“You should eat,” she says without inflection.
Her hand gestures toward the tray beside the bed without ever pausing in its slow dismantling of the wrapper. There’s a plastic takeout container balanced on top, rice, steamed vegetables, and some kind of grilled meat, maybe chicken.
It smells fine, warm, even, but the sight of it makes my stomach pitch.
Maybe it’s the nerves or whatever drugs are still fading from my system. Or maybe it’s just the unbearable thought that Leo is still out there in some stranger’s arms, calling for me, wondering why I haven’t come.
Wondering if I’m coming back at all.
I swallow the nausea and force myself upright, ignoring the way every muscle screams in protest. My body feels like it’s been dragged behind a moving car, aching in places I didn’t know could ache. I blink against the dizzying spin of the room and look down to see that Maksim’s dressed me again.
“Where’s Maksim?”I ask.
She finally lifts her gaze. Cold and assessing, her pale eyes flick to mine.
“Out,” she says simply. “Recon.”
My brows pull together. “Alone?”
“No.” Her fingers still. “He took my brother.”
“You stayed behind?” I can’t help the edge in my voice.
She raises an eyebrow. “To babysit you. Maksim was…concernedyou would wake up disoriented. So he volunteered me to babysit.”
“Oh.” My fingers twist around the sheets that have pooled into my lap.
She leans back slightly in the chair, folding her arms over her chest. “Matvey also needed help processing some of the data coming in from when you were dropped. I know the system better than anyone except him. We’re coordinatingsurveillance pulls and traffic cam loops to try to narrow down possible locations of where the van, and you, came from.”
I nod slowly, still fighting the fog clouding my thoughts. “In order to find my son?”
“Among other things,” she corrects with a clipped tone. “He’s not the only thing that needs to be tracked down. Not everything is about you.”
I frown. A strange silence blooms between us, and while it’s not entirely hostile, it’s not exactly comfortable either. I’m not naive enough to delude myself into thinking Maksim’s inner circle have suddenly started liking me. If anything, I’ve become even more of a liability than I was five years ago.
Giving birth to thePakhan’sheir is an entire other mess none of them were prepared to deal with when they first came to the States. All of which has been aggravated by Mikhail’s meddling.
I shift my legs off the bed, letting my bare feet touch the cool floor. “I can help. I’m not useless.”
Katya tilts her head. “No one said you were.”
I lift my chin, challenging her. “I know you think I’m weak. That I’m just… Maksim’s pet or whatever. But I did hear things while I was being held captive.”
Her lips part slightly. Not into a smile, exactly, more like intrigue. “Is that so?”
Suddenly, I’m too aware of the earrings threading through my earlobes. My fingers itch to reach up and check to see if they’re still there, even though I know for certain that theyare. They aren’t the simple kind that can be popped on and off. Mikhail made sure of that.
It’ll take effort to remove them. None of which I can pretend is a complete accident.
Playing my part, acting like a scared and helpless woman isn’t hard when my child’s life hangs in the balance. However, taking on a cunning façade is one of the most difficult masks I’ve ever had to put on. I’m not built for deception. Not in a way that can help me easily worm my way into the good graces of Maksim’s inner circle.
It’s going to be hard enough to convince him to give over the Bratva without the other four of them chattering in his ear. If I can get them to see that there is no other option, no other future for the Bratva that doesn’t end in all of us dying by the hands of Mikhail Sidorov, then we all just may have a chance at coming out of this alive.
“I think,” she says carefully, pulling me out of my thoughts, “you’ve been through a lot these past few weeks. You’re running on fumes. You’ll be of no use to us if you collapse in the middle of an operation. Recovery comes first. We’ve already got a few leads we’re checking in on. If we hit a roadblock, then we’ll circle back to what you overheard.”
I blink at her, surprised by the gentleness of her tone even if it’s barely there. Katya doesn’t do softness. She doesn’t do comfort, but something about the way she says ‘recovery comes first’makes my chest tighten.
I stare at her. “That sounded dangerously close to compassion.”