“It’s enough for me.”
“That’s the problem.”
Several men look down.
Viktor lowers his voice. “Anya wouldn’t want you like this.”
“You’ve no idea what my wife would want,” I say.
But it doesn’t matter. She’s gone. My men are still searching the river, but I know what they will find. No one can survive that kind of injury and be still missing. It’s been over twelve hours.
“You think I’m going to get myself killed,” I say.
“I think you’re going to get yourself killed and take half our men with you before you find the one person you’re trying to save.”
My anger is so cold now it almost feels clean.
“You forget who you’re speaking to.”
“No,” Viktor says. “I’m the only one here who remembers.”
Silence.
Then the door opens. Two of my men enter with Sergei Sokolov between them.
He looks worse than the last time I saw him. His coat is wrinkled, his hair disheveled, face gray with fear. There’s a bruise near his cheekbone and dried blood at the corner of his mouth.
Not enough. Not nearly enough.
The second he sees me, he starts talking. “I didn’t know. I swear to God, I didn’t know.”
I move toward him. He stumbles back, but my men hold him in place.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
I hit him. Not hard enough to break anything. Hard enough that his head snaps to the side and he nearly collapses.
“Yaromir,” Viktor says.
I ignore him.
Sergei coughs, eyes watering. “I don’t know.”
“You contacted her.”
“No. I didn’t. Dmitri took my phone.”
“When?”
“This morning. I went to meet him because he said he had an offer.”
“You went to Dmitri.”
“He said he could help me leave the city. I didn’t think he would go after Anya. I thought he wanted leverage against you. Money. Maybe safe passage.”
“You gave him her weakness.”
