Lie to Me (39 page)

Those five insignificant words, spoken in a flat monotone, filled her with the sudden, violent need to vomit. Her father. Hughes wasn’t taking her to some isolated cell where she’d be prosecuted for the bombs. He was taking her straight to her grave.

Sasha clutched at the door handle and gave it a fierce jerk. When the door failed to open, and the lock she jammed her thumb on didn’t so much as click, a sob wedged into the back of her throat. “I don’t want to go. Lock me up, damn you.”

“Now, now, Sasha, is that any way to treat your father? You’ll break his heart.”

She didn’t care whether his heart stopped. She had to get out of this
car. Lunging across the seats, she tried the other door, jerking the handle to no avail.

Hughes chuckled. “Child locks. To keep disobedient children in line.”

Terror pressed down on Sasha, threatening to choke off her air. She forced herself to breathe. Though it had been long years ago, the ingrained training of an FSB agent slowly took command of her thoughts. She must remain calm. Panicking would only make things worse. If Hughes was unstable—and she was beginning to realize his ever-morphing expressions didn’t come from masterful control over his emotions—she could push him in the wrong direction. Expedite whatever fate he planned.

He could also create stories that would increase her father’s wrath.

She watched the landscape, putting more attention into the trees, the crooks in the shaded groves, the numbers on the houses they passed. Busy crowded London slowly gave way to more spread out homes, small tracts of flat land interspersed between gently sloping hills.

“What’s my father want?” She had to ask, though she suspected the answer. Knowledge was power, and the only tool she could use was her mind. She’d never been any good with a gun. Bullets scared the shit out of her. If she was going to come out of this alive, she needed to outthink her sire.

Hughes’s expression softened with a faint touch of wistfulness, before the hard gleam returned to his brown eyes. “He misses you, Sasha. You’re his child, and you ran away. I’ve gone to a lot of work to see you both reunited. You should be glad to see him.”

No way, no how. She’d just as soon kick her father in the face. But she sensed telling Hughes that would kindle a temper she didn’t care to witness. There was something strange and revolting about the gentle, cooing tone of his voice. Like he was talking to an eight-year-old, not the full-grown woman in the backseat of his car.

She slunk back into the seat, frantically searching for a solution.
She needed to reach Alexei. Misha even. Anyone who could help. But they were all at headquarters, under the belief she was being taken into custody by the director who worked hand in hand with them.

“You hired Grigoriy.” The realization hit her like a leaden mallet.

Danger flashed in that dirt-brown gaze. He jerked the car around another corner, sending gravel spraying beneath the tires. “It’s really none of your concern, Sasha. Now, fix your hair. Your father doesn’t want to see you messy.”

A shudder rolled down her spine. She caught herself lifting her fingers to her wet hair, driven by too many years of wanting to please her father. Her hand stopped at her shoulder, and she shoved it into her lap. Fuck him. Fuck them both. She’d die before she ever did another thing her father wanted.

The car came to a jerky stop in front of a quaint stone house with wide white shutters. From the drive, she caught a glimpse of a faded wooden swing swaying beneath a towering old elm. Other equally aged toys filled one corner of the weathered porch—a rusted red scooter, a peeling wooden wagon, a hobbyhorse with a frayed and matted mane. Broken pinwheels lined the manicured walk.

Hughes opened her door, reached in as she squirmed away. His fingers clamped around her wrist, and he dragged her out. “Shame on you, ungrateful girl.” He turned her toward the door.

That painted, welcoming red wood was the last thing she saw before something heavy slammed into her temple and everything went black.

A
lexei stalked back and forth across the conference room, half listening to Clarke call Hughes three different kinds of traitor in six different languages. The other half of Alexei’s mind frantically worked through possibilities—what role Hughes played in this, where he could have taken Sasha, how the hell Alexei was going to find her in time.

“She’s with her father,” he barked over Clarke’s tirade.

“I don’t doubt it. Her father’s been begging me for days to let him see her first. I had to practically shove him out of headquarters with Hughes.” Clarke jammed his hand into his pocket for his phone and stabbed in a number.

“Who are you calling?”

“Your partner.”

