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Instead, I have to say what can be said in front of all the group.
“Impossible hardly seems like a barrier in this house. Can I ask you all something?”
“Of course,” Ivan inclines his head, listening.
“What was the code you used over the phone, to tell Dominik and the others where to find you?”
Ivan smiles. “A simple cypher, one Dom and I used when we were boys avoiding trouble with our father. The first letter of each word forms the message.”
“So nobody expected any kamikaze youngsters?” I say, composing my own example on the fly.
I’m showing off for Adrik. He rewards me with a small smile, the first of the night.
The real message is:
So
Nobody
Expected
Any
Kamikaze
Youngsters
Sloane catches the code just as quickly, and so does Zima, sitting at the far end of the table. Mouth full of bread, he lets out a snort that spews crumbs across Freya’s plate.
“It took me a lot longer to come up with them,” Ivan says, gravely.
Sloane teases him, “I see snowwas not your best work. How about some coordinates next time?”
Ivan is too used to his wife’s ribbing to rise to the bait. “I wanted to make sure you weren’t looking for me in the desert, my love. I know how you hate sand.”
Dom scoffs. “Yeah it was super helpful, we crossed Fiji off the map.”
Ivan is unperturbed. “You did find me in the end.”
“It was a dark time,” Lara says quietly. “We’re in brighter days now.”
She casts a quick smile at Nix, letting her know she’s part of those brighter days, and not blamed for what came before.
Nix has fallen silent beside me. I want to smack myself for bringing this up. I was curious and not considering how it would make her feel.
“Sorry,”I whisper, squeezing her leg under the table.
Nix takes a slow breath, lips pale but face composed.
“The sun sets on one life and rises on another.”
“For all of us,” Freya agrees.
Ivan’s return marks a turning point for everyone. Freya won’t have to run the Petrovs’ dispensaries anymore; she’s headed off to Cambridge to complete her long-postponed economics degree. Dominik isPakhanin St. Petersburg. Adrik is free to pursue his own goals with the Wolfpack. Rafe can be himself again—he’ll marry Nix in the spring, and he’s already confided to me that he’s been scouting houses to surprise her.
You have to literally chain a Petrov in a cell to stop them chasing what they want.
I envy them all.
