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* * *
Kira froze, paralyzed by terror, but it only lasted a moment. Then she started to move.
She stood, pulling at her father’s arm. “Come on,Pápochka. We have to get to the panic room.”
“Where is it?” Rurik demanded.
She looked down at the weapon in his hand. Something in his demeanor had shifted. He no longer looked like the mild-mannered house manager who arranged for Lyon’s dry cleaning.
Now he looked cold. Deadly.
“Here, in the study,” Kira said. “Behind that bookshelf.”
She’d always thought the panic room was a silly extravagance, but her father had insisted, detailing all the ways his work could be dangerous for them. Now he reached for the bottom drawer in his desk and removed the gun he always kept there.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Footsteps were coming from all over now: the stairs, the front parlor, the second floor.
She helped her father to his feet, grateful he was being so agreeable, and moved toward the bookshelf hiding the panic room. The keypad was hidden behind a collection of poems by Alexander Pushkin, and she moved the book aside and keyed in the code.
The bookshelf swung open.
She stepped inside with Lina and turned to her father. “Come on, Papa. Hurry! You too, Rurik.”
Rurik shook his head. “Lyon would never forgive me.” He checked his weapon.
The footsteps were closer. There was no time to argue. She reached for her father. “Hurry, Papa!”
But instead of stepping toward her, he stepped away.
He shook his head. “I’m an old man,moya zolotaya. A sick man. You must let me die as a man, not as a coward.”
“You are sick!” she hissed. “And you’re in no condition to fight. Now get in here right now.”
He smiled. “That’s my daughter, always giving orders.”
He looked at Lina and Lina took hold of Kira’s arm. She was surprised by the older woman’s strength as she held Kira back.
Her father reached for the keypad and the door to the panic room started to swing closed.
“This is how it must be,” he said as the space closed between them. “I love you, Kira. Now let me have my dignity, my honor. This I beg of you.”
“Papa…” The door closed with a thud, and Kira was enveloped in the muffled cocoon of the panic room.
She reached for the keypad inside the door. She could let herself out. She didn’t need her father to do it for her. Who was he to lock her — a grown woman — in the panic room against her will? She could fight too.
But then she heard her father’s voice, tired and labored, saw the plea in his eyes.
Let me have my dignity, my honor, Kira. This I beg of you.
She dropped her hand and pressed her cheek to the door, trying to listen, trying to discern what was going on outside of the room.
All she heard was silence.
* * *
Lyon could hardly breathe as they made their way across town to Viktor’s house.
