Page 232 of Mile High Ruin

Vadim just stands there in the harsh white light, utterly motionless, watching Viktor take me away.

37

VADIM

Anton walks up beside me only after the car disappears from sight. For once, he doesn’t wait for me to speak first.

“The man tailing Petrov reported in,” he says quietly, low enough that none of the others hear. “He was on him from the moment Petrov entered the hospital grounds.”

I don’t look at him. Every part of me is still fixed on the empty exit where the car vanished, on Sloane’s face through the rear window, on the way she looked back as though she couldn’t decide whether I had saved her or abandoned her.

“And?”

“Petrov received a call shortly before he reached the garage.”

My head turns then. Anton’s expression gives nothing away, but his eyes do. He understands the weight of what he’s suggesting.

“Looked like he was expecting trouble,” he says simply. “We don’t know what was said on the call. We don’t know who called him. But someone may have warned him.”

I turn to look at him. I know what he’s trying to say. “One of us.”

For a few seconds, neither of us speaks.

The hospital garage hums around us, too bright, too still after the burst of movement. One of my men is speaking into a phone near the entrance. Another checks the cameras. Iosef stands a few feet away, one hand pressed close to his side as if the old wound still bothers him when he moves too quickly.

A mole. Again.

Or perhaps not again.

Perhaps we were wrong the first time around.

Marek arrives from the stairwell with blood on his knuckles and fury across his face. “You shouldn’t have let her go.”

I look at him. He doesn’t retreat, which means he’s either brave, loyal, or too angry to remember that I’ve broken his nose once already over Sloane.

“Petrov walked out of here with her,” he says. “With her. In front of all of us.”

“I saw.”

“You should have taken the shot.”

“And risked hitting her?”

“You know I don’t mean that.”

“I don’t care what you mean.”

Iosef steps closer, his expression mild in the way that has always made men underestimate how much he sees. “She manipulated you.”

The words turn the air colder.

Anton shifts slightly beside me.

I don’t move.

Iosef continues, either because he doesn’t notice the warning or because he thinks his loyalty gives him permission to ignore it. “She stood exactly where Petrov needed her to stand. She made herself the only reason we couldn’t harm him. Whether she intended it from the beginning or not, she understood your weakness and used it.”

Marek exhales harshly, but he doesn’t disagree.