Moving slower than I’ve ever moved in my life, I took
the edge of my suit jacket between thumb and
forefinger and drew it open, showing my gun. Then I
lifted it from its holster with two fingers and tossed it
away. I laced my fingers on top of my head and sank to
my knees in the snow. I took a deep breath and yelled
as hard as I could.
“Tell Vasiliy I surrender.”
50
Angelo
They searched me thoroughly. First, in a yard at the
back of the house, with a gun barrel against my
forehead, in case I’d strapped a bomb to my body in an
assassination attempt. Then they pulled me inside and
patted me down for guns. Finally, they had me strip off
and went through my clothes looking for knives or bugs.
At last I was shown in Vasiliy’s study and pushed into a
chair. The guards looked at Vasiliy, wondering if they
should stay, but he waved them away. When the door
closed, he took a big, mean-looking handgun from his
desk drawer and set it on the desk, right next to a
chessboard. He nodded at the board. “Do you play?”
I shook my head. “I have no fucking idea how to play
chess. It’s a Russian thing.”
He blinked once and then smiled. “Perhaps it is. A pity.
So, tell me, Mr. Baroni...why have you given yourself up
to me? Were you hoping for mercy?” He leaned
forward. “I fear you will be disappointed. I couldn’t kill
you when you were head of your organization but from
what I hear, that’s no longer the case.”
“I came because I need your help.”
He was too surprised to even laugh, at first. There was
a second of stunned silence where my words just hung
in the air. Only then did he throw himself back in his
chair and roar with laughter.
I took a deep breath. “Irina is in danger.”
He tilted his head to one side. “Really, Mr. Baroni—you
can do better than that. As I’m sure you know, Irina is
where no one can hurt her, including you.”
Now I leaned forward. “She’s in danger because you
sent her off with a perverted, violent son of a bitch.” I
pulled out my phone and showed him the photos of
Kirsty. “This is what he did to one of my escorts. Look
at her. Look! See the mark from his ring?”
I could see it break across his face in slow motion.
Every cell in his body was telling him it couldn’t be true.
If we’d been talking about any other woman, he would
have just denied it. But this was Irina...and whatever
differences I’d thrown up between them, he had a
father’s need to make sure she was okay. And the more
he looked, the more he thought about it, the more
everything he thought he knew was thrown into doubt.
“Impossible,” he said at last. “Irina went with him
willingly.”
“He’s blackmailing her.”
Vasiliy frowned, then let out a sigh of exasperation.
“What could he possibly have to blackmail her with? I
already know about...you.” He made me sound like a
filthy drug habit.
And here it was. The moment where I sealed my own
fate. I had to tell him: it was the only way I could
convince him. “She had to go with Mikhail,” I said, “or
he was going to tell you that it was me who stabbed
Yuri.”
There was a half-second of stunned silence. Then the
gun was in his hands and pointed right at my forehead,
his hand trembling in his rage.
I talked fast. “There’s no reason you shouldn’t kill me,” I
told him. “It was an accident. We were fighting, we fell
together...but that doesn’t matter. I get that.”
“You sliced right into his heart, you svoloch!” Vasiliy
panted. His face had turned scarlet.
“You can kill me,” I said. “But think. Think what this
means. I’m telling the truth about Mikhail. He
blackmailed her. He lied to you. He took her from right
under your nose. He’s going to make her life a living hell
and she’s with him right now. I can’t get her back. But
you can.”
Vasiliy’s hand flexed on the gun as he adjusted his grip.
I thought about closing my eyes but I’ve always thought
that’s the coward’s option. If I was going to die, I was
going to look him right in the eye while he pulled the
trigger. I watched his finger tighten, tighten, the
chromed trigger easing back and back—
“Have you any idea what she means to me?” Vasiliy
whispered.
I stared right back at him. “As much as she means to
me.”
He held my gaze for another few seconds...then the gun
hit the desk, the heavy thump almost drowned out by a
tirade of Russian curses. “Killing you would break her
heart,” he snapped. “Get out. Don’t ever let me see you
again. I will go to Russia and get Irina.”
I frowned. “Now that you know...can’t you just call him
and tell him it’s over?”
He shook his head. “Perhaps that would work with men
you know, Mr. Baroni. But Mikhail is one of us. You
don’t know how we operate. By doing this, Mikhail has
made himself an enemy of the Malakovs. His life is over.
If he finds out we know, he will run and take Irina with
him as a hostage. We may never find them again.”
I leaned across the desk. “Then I want to come with
you.”
He stared at me, aghast. “You think I’d let you fight
alongside me and my men? You think I’d let you near
her again?”
“Mikhail had at least ten men just at his place in New
York. How many does he have at his place in Russia?
Twenty? Thirty? You need all the help you can get!”
We glared at each other, neither willing to give ground.
“We have to move,” I pressed. “They’re hours ahead of
us!”
Vasiliy rose to his feet and straightened his tie. “We will
catch them up,” he said. “We have jet.”
Less than an hour later, we were aboard the Malakov
private jet, throttling back for take-off. Luka—Vasiliy’s
son and Irina’s cousin—was gathering a force of men in
Moscow and would meet us there. We could then refuel
and quickly set off again for a small airstrip close to
Mikhail’s mansion, way out in the sticks. Irina and
Mikhail would have had to travel from Moscow airport
by road, so we’d arrive not far behind them.
I just hoped we were in time.
51
Irina
It took hours to drive from the airport to Mikhail’s
mansion, most of it on winding roads through thick
forest. It had been an overnight flight and I hadn’t
managed to sleep on the plane, so I was exhausted. But
I couldn’t sleep while I felt Mikhail’s eyes on me in the
darkness.
Thankfully, Mikhail eventually dozed off himself, lulled
by the gentle roll and bounce of the SUV’s suspension.
With my head cushioned on a sweater against the
window, I let myself drift off into a fitful sleep, haunted
by nightmares where Angelo was hunted down and shot
because I was weak, or where I tried to protect my
children from a drunken, violent Mikhail.
I jerked awake when the car bumped over a tree
branch...and when I opened my eyes, dawn was
breaking and I was looking out over paradise. We’d
been climbing up into the mountains for hours and the
twisting road we were following clung to the side of one
of the peaks, letting us look down across its steep
slopes to a verdant valley below. The sunrise was
turning the early-morning mist pink as it crept between
the snow-covered firs, with dazzling beams of golden