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“Then I suggest you keep your kids on a tighter leash next time you want to exploit them for your own personal gain.”
Through the video call, it’s hard to tell if he’s fazed by the anger crackling off of me like toxic radiation. “This wasn’t just for my personal gain. A marriage to Katerina helped you, too. Your father wouldn’t have agreed to the match otherwise.”
“My father and I don’t always see eye to eye. He wanted a partnership with you; I want to bury you alive.”
Konstantin grimaces and folds his hands in front of him. “Regardless, your father and I made a deal and you agreed to it. You gave me your word that my daughter would be your bride.”
“Then your daughter disappeared. I can’t marry a missing person poster, so I don’t see why you’re wasting my time.”
“Didshe disappear, though?” Konstantin muses.
He gestures to someone off-camera and suddenly, a figure barrels into the frame. There’s a dark pillowcase over their head.
A creeping feeling of dread rips through my gut.What the hell is going on?
“Well,” Konstantin presses when I say nothing, “did she? That’s what everyone said. You would know best, though. Was she missing, Ivan?”
He is bluffing. It’s a trick. He wants me to admit something, but I’m not stupid. There’s no way that he—no, I won’t even let myself think it.
I sit back in my chair.Breathe, motherfucker,I say in my head again and again, trying and failing to make myself relax even as everything inside of me goes rigid.
“I don’t have time for this, Konstantin. Say what you dragged us all here to say or I’m leaving.”
He just tuts and purses his lips again. “Well, you no longer have anyone to funnel money to via secret offshore accounts. Hopefully, that frees up enough time for you to listen to what I have to say.”
The dread doubles.
No. He didn’t find her. There’s no way.
Except there is always a way. If someone knew where to look… If they had a nudge in the right direction…
No. Even if he followed the money, he doesn’t have her. I would have heard by now. I would have known. I would have prevented it.
The cloaked figure next to Konstantin is shivering now.
“I could have all the time in the world and I still wouldn’t have time for this, Konstantin. Spit it out or I’m hanging up.”
He smiles acidly. Then, with a melodramatic flourish, he rips the pillowcase away from his prisoner. First, it’s nothing but a mess of long, tangled hair. Then Konstantin grabs the person by the neck and forces them into the camera.
There is no background visible now. No adjustment for the lens to make.
The entire screen is filled from corner to corner with the bruised, terrified face of Katerina Sokolov.
“Katerina,” I breathe. It’s so soft that the microphone doesn’t pick up the sound, but they can see my face.
She’s thin and pale, even considering that she shares the Sokolov family genes. Her hair is a riot of knots fanning out around her head. The mottled color in her face is half-bruising, half bags of sleep deprivation piling up beneath her eyes.
Suddenly, she’s jerked back. Mikhail appears, hovering over her shoulder.
“My Katerina has come home at last,” Konstantin croons. He drapes an arm around his daughter’s shivering shoulders. “I thought you two should be the first to know.”
“What the fuck, Konstantin?” Francia shrieks. Somehow, she looks even more shocked than I am.
“Joyous day, isn’t it?” Mikhail squats down looking just as smug as his father.
“This wasn’t—” Francia shakes her head and leans towards the camera. “I didn’t pass information along so you could—You weren’t supposed to bring her home. This ruins everything!”
It all clicks together. Truth slapping me in the face with a cold, hard hand. Francia delivered information about where the Sokolovs could find Katerina and, instead of rewarding her, they cut her off.
