the beef here is life-changing.” He glanced toward the dining room. “If I survived a gunfight and die of disappointment over steak, I’ll be furious.”
Behind them, the women from the compound waited in borrowed clothes. Some clutched each other while others stared at the ceiling in awe. Lena was near the back of the group, the rabbit held loosely at her side now rather than crushed to her chest. Progress.
Katya hovered near the desk with her chin up and someone else’s coat over her shoulders. Her cheek was swollen, and she was favoring her right side, but she looked like she’d won. Which she had.
Harper stood beside her with her arms wrapped tightly around her middle. She’d barely spoken during the drive from the compound—first in the stolen SUVs, then in the absurd luxury sedans Fox had somehow produced out of nowhere.
Olga’s death still sat visibly inside her.