A tiny portion of Alexei’s worry calmed. Misha was the one man he’d want at his back. “Yakiv put her up to all of this, Clarke. He’s been manipulating her for years. She had no idea her legitimate research was being used for trafficking. Not until getting out meant risking her life.”

“I suspected she was telling the truth, Alexei.” He tossed his phone on the table, his call going unanswered. “I’m not stupid. I wouldn’t hire a legitimate threat.” His stone-cold gaze leveled on Alexei through the wire rims of his glasses. “And you’re not stupid either. Stay with me. We’ll find her.”

As Alexei pivoted on his heel and lifted a hand to shove his hair out of his eyes, his gaze caught the neon blue glow of his watch face. “Shit. I’ve got her.” He ripped the leather band off and punched the date button to activate the tracker. In the chaos of everything, the utter hell he’d suffered the last twelve hours, he’d forgotten he had put the tracker in her shoe.

The screen flashed white, then tiny lines filtered across it as the map filled in with GPS coordinates. One minuscule red dot flashed in the southern quadrant of the city. He tapped the LCD, magnifying the grid.

“Just north of Victoria Street. On…” He swore. “It’s not marked.”

Clarke blinked. “That’s Hughes’s house. I had dinner with him there the night I landed. He said he was staying in a flat across town while the shit was going down.”

Alexei rushed for the door. “When you get a hold of Misha, send him there.”

“Now just hold on a damned minute.”

With a hiss, Alexei stopped. “What?”

Clarke, the perfect picture of calm organization, motioned him aside. “I’m not sending one of my best operatives out unprepared when he’s incapable of thinking for himself.”

Anger launched through Alexei. He whirled on Clarke, prepared to pound the man into a pancake. “I’m not sitting on my ass here while you send someone else! I’m going after Sasha.”

“I know you are.” Shaking his head, Clarke chuckled. “I wouldn’t try to stop you. But you’re not going without an earpiece. I want to know where you are, what’s going on, and I’ll feed you what info I can dig up.”

Alexei could live with that, though the delay grated on his nerves. He let Clarke exit, pacing once again as he waited for his director to return with an earpiece and a wire. As he walked, he watched the blinking light. She hadn’t moved. As long as she was still in her shoes, her father and Hughes were dead men.

He fastened his watch back on his wrist and pulled his gun from the holster beneath his arm. Quickly checking the magazine, he walked through his own preparations, using the habitual task to sort his thoughts and grab hold of the calm logic that would keep his ass alive. He needed his wits about him. His heart might be working in overdrive, but his mind needed to shut the hell up.

Sasha was coming out alive, and she was going home with him. End of subject. No alterative. A Black Opal didn’t fail.

Clarke came through the door, somehow managing to look in complete control despite his unnatural, hurried motions. He tossed the earpiece at Alexei, who fastened it to his ear and tucked the wire down the back of his neck. Clarke pressed a button at his belt. “Clear enough?”

“Yeah. I hear you.” Alexei shoved his Sig back into his holster and yanked open the door. “I’m out of here.”

He barely caught Clarke’s agreeing nod as he jogged out the door,
through the bustling research station, and down the long concrete hall to the car he’d stolen earlier. Behind the wheel, he closed his eyes and pulled in a deep, fortifying breath. Then, he studied the coordinates on his watch face and started the engine.

Fifteen minutes, if traffic cooperated.

For the second time in too many years to count, he lifted his gaze to the twilight sky above.

T
he feel of something cold against her back pulled Sasha to the dull glow of a fluorescent light. Something moved against her forehead. A hand, sweeping back her hair. Setting off the pounding behind her skull. She groggily swiped at the fingers, and struggled to open her eyes.

Light hit her in the face, two overhead fixtures that illuminated stacked stone walls and a face she longed to forget.

Her father loomed over her, his pudgy freckled hand smoothing her hair. “Sasha, oh, Sasha, I am so sorry.”

Revolted by his unexpected presence, she scrambled upright, away from his touch. “Get your hands off me.”

He bowed his head, his shoulders slumped. The defeated posture was out of place on the man she’d come to understand him to be. All her life he had carried himself with confidence. Demanded nothing less than respect from those who surrounded him. Including her.

“You did this to me!” Sitting on her butt, she pushed farther away, until her back hit the rough wall. “I’m your
daughter.
I
loved
you. The only thing you’ve ever tried to do is destroy me.”

