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I bite my lower lip, seeing her putting the pieces together before I can even say it aloud. “He was going to force us to go with him anyway. I told him we’d go quietly and not fight back if he didn’t kill Viktor, Luca, Liam, and the others. That we’d do what he wants. He would have killed them if I didn’t.”
“And what does he want?” Ana’s voice is trembling. “He’s taken over Viktor’s business, right? So what? He’s going to sell us?”
“He’s going to try,” I clarify. “I have faith that they’ll rescue us before that can happen. He’s not going to be able to arrange for that right away. We just have to think of how to protect ourselves until then—”
“What do you think he’s going to do tome?” Ana asks, her voice wavering. “I’m not going to be worth anything, you know that. My feet—”
“You don’t know that,” Sofia says firmly. “None of us know anything about how this works. Except maybe Cat—”
“I don’t.” I shake my head. “I hated that Viktor had anything to do with this business. It’s been a point of contention in our marriage for a while now. I don’t know anything about it. Sasha might—”
Sasha makes a small noise from where she’s curled away from us. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she mumbles. “Anyway, I don’t know anything about the business side of it. I was a product—no one really discusses sales tactics with the merchandise.”
Her voice is bitter when she says the last bit, and I can’t blame her. She’s here because of Viktor—maybe her life in Russia on her own would have been brutal and unforgiving, as he’s often insisted, him taking her to sell set the wheels in motion that had led her here, in the state she’s in now.
I feel a cold twist of guilt in my stomach, even though I know it’s not my fault, any more than what Franco did to Ana was my fault. But she’s hurt, nonetheless, by someone close to me. Someone that I love, more than I ever came close to loving Franco, and the dissonance that causes inside of me is miserable.
“It’s not your fault, Mrs. Andreyva,” Sasha says quietly as if she can read my thoughts. “Viktor was the man he is long before you married him. And as you can see, he’s far from the worst.”
“But you still wound up here.” The words slip out before I can stop them. “I’m sorry.”
“I did.” She shrugs, her tone defeated. “Maybe this is just my fate.”
“I don’t believe in any of that.”
“Good for you.” It’s the most combative she’s ever been with me, and I can see her careful politeness starting to slip away. “You were born in better circumstances, Mrs. Andreyva, with more control over your fate. And yet, you still were married off without your consent. You’re in this van too.” Sasha turns her head, glancing back at me. “So, what does that make you think?”
“It’s bad luck,” I say firmly. “Bad luck and a complex world that we’re born into, one made for men. But it’s not over, Sasha. We’ve got time. And they’ll—”
“Save us. You keep saying that.” Sasha rubs a hand over her mouth. “You, maybe. Mrs. Romano. Miss Ivanova. But me? Why would they save me?”
Because I’ll have Viktor’s head if he doesn’t.
“Because Viktor knows he bears responsibility for you, too,” I tell her firmly. “Just like anyone else in here. You’re not going to be left behind.”
“We’ll see.” Sasha’s expression is one of someone who has seen a decent bit of the world and found very little in it to make her hopeful. Still, she pushes herself up, wiping at her cheeks. “I’ll help with the little ones.” She reaches for Yelena. “To give you a break.”
I don’t entirely want to give them up, but my arms are tired, and Sofia is trying to calm Ana down, who is on the verge of a panic attack. I’m sure she could use help, so I disentangle Yelena’s now sleeping, small form from me, handing her to Sasha as I squeeze Anika’s hand.
“Let Sasha watch over you, okay?” I ask. “I’ll still be right here.”
“It’s not like you can go anywhere,” Anika mutters sarcastically, wincing as the van hits a rough spot in the road and jolts all of us. “We’re kind of stuck.”
If anything, her attitude lifts my spirits. Anika’s smart mouth returning means that she’s healing, at least, and maybe not quite as traumatized as her younger sister, although her pale face and the flickering fear in her eyes tell me that it’s mostly bravado.
Which makes me angry all over again because no nine-year-old should have to learn to shield her emotions like that. She should be home in Manhattan, playing or fighting with her younger sister, doing homework, complaining about school, refusing to listen to me. She shouldn’t be crammed into a dirty van with guns a few inches away, listening to us worry about what happens next. She shouldn’t have seen the woman who was like a grandmother to her murdered in cold blood.
None of this is okay.
And all I can do is hope that somehow, Alexei will pay for it.
Once Sasha has distracted Anika, I move closer to Ana, taking her hand that Sofia isn’t holding. “I’m going to do everything I can to keep you safe,” I tell her gently. “All of us. Whatever Alexei wants as payback, I’ll try to get him to focus it on me if I can. We just have to hang in there, okay?”
Ana nods wordlessly, her eyes glimmering with tears. “I want to go home,” she whispers softly. “Luca said I’d be safe if I came to Russia with him and Sofia. That Viktor wanted me to come with them to keep me away from Alexei. But it didn’t help at all in the end.”
“I know.” I look at her helplessly, at a loss for anything to say. “I’m so sorry, Ana, for everything. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it a million times again. I’m sorry for what’s happened to you. I wish more than anything I could have stopped it.”
“It’s not your fault,” Ana says dully. “Franco hurt you too. And now—Alexei certainly isn’t your fault.”
“He’s after my husband. You being close to me is why—”
“And me,” Sofia interjects. “You can’t take it all on yourself, Cat. Luca made a bargain with Viktor, and I’m his wife. Ana is my best friend. All of this is just as much because of my husband’s business dealings as yours.” She looks at me sympathetically. “Cat, I wasn’t born into this life, and even I know that now. You know it too. You grew up around all of this, even if you were sheltered from it. You’re just so caught up in your guilt that you’re ignoring that. We’ve all been pushed into decisions we didn’t want to make.” She rubs her free hand across her eyes, wiping away the remainder of the tears she’d been blinking back earlier. “The Bratva hurt me once, but I don’t hold it against Viktor. I’ve learned there’s a lot of things in this life that aren’t the way we want them to be. We can’t hold onto it all.”
Sofia gives me a soft, sad smile. “You helped me so much, Cat, when I was struggling. And what I learned is that this world that I was dragged into, that you were born into, is very cruel. But there’s love to be found anyway if we look for it. For me—it’s Luca and my baby. The friendship I have with you. You have to find what that is for you.”
“You, of course.” I squeeze her hand. “And Ana, and my stepdaughters.”And Viktor,I want to say, but I can’t because I don’t know how to reconcile that with myself yet. I’d resented being married to a Bratva man so deeply, felt as if I were being sold off to the enemy, to someone far beneath me. That Luca had handed me over to a brutish, savage man.
But that’s not Viktor at all. And try as I might, I can’t make myself wish to go back before all of this. If I could undo what’s happening now, I would. But the things I’ve experienced with Viktor, the things he’s made me feel?
I can’t regret it, even if I know I should.
