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I hoist her into my arms. “Thanks, Cyrille. I’ll take it from here.”
I carry my wife upstairs and into our bedroom. She mumbles something into my chest, but I can’t understand anything she’s saying. I place her on our bed and peel off her sandals.
“Where were you?” she demands. “You just left the cabin without a word, without anything. I tried calling you. You didn’t pick up. Neither did Konstantin.”
“We were in the field. We couldn’t pick up.”
“Okay, great. So that’s just how it’s gonna go? I won’t have any information about where you are or what you’re doing until your enemies decide to send me pictures of your dead body?” she demands. “Is that how this works?”
A few months ago, I would have snapped back at her. But the instinct to fight is overpowered by the instinct to take care of her.
“I don’t intend to die anytime soon.”
“Funny—my parents probably would have said the same thing. And look at them!” Knocking my hands aside, she jumps off the bed and runs into the bathroom.
I want to follow her, but she locks it from within. I’m not sure breaking down the door is going to endear her to me.
Muttering angrily, I storm downstairs. I don’t know why I’m surprised to see Konstantin in the entryway, but there he is.
“Cyrille showed me the pictures,” he explains. “Is she okay up there?”
“She’s in shock. Petyr is clearly getting desperate, going after her parents.”
“Maybe he assumed they were close.”
“Shows how little research he does. If he was that sloppy with the idea, maybe he was sloppy with the execution, too.”
“You think they’re alive?” Konstantin asks.
“I saw a burned trailer, but I didn’t see bodies. If he knew he’d kill them, he wouldn’t have skimped on the close-ups.”
Konstantin nods in agreement. “I’ll get someone to check out the situation over there.”
“If you find those two idiots, get them to a safehouse somewhere and make sure they’re comfortable. They don’t deserve it, but do it anyway.”
My cousin nods again and hurries off to get started.
67
PAIGE
My tears are hot and angry. But it’s not Misha I’m angry at—it’s myself.
Why? Because one intrusive, repetitive thought won’t leave me alone. It keeps buzzing in my mind like a mosquito. A question: am I upset because they’re dead—or because they’re dead and I never got the chance to tell them how much they broke my heart? To ask them if they even cared to try fixing it?
Every time that thought circles back around, I cringe away from it. It’s selfish and cruel and wrong. What kind of horrible person hasthatreaction to finding out she’s an orphan?
It’s even more embarrassing that Misha saw it. That he witnessed a side of me I wish didn’t exist.
When he walks back into the bedroom, I’m on the bed. I’ve been sitting here in abject misery for half an hour. I have a hard time meeting his eyes.
He sits down next to me. “Hey.”
“Hi.”
“How are you?”
“I mean… I just found out my parents are dead,” I say. “So, not great.”
