Page 125 of Stolen Empire
I watch their taillights vanish before I speak.
"Come on."
I open my door and walk out, and Katya follows me to the elevator in silence.
I don’t let her leave my arms for the entire ride up to my apartment.
I can smell blood and sweat and the chemical residue of gunpowder clinging to both of us.
My hands are steady as I unlock my apartment door, but something uneasy still coils in my chest, even after I lock the door behind us and engage the deadbolt.
When I turn back to face her, Katya has moved to the center of my living room.
She stands with her shoulders drooping and her hand lightly touching the cut on her cheek.
"Tell me everything," I say, stalking toward her.
She takes a breath that makes her wince.
Something has hurt her ribs.
"My father was apparently Lyovik Morozov. He died when I was five or six, but I wasn't there. My mother told me he died before I was born. I never knew him. She never talked about him. She wanted me to be happy, but we moved around a lot, never stayed in one place for long. I swear I didn't know, Dimitri."
"Where is your mother now?"
I'm close enough to tell Katya reeks of sweat and it smells like she might’ve lain in her own urine.
It makes my heart twist uncomfortably in my chest.
"Perm. She lives in a small apartment near the university." Katya's hands wring together. "I haven't seen her in years."
"Fuck, Katya…"
I breathe, not knowing what to even think.
Rolan will know, and once he sees her, he may or may not know how to respond to the allegations that Katya is the missing Morozov heir.
If that's the case, then dismantling the Radich crew will be simple.
But convincing the Morozov family to unite with us will be trickier.
We owe a great debt to them now, one my father never paid, and in twenty years, the relationship has grown more and more bitter.
"I think it's time for me to leave Moscow, Dimitri."
I look up at her face and see the resolve in her eyes.
It's something she's thought of a lot.
She's confident in her conviction.
"No… Why?"
This isn't something I expected.
I rescued her to be with her, to have her here.
I can't just let her leave now.
