Page 22 of Lethal Obsession

I know my father’s first family died many years ago in Paris. They were murdered, burned alive by the same man who, many years later, orchestrated the Orlov coup.

But knowing it is one thing. Holding a necklace that was once worn by my dead half sister is another thing entirely.

“What was her name?”

It seems absurd that I don’t already know it. But my father, for all that he has mellowed in old age, remains a proud man who rarely speaks of anything unpleasant from his past. Neither Darya nor I knew anything of his first family until after the Orlovs were defeated.

“Irina.” His voice cracks slightly on the name. He turns away abruptly, clearing his throat.

I study the necklace and pretend not to notice.

When he speaks again, he has himself firmly under control. “Ofelia reminds me of her. Not so much physically. But . . . here.” He puts his closed fist over his heart, his old eyes momentarily fierce. “She has the same strength Irina did.”

Yes. She does.

The simultaneous realities converge again, and I am back in that fucking cell, my knife against Ofelia’s skin, her eyes blazing up at me with a strange ferocity, as if despite her torn gown and the watching men, we are the only two people in the room.

“Trust me,” I’d whispered in her ear.

Trust me—to take my blade to your skin.

Trust me—or you will die here, and it will all have been for nothing.

“Yes,” I say now, rubbing my thumb over the thin strands of the necklace. “Ofelia is strong in ways most people don’t ever see.”

I realize too late that my father is watching me with disquieting perception.

And whatever you might suspect, I think bitterly, doesn’t come close to the brutal reality.

Because if my father guessed at even a fraction of what happened between Ofelia and me, any empathy he might feel now would be gone faster than I could draw a gun.

Sergei Petrovsky might be old, but he’s as tough and proud as he ever was. He could never forgive me for putting hands on the beautiful girl he sees as a granddaughter.

I don’t blame him.

I don’t forgive myself for it either.

“What about you, syn moy?” he asks quietly. “You did not make Ofelia a gift on her twenty-first birthday. Perhaps you might like to make one now.”

Of course he noticed that. One of the most annoying things about my father is his uncanny ability to notice every small thing that others do not.

In this case though, he’s wrong. I did, in fact, bring a gift to Ofelia’s party.

But after the moment in the garden, I took it home again, afraid of what my gift might betray. Now my eye lingers on the small box, hidden far to the rear of my shelf in the family section, and once again, I’m of two minds.

No.

My conscience slams down on the question before it truly forms in my mind.

“I’ll pick something up in Paris,” I say lightly, gesturing to the door. “If you’re finished in here, I still need to pack. And I have some business to take care of before I fly.”

Papa’s faded blue eyes flash, there and gone, but not before I catch a glimpse of the hard, ruthless pakhan life forced him to become.

Sergei Petrovsky was once Sergei Naryshkin, son of a count who was imprisoned for loyalty to the fallen Romanov czar. Born and raised in a Russian gulag, Sergei not only survived, but built a network he would later use to fulfill his father’s promise to be guardian of the Naryshkin treasures, the lost heirlooms of the pre-revolutionary Russian nobility.

He has lived long enough to see his closest friend, three of his children, and two wives murdered for that treasure.

Now, when he looks at me, seeing my missing eye and the scars on my face, I know that he sees all that has been lost. I know part of him feels responsible for what I have become.