Page 3 of Broken Embers

She addresses me in a smooth, accented English. “Hello, Sabina. Welcome home.”

Sabina.

My stomach knots. They don’t know I speak Russian, I realize. That might be the one advantage I have right now.

“Sabina?” I repeat. “My name is Sabrina. And this sure as hell isn’t my home.”

I move toward the chair she gestures to and slide into it as she takes a seat in front of me at the wooden table. I’m glad to sit as my legs feel like jelly, and I don’t want them to see my fear.

“You do realize what you’ve just done qualifies as an act of war, right? Kidnapping an American citizen? Not exactly diplomacy.”

She doesn’t flinch—doesn’t blink. Just places her elbows on the table and laces her fingers together.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” she says. “You may live in the United States and be a citizen there now. But you were born here in Russia… but not as Sabrina Craft.”

She pulls out a sheet of paper from the folder, which is crisp and official-looking, and slides it across the table. I don’t want to look. But I do.

It has my date of birth and time of birth, but the name is not mine; it reads ‘Sabina Mariya Zorin’.

The surname knocks the air from my lungs.

Zorin.

That was the name on the birth certificate Tara had hidden in that box she’d hidden—the name tied to Lidiya Zorin.

My voice shakes as I push the paper back. “You’re lying.”

“I may not know you now,” she says, “but I saw you the day you were born, Sabina.”

I stare at her. My body goes still. “Who the hell are you?” I whisper.

The woman leans back, graceful as a swan. “I am Yelena Zorin.”

Fuck! The name of Lidiya Zorin’s mother—her name rings in my ears like a funeral bell.

I stare at her, bile rising in my throat. “What? Are you trying to tell me you’re my mother?”

“No,” she says. “I’m your aunt.”

2

OLEKSI

This house used to be one of my fortresses, but now the once magnificent entry hall is nothing more than a fucking wreck. Glass litters the floors and the sound of the attack still rings in my ears. This is not the first time I’ve been left among destruction, but it is the first time it has happened in my own home and the first time it’s left me feeling like the attackers ripped my heart out through my soul. The silence is thick with Sabrina’s absence as I stand in the aftermath, the memory of the attack replaying through my head and blood pounding in my ears like a war drum that refuses to stop.

My arms instinctively close around Elena’s small warmth, the only thing grounding me. She stirs softly against my chest, strapped to me in the baby sling. Her cheek rests trustingly just over my heart, and her soft breaths heat a path around it, totally unaware that the only mother she has known for her short nine-month life is gone. I swallow as the anger and pain pound through me once again, and my hands curl into fists at my side.

“We’re going to get her back, sweetheart,” I whisper to the little girl I have just found out is my niece—a tiny part of my brother’s heart and soul.

My jaw clenches when I think of an image of the petite, brave woman with a huge heart, fiercely protective instincts, and an unmatched loyalty to those she loves and cares about. A woman who risked everything and carried the burden of my brother and her sisters’ secret all alone for the past eight months, knowing the dangers that one little slip about Elena’s parentage would create.

Still, Sabrina didn’t think twice about it and took Elena on as her own daughter. She truly is a remarkably special person. My brow furrows as Clyde’s words echo through my head.I hope we find her before the people who took her find out just how special Sabrina is.

What the fuck did he mean by that? I turn to where Lev, Clyde, Syd, and Ivan huddle near the front door, my eyes narrowing as a dreadful feeling starts to creep into my gut. I didn’t get to press Clyde about what he meant because we were interrupted by Syd who came to tell me that Lev was chasing down one of the fucking Russian Special Forces bastards that were still loitering around the property. She was floored to see Clyde alive, and then Ivan joined her to let us know that Lev was back.

Once back into the foyer, I had to get my men to work on starting the cleanup and making plans to re-secure the mansion. With all that out of the way, I can press Clyde for answers. Walking toward the group, Syd is the first to see me, and she gives me a tight smile as the rest of them turn. Drawing nearer to them, I signal them to keep their voices down. They know why as their eyes land on the little angel snuggled against me, secure in her baby sling.

I can see that Lev is still pissed that he didn’t catch the Russian fucker that vanished into the early morning.

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