Page 9 of Broken Embers

Before we can say anything else, the sound of footsteps coming down the hallway draws my attention. I nearly stagger as the elderly couple walks toward us with grace and power, their faces instantly recognizable.

“Our guests have arrived,” the woman says, stopping beside my aunt. Her face softens into a smile as she looks at Elena.

“Yes.” Carla turns to us, stepping out of Mark’s hold. “Oleksi. Everyone. I’d like you to meet your hosts, Anya Novikov-Morozova and Timofey Morozov.” She pauses, like one of those game show hosts waiting to let the contestant know if they are right or not before dropping the bombshell without missing a beat. “My parents.”

Her words explode inside my chest like dynamite. The legendary ghosts of Russian military and intelligence history. The man who rewrote military history and the woman known as the Jewel of Russia, claimed to be the most intelligent in the world, are Sabrina’s grandparents?

“What the fuck?” I exhale realization crashing over me, the blood runs ice-cold in my veins.

A cold realization punches through me.

Now I know why Ergorov took Sabrina.

She isn’t just any high-potential asset—she’s the granddaughter of two of the most brilliant minds on earth.

Clyde’s warning from earlier slams into focus.

It’s not just Sabrina’s mind at risk.

It’s our baby she’s carrying.

The next heir to the most feared crime family on earth.

If RMSAD finds out, they won’t hesitate.

They’ll hide Sabrina and our child so deep we’ll never find them, and God only knows what they will do to them or what they will try to turn them into.

But I won’t let that happen.

Not to Sabrina. Not to our child.

4

SABRINA

The light slams on like a hammer to the skull.

I jerk upright with a strangled curse, blinking against the brutal glare slicing through my eyeballs.

I guess someone thinks sleep is a fucking privilege.

Judging by the weight of my eyelids and the heaviness in my bones, I must’ve gotten maybe two, three hours, tops.

The cheap pink scrubs I fell asleep in are a bit too big and are twisted around me.

The hospital style bed squeaks under me as I shove the blankets off and sit up, rubbing a hand over my face.

The room is almost bare, the walls an unforgiving white, the floor a cold slab of gray tile. There’s no window. Just a single door, a security camera bolted into the corner near the ceiling, its tiny red light blinking steadily at me like a heartbeat. Watching. Recording.

On a small steel table sits a tray—scrambled eggs, pale and fluffy.

Plain toast, no butter.

A handful of steamed nuts.

“Who eats damn nuts for breakfast?” I glance at the small bowl of blueberries and the cup of herbal tea, still steaming faintly. “What is this breakfast? It looks like a health nut’s fucking wet dream. For the record. I like donuts and coffee or pancakes dripping with maple syrup and spray cream alongside a pot of medium roast coffee, preferably vanilla flavored.”

My stomach churns at the thought of eating, but I know I have to. I’m not alone anymore. It isn’t just my life at stake.

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