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“Don’t worry. I’ve never seen things so clearly as I do now,” she replied. “For a while there, I guess I just let myself believe the lies. I wanted to think my parents cared about me, that my childhood wasn’t a total disaster. But now? I have no reason to hold back.”
“It’s not fair, what he’s doing to you,” Mikhail agreed angrily. “Using you as a pawn to get to me. His own daughter.”
Annika shook her head. There were no tears in her eyes. She was past that point.
“I can’t believe I ever loved them. You know, I used to live for my dad’s approval. I thought he had hung the moon. I wanted nothing more than to be loved, and they couldn’t even give me that. And then, hearing him talk about your mother, and hurting you…” she trailed off.
Mikhail pulled her in for a soft kiss. He caressed her shoulders and ran his fingers down her arms, urging her to lower them and relax a little.
“You’re a thousand times better than them. And you never have to vie for his affection again. You’re with me now. I will always protect you, and you have the force of the entire Sokolov family behind you,” he assured her.
“I’m not worried about my safety,” she confessed. “I’m worried about yours. If my father was willing to kill your mom just for turning him down, what the hell would he do to you?”
He stiffened up, feeling that old ache in his heart at the mention of his mother’s passing. He had always known the truth, but having the confirmation was different. Any iota of hesitation he might have had before was gone now.
He growled, “My mother was innocent. She didn’t expect a thing. They took advantage of her. But those fuckers have another think coming if they believe they can take me down. We’re stronger than they are. Bring it on.”
“Just promise me you’ll be careful?” she pleaded. “If something happened to you, I don’t know what I would do.”
“You’ll never have to find out. I’ve been running this show behind the scenes for a long time, Annika. I’m not afraid of the Armenians and I’m not afraid of the Baranovs,” he asserted.
He left out the one thing hedidfear: losing her. But that was in large part why they were out there in the middle of the desert, throwing knives at a wooden target. Mikhail saw the potential in her now. Not only did he want her at his side, but she had earned her place there. He couldn’t know for sure what exactly the Baranovs had planned yet, but he knew he could count on Annika to fight along with him. They were partners now. Annika was far tougher than her mother and infinitely smarter and kinder than her father. Despite where she had come from, Mikhail thought of her as a Sokolov now. Before long, they would make it official.
But first, they had to survive long enough to make it there.
“Come on,” Mikhail encouraged her. “Let’s throw another one.”
CHAPTER16
ANNIKA
It was sundownbefore the pair finally decided to halt training for the day. Only the thinnest sliver of orange sunlight was left radiating behind the distant mountain range. Annika thought it looked like a drop of butterscotch flattened to the horizon. The desert sky was split into brilliant shades of purple and indigo. Whimsical curls of lavender clouds drifted across the atmosphere as the sky slowly studded with stars. When Annika looked above, she was stunned to see so many. Out here, there were no neon signs or flashing lights to dim their glow. There was only the cabin and the desert, and the moon slowly rising overhead.
The temperature had been dropping dramatically over the past couple of hours as the sun slipped away for the evening. Annika shivered as a chill ran down her spine. Goosebumps cropped up on her bare arms and legs. She and Mikhail had been practicing various forms of self-defense all day, focusing primarily on throwing knives. Annika was continually surprised by the skills her fiancé possessed. He knew just about every possible way to kill another human being, ranging from the strongest weapon to the barest of hand-to-hand combat. And he was surprisingly patient while teaching her his ways, which encouraged her to work even harder at it.
In fact, she was so determined to prove her value and dedication to him that she was reluctant to quit working for the day. She held a knife at her side, squinting at the bullseye twenty yards away in the growing darkness. Mikhail laughed and set a hand on her shoulder.
“That’s enough, Annika. Look, you can’t even see the target,” he pointed out.
“Well, what if I have to neutralize a target in the dark someday? Maybe I should learn how to throw with low visibility,” she suggested.
Mikhail shook his head, a bemused expression on his handsome face. “This would be a great time to mention one of the golden rules of knife-throwing: if you can’t see where the knife will go, you probably shouldn’t fucking throw.”
Annika burst into laughter, and all the tension she felt just ebbed away. She handed him the knife and giggled, “What is that, a nursery rhyme for baby assassins?”
“Oh, you think you’re an assassin now?” he joked back.
She puffed out her chest and held up her chin in mock defiance. “I bet I could hit the center ring more times than you,” she remarked.
“You’re pretty confident for a newbie. Might have to knock you down a peg,” he teased.
“Oh yeah? I’d like to see you try,” she goaded him.
But he didn’t take the bait. He just slid an arm around her and began to lead her back up to the cabin. “Maybe tomorrow I’ll take you up on that challenge.”
Annika’s heart fluttered at the thought of tomorrow. It was a new sensation she hadn’t felt in a long time, possibly ever. Despite all the frightening things happening all around them, Annika was amazed at how eager she was to keep going. She was curious about the future. She was excited to go to sleep at night and wake up at Mikhail’s side. Perhaps throwing knives in the desert with a ruthless murderer was an odd thing to look forward to, but she didn’t care. Her whole world had been turned upside down again and again ever since she first met Mikhail, and she was learning to get comfortable in the confusion. She didn’t have all the answers, and maybe she never would, but she trusted her future husband. He was a dangerous man; she had no illusions about that. Yet, he had continually rescued and looked after her, even when she acted like a brat. That was much more than she could say for her family, or any of the people associated with the Baranovs.
It was strange, but nowadays, she felt completely detached from that identity. It irked her to still legally have Baranov as her surname, and she looked forward to changing it. Annika was more eager than ever to become an official Sokolov, especially after hearing her own father plot with his advisor to hurt Mikhail. That disastrous, eye-opening family dinner was the final straw. What little empathy and warm tenderness she once felt for her parents had evaporated in the span of one awful evening. All those memories she once cherished now looked ugly in the revealing light. They had never cared about her. She was always just a plaything for her mother, and a pawn to her father.
