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SAbrINA

I step through the door of the Mirochin mansion into the night, and somehow the quiet of the darkness seems louder than the chaos that came before it. The silence wraps around me like a noose as I walk away from the man I love, the home that had started to feel like mine, and the child I just claimed wasn’t mine.

I bite back the tears. Each step I take is heavier than the last, my body screaming at me to turn around, to run. But I don’t.

I don’t run. I don’t beg. I don’t cry.

I walk.

Because I have to.

I have to protect the people I love—even if it means walking straight into the line of fire.

Only this time... It’s not just me walking into it, and I will do whatever it takes to protect the new little life growing inside me as well.

I don’t allow my hand to drift to my stomach the way I want to. I can’t. I won’t. If they knew—I stop myself from shuddering at the way the general had eyed Elena when he thought she was Sabrina’s daughter. I can’t let on that I’m pregnant.

The SUV waiting at the base of the steps looks almost too ordinary. It’s jet-black, with tinted windows, and the engine is idling quietly, like it’s not the steel coffin I know it is. A soldier opens the back door for me, and I duck inside without hesitation, keeping my chin high and my fear buried deep beneath the practiced calm on my face.

The door slams shut behind me, and just like that, I’m sealed in.

Beside me, General Vladislav Ergorov sits like a ghost carved from bone and steel, his face carved with cold lines and shadowed purpose.

I meet his eyes, and for a moment, neither of us speaks. Then he nods once, almost cordially as the vehicle starts to move.

“I am General Ergorov,” he says.

I arch a brow. “You kidnapped me. I think we’re past fucking introductions.”

His lips press into a thin, unimpressed line. “Watch your tongue, Miss Craft. Where we are going, such insolence will not serve you well.”

“Where are we going?” I ask, keeping my voice even, even though my pulse is pounding against my ribs like a warning drum.

“I cannot tell you that,” he replies. “But we will arrive soon as it’s not too far.”

He leans toward me suddenly, fingers reaching out toward my temple. I flinch, twisting just enough to avoid his touch.

His hand drops, but his tone turns icy. “Did Mirochin do this to you?”

“No,” I say firmly. “I fell and hit the floor.”

He studies me for a moment longer, the scrutiny in his eyes prickling like barbed wire against my skin. It’s clear he doesn’t believe me. But he lets it go.

“You are free of him now,” he says.

His words slice straight through me.

Free of him?

The bile rises to the back of my throat.

Does he think he’s somehow rescuing me?

What the fuck is happening?

What the fuck does the Russian Special Forces want with me?

I bite back the questions tumbling through my mind. I need to focus and keep track of where we’re going.

We ride in silence for the next ten minutes, as the general is preoccupied with his phone. My eyes are locked on the window, watching the city blur into darkness as we head out of Moscow. I’ve been silently clocking every turn, every landmark. I’ve been here for three weeks—I know the bones of this city now.

But soon we’re leaving the city, heading into the unknown. Ten minutes out on a long, silent road, the SUV pulls over in the middle of nowhere. Snow glitters in the moonlight like shattered glass, and my gut twists.

My first thought is, ‘This is it. I’m going to be executed and dumped in the woods.’

“Is this where you shoot me and leave my body on the side of the road?” I try to keep my voice steady as if I’m not fucking petrified.

“Why would we go to all the trouble of extracting you from that Mirochin fortress just to kill on the side of the road?” The general gives me a confused look.

“Because isn’t that what people like you do?”

He opens a center compartment between the seats and pulls out a long black strip of fabric—a blindfold.

“You don’t have a high opinion of us, do you?” He watches me intently.

“You did storm the Mirochin mansion and kidnap me in the middle of the night—what am I supposed to think?” I point out.

“I need to put this on you.” The general holds up the blindfold.

“Are you serious?” I stare at the item like it’s a poisonous snake. “And what if I refuse?”

“I would prefer not to harm you,” he says. “But if you resist, I will use chloroform.”

My hand twitches toward my stomach before I can stop it, then clenches into a fist in my lap. No. That could hurt the baby. No matter what’s waiting at the end of this road, I won’t risk my child.

“Fine,” I grit out. “Blindfold it is.”

He places it over my eyes with surprising care, careful not to brush the wound on my forehead. Darkness crashes over me like a second skin.

The SUV starts again, and this time, every jolt and turn is disorienting. I count in my head, try to track it, but after ten minutes I’m hopelessly lost.

A stop.

Russian murmurs.

Another turn.

Another stop.

The door opens and two sets of hands guide me out. I stumble slightly but don’t let them see me falter. I keep walking, stone-faced, as I’m led down a corridor that seems to stretch forever. Each step echoes like a countdown.

Then the blindfold comes off.

The light is so bright I squint, my vision swimming. I blink hard, disoriented until shapes emerge.

A woman stands across from me.

She is tall, maybe five inches taller than me, with dark blonde hair pulled into a sleek knot, flawless ivory skin, sharp cheekbones that cut like glass. Regal. She looks poised and dangerