Page 21 of Broken Embers

“I…” Agafon swallows. “Look here, Oleksi, we…” clears his throat. “If we don’t get the alliance we want, we will sever our connection to the Mirochins. Already, the people of Dragunov Village are feeling unsettled and are threatening an uprising if the alliance is not cemented with…”

“Is that why the village has suddenly got a small army?” I lean back comfortably in the chair, my eyes never leaving his. “So you can stand up against the Mirochins?” I cut him off.

“You… you do need this port…” Agafon tries to reassert his authority, ignoring my reference to my little run-in with their new army. “And remember, it’s not just this port that you will lose access to if we break alliances with you.”

I stare at him for a while, making sure he’s squirming, before saying. “Now you’re trying to extort an alliance from me?” He is either desperate to get this alliance or deliberately trying to goad me into breaking it, and I don’t like that.

“No,” Agafon denies. “We do not want to cut ties with the Mirochins. Your family has looked after this village for generations. We would not have survived the hard time if it had not been for your great-grandfather and his father before him.”

“Then why threaten me and demand my presence here?” I lean my elbows on the table and pin him with my eyes. “Why all the disrespect to my aunt when she offered to come in my place?”

“We needed to cement the alliance with the head of the Mirochin family, not a proxy,” Agafon tells me, not realizing they are doing just that to me.

“My feeling exactly,” I tell him, and see his eyes widen as he realizes what he’s just said. “I will secure the new alliance with theactualnew Dragunov Elder and not hisproxy.”

“I have Ruslan’s full authority to…” He starts to stammer.

“My auntrunsthe Russian operations for me in Moscow,” I point out. “I’d say that pretty much makes her much more than a proxy and a lot higher up in the hierarchy than you are.”

“I… I…” Agafon is now spluttering.

His face is going red with outrage, and I notice Nadia, who hasn’t uttered a word this whole time, raises a hand to her mouth.Is she laughing?It’s hard to see with the hood of her cape covering most of her face.

Just then, his phone rings and he glances at it. “Sorry, I have to take this.” He all but jumps to his feet and sprints out of the room.

“Probably his mommy,” Nikolas chirps under his breath.

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” I agree with him, watching the man hightail it out of the room, but not before I saw the visible signs of relief for the interruption on his face. “I don’t know about you, but I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Yeah, it’s like he’s a puppet,” Nikolas observes. “He seems to have a script he’s talking from.”

I nod. “The question is, who is pulling his strings?” I wonder. “Is it Ruslan, trying to antagonize me? Which means he’s wanting to stage a war, but I’m not sure to what end.”

“Maybe he’s starting his own criminal organization,” Nikolas’s suggestion startles me.

Is that why he’s gathering an army?Jesus Christ, as if I don’t have enough on my fucking plate. I don’t want to have to deal with this pissant village declaring war on us too.

As the door swings shut behind Agafon, Nadia turns towards us and pulls off her hood. I’m struck by her beauty and then amazed by the sudden transformation we witness as her meekness seems to melt away.

Her eyes meet mine — they are sharp, clear, burning with something dangerous.

“We don’t have much time,” she says in a low, steady voice. “So I’m going to cut straight to it. I know why you’re really in Russia.” Her eyes narrow, and she shakes her head. “I know, too, that the RMSAD has taken Sabrina and that you’re looking into Tara’s disappearance, hoping it will shed some light on what happened to your brother and my sister.”

She holds mine and Nikolas’s attention as she continues.

“Okay…” I shrug, willing her to get to the point.

“I can help you withallof it,” Nadia tells us calmly. I say nothing, my body going still.

“How can you help us?” I ask skeptically, knowing by the way her shoulders have tensed slightly, this is not just about helping us out of the goodness of her heart. She wants something in return, and I fear I know what!

“I have contacts in the RMSAD,” Nadia informs us, and before I can say anything else, she adds, “Contacts who, unlike yours, are trustworthy.”

“And what do you get in return?”

“Freedom,” she says simply, her head turning and her eyes holding Nikolas’s. “Get me out of here. Out of this village. Away from my older brother, Ruslan. Away from Agafon—out of Russia!”

I glance at Nikolas, who frowns, and we look at Nadia questioningly.

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