“No, no.” He dropped his head into his hands as his voice cracked with a sob. “No, Sasha.” His shoulders wracked with a violent jerk. “I tried to protect my daughter.”

“Protect?” Her voice escalated to a high-pitched shriek. “You’ve never protected me a day in your life. Petro did. He soothed my nightmares. He fed me. He was there when you were too busy researching!”
Emotion threatened to strangle her. She choked out the rest, barely holding scalding tears at bay. “You took him from me. You
blamed
me for killing him and told me it was my fault. When he was gone, I was just a tool for your power. All I ever wanted was to for you to want me.”

He reached one arm out to her, tears flowing unchecked down his cheeks as he shook his head once more. “Sasha, please,” he begged. “Listen to me. I was wrong, but I had no choice.”

She sniffed back the gathering wetness in her eyes and shook her head. “I can’t listen to any more of your lies.”

“They are not lies, daughter.” On his hands and knees, a pathetic pose for the man who had once intimidated the very authorities of Moscow, he crawled across the dingy concrete floor and wrapped a hand around her ankle. He pressed his forehead to the toe of her wet shoe. “Please, Sasha. Listen before Hughes sends me to the hell I deserve.”

Though she hated him, she couldn’t stand to see him groveling. The work he had done for the good of mankind deserved more nobleness than this. She kicked off his hand, pulled her knees into her chest, and wrapped her arms around them. She didn’t know this man. Not once had she ever witnessed him grieve. Even when they buried Petro, he stood at the edge of the grave, stoically silent, staring at the horizon, a hard glint in his blue eyes.

The portion of her heart that had yearned for the true gift of a father’s love, that had believed in him until he shattered her innocence, reached out. Against her will, she whispered, “I’m listening.”

A
fter several long minutes of sobbing at her feet, Sasha’s father found a modicum of composure and hefted himself to a sitting position at her side. She looked at him, observing for the first time how the passing years had wilted him. His chest was still broad, still strong. His gut a little too thick for his belt. His hands still full of the strength she remembered on the few occasions he walked with her in the park, her tiny hand in his palm, his thick fingers holding on tight. But the man who sat beside her looked at her from the grave. His blue eyes, so identical to hers, filled with sorrow she couldn’t comprehend and something else. Resignation. The look of a man who knew he had come to his final end.

Which confused her even more. She’d run from him. He belonged to the
Bratva
, and he’d sworn he would make her pay for turning on the brotherhood. But this man posed no threat. He could damage her no more.

“Did you ever wonder,” he asked as he stared at the wall across from them, “why Boris did not turn you over to me when you were dancing in his club?”

She frowned to keep the churning in her stomach under control. Yes, she had, but she didn’t want to participate in this conversation. She wanted to tune it out, sensing somehow, it would be more hurtful than what she already knew about her father.

“We were just young men, he and I. Poor. But close. Like brothers. His father was a disgrace. Worse than many I came to know through
the
Bratva
, for he didn’t honor oaths or brotherhood. He beat those weaker than himself, because he could. Including his wife and son.”

Sasha grimaced, despite herself. Boris was so kind, so giving. He’d risked his own safety by harboring her. That he’d suffered a childhood like that made her heart wrench.

“One night, he almost killed Boris. We had stayed out flirting with girls
fifteen minutes
beyond dinnertime. For three weeks, until he could move his arm again, and his face had pieced back together, Boris missed school. I sensed he was on the edge, waiting for the day he could take his life and escape the abuse. And I made a deal with the man who pounded on doors for debts that were owed for favors that couldn’t be spoken of.”

His shoulders straightened, and for a fleeting second that hard, defiant light shone in his eyes. Strength returned to his wavering voice. “I asked him to kill my uncle.”

Sasha’s eyes went wide. She opened her mouth, a surprised cry in the back of her throat, but her father lifted his hand, begging her off.

“I was fifteen, and I have never regretted that decision. I saved two precious lives at the expense of one despicable. But I paid for that choice. I paid deeply, Sasha, for it has cost me all I love.” His gaze shifted to hers, the brittleness replaced once more by sadness. “I went on. Forgot about the deal, the debt I owed. Married your mother.” A faint smile touched his colorless lips. “Had you, and your brother.”