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“I said I get it.”

“Be sure you do.” She wrings her hands. “So, no word about Erin?”

I shake my head.

She swallows. “And Ilya?”

“In surgery.”

There’s a long silence and I can pretty much fucking guess at the thoughts in her head. All this violence. It took the man she was going to marry, and if it takes Ilya, it might destroy her.

Especially since he too, was shot.

“I… he’ll be okay? Someone has to be okay in this nightmare, Demyan.”

I kick the wall again.

“Demyan.”

“Sorry, sorry, I won’t wake him.” I walk over to my sister and give her a hug. “I need to get out of here.” I mutter words of comfort and love in Russian into her hair, and there’s a part that isn’t awkward with the hug.

Fuck, maybe I need it, too.

Just to make sure she’s okay.

One less thing to worry about. “Go to bed, Angel. The place is now locked down. You’re safe.”

“Where are you going?”

I ease back. “I can’t stay here and do nothing. Just because all my leads have given me nothing but crickets, it doesn’t mean I can’t do something.”

“Like what?”

The fear in her voice stops me. I was going to hurl more words of violence down in the room, but she doesn’t need me saying that. It’s not a lie, the omission; it’s just not feeding her fear.

I will kill. I’ll tear people into pieces to get answers. Torture them. Do what it takes.

But she doesn’t need to hear that spoken aloud.

“Look myself, talk to people.”

“Demyan …”

I shrug. “I have allies. I’ll start there. Go to bed.”

She crosses her arms, then shakes her head, moving past me to pick up the broken porcelain and glass, but I stop her.

“I need to do something, too, Demyan.”

And she continues. I’m at a loss for what to do. If I was someone else, someone better, I guess, I’d be able to distract, to fix things for her. But I can’t. I know bringing Max back is beyond anyone, but people like Ilya, like Erin, bring smiles to her face and she needs those.

Of course my son does, too. That’s Sasha, an adorable child who could melt even the coldest, hardest heart. Make ones that haven’t beaten in the longest beat forever . After all, he did that to me.

And so did his mother.

I stop. Did? Does. It makes her beyond dangerous. They make me weak.

My chest tightens.