Page 129 of Lethal Abduction

I shake my head, smiling wryly despite the tears still rolling down my face.

Only Darya Borovsky would casually mention a secure room and encrypted phones like they’re a normal thing to have.Not to mention befriending the one woman even Roman is wary of.

“Ofelia has decided to go back to boarding school in London this year,” she’s saying, “so I’m over here to help get her settled in. Zin’s club has an incredible spa, so we came here for lunch and a girl’s day out. Which, I might add, is not an altogether easy thing to do with a baby attached, but this place is so calm he’s been a dream. I might have to set up permanent camp in here. Please tell me you’re having an enormous drink. I need to live vicariously through someone.”

I laugh through my tears, unable to wipe the huge smile offmy face. Dao comes out to clear the dishes away and replaces my empty glass with a much-needed fresh gin. I curl up on the daybed and clutch the phone hard enough to hurt my hand. “I miss you so fucking much,” I whisper.

“Oh, God, me too.” Darya’s voice breaks. “Now, talk.”

Haltingly, I start to tell her about the events of the past few months, leaving out anything that could betray my whereabouts or the names of the people involved. I give her the story but without the specifics, including a broad outline of what happened in Bogotá. In turn, Darya tells me about her baby boy, who is three months old now. By the time I get to the present moment, Dao has replaced my glass again.

“So that’s more or less it, I guess.” I turn my drink in my hand.

“That’s it?” Darya, who has barely spoken while I told my story, sounds incredulous. “So you and Dimitry are what? Just on the run from these people indefinitely?”

I grimace. “Not exactly.”

“Wait.” Her voice rises a notch. “Please don’t tell me that Dimitry is planning to go in there and—”

“Let’s not talk about this.” I cut her off. There’s a strained silence, during which I can almost see Darya’s worried expression, despite the miles between us. “I don’t want you to keep secrets from Roman. The less you both know about all this, the better.”

“I’ll have to tell him we spoke, Abs.” Her voice is quiet. “I promise I won’t tell him your story, but... he needs to know that Dimitry is safe. It’s been killing him, not knowing. I don’t think he’s slept a night through since he and Dimitry fought. And he’s been so unbearable to be around that even the kids are tiptoeing about warily. I brought them all to London, supposedly to say goodbye to Ofelia, but to be honest, mainly to give us all a break.”

Given that Roman is putty in the hands of any of those kids, that’s saying something.

“Dimitry is the same,” I say. “He won’t admit it, of course, but I can tell.”

There’s a short pause, filled with things that are awkward for us both. “Darya,” I say eventually, “I hate to ask this, but do you know what actually happened between them? All that Dimitry told me is that Roman, and I quote,is no longer a factorin his decisions.”

Her sigh is audible even down the phone line. “I was hoping you’d know more than me.”

I frown. “You mean you don’t know anything at all?”

Darya’s silence stretches on long enough to set off alarm bells. “Oh, God,” I say, guilt twisting painfully inside me. “Is it something about me?”

She doesn’t answer, which is answer enough.

“Just tell me,” I say quietly. “Whatever it is that you know.”

When she speaks again, the pain in her voice turns in my stomach like a knife. “Roman was... very angry when you left.”

“Yeah, well.” I don’t attempt to hide the caustic note in my voice. “It’s not like he was ever my biggest fan.”

“It’s not that.” Although I notice Darya doesn’t even try to contradict me, as she once would have. “Anger is just how Roman handles emotions he can’t deal with. He saw how destroyed Dimitry was, and for once, it wasn’t something he could fix. There was nobody to beat up and no amount of money that could fix things. He offered, you know, to use his cyber team to track you down. Dimitry refused to let him.”

My heart clenches fiercely.

I love that he respected me enough to let me go.

And then that he came to rescue me, even though he had no reason to.

“I was being honest when I said I don’t know exactly whathappened between them,” Darya says, but the hesitance in her voice is plain.

“Just spit it out.” I grip the phone, staring out at the distant water. “What is it you’re not telling me?”

“You have to remember that Roman doesn’t mean what he says when he’s angry—”

“Don’t make fucking excuses for CEO Man. Just tell me what he said.”

---