Page 15 of Lethal Abduction

I step out of his grip. “I hope so.” I force a smile, dodging the question.

Roman nods slowly, but the brilliance has gone from his face. “Come in and meet my son anyway.” He turns me toward the ward, slinging his arm around my neck. “And then we’re having drinks, brother. No fucking arguments. Not tonight.” He glances at me as we pause outside the door. “Deal?”

“Deal.”

Through the glass pane I can see Darya, looking wan andpale but almost unbearably happy, holding a small bundle in her arms.

Bracing myself, I push open the door.

It’s much laterthat night, and Roman and I have consumed most of a bottle of cognac and several cigars, when I finally make my excuses and leave. Fortunately, he’s been up for hours with Darya and wants to be back at the hospital early the next day, so at least he doesn’t argue.

I’m too wired to go home. Not that my sparse apartment feels like home.

It never did. And especially not after I met Abby.

I used to spend my nights in Abby’s little two-bedroom walk-up, surrounded by her paintings and the smell of turpentine. Waking up to the weird eighties music radio station she loves, the smell of hot coffee brewing on the stove, and her long legs in the short Japanese robe I always tried to pull off.

Fuck.

I glance at my phone out of habit.

There’s no message.

Of course there isn’t.

The last message I got from Abby was when I woke up alone in a Madrid penthouse and found a letter on the fucking side table explaining why she was leaving me.

I rub a hand over my face and walk mindlessly down the street.

The three months she asked for are almost up, and not a word. Not even the hint of a fucking word.

And I’ve done my best to be patient. To give her the space she asked for. Space for her to make peace with her family,and to make up her mind about whether or not she wants this life.

Who are you kidding, Dimitry?

I haven’t been patient at all. Giving Abby space is the only thing Icando, since she made it pretty damned clear that if I followed her, we were done.

I’ve hated every fucking minute of it.

Thank Christ for work, which has kept me in Miami, and mercifully away from Spain and my memories, for the past three months. And thankfully, there’s still a lot to be done.

Decades ago, Roman’s father built a vault beneath the Miami compound belonging to Sergei Petrovsky, Darya’s father, to house priceless treasures dating back to pre-revolutionary Russia, entrusted to the Petrovsky family for safekeeping. Almost a century later, I’ve been put in charge of seeing the pieces returned to the descendants of those long-ago Russian families.

It’s a task that requires a lot of care. The contents of the vault, known to most as the Naryshkin treasures, have been whispered about for years. Last year, the Orlovs kidnapped Roman’s two daughters in an effort to blackmail Darya into opening it. The war that ensued was bloody and fierce and nearly cost us all our lives. It took time for Alexei, Darya’s brother, to regain control of the Petrovsky bratva, and I stayed for a month to help him with the cleanup.

Was that the final straw?

I’ve asked myself the same question a thousand times.

Was it the blood and violence of that war that threw her over the edge?

I wouldn’t blame her. She saw me in the aftermath, when I was still pretty cut up and battered. Worse, later she met Luke. That day he’d covered Ofelia’s and Masha’s bodies with his own—and got a number of bullet holes as a result.

I saw the way Abby looked at him, and the others that gotshot up that day, not all of whom made it home again. I know that no matter what I told her, she still wondered if one day that would be me.

And maybe she’s right.

The fact is that I’ve never known any other life than this one. Standing at Roman’s side. Fighting whatever has to be fought to build the empire he’s created.

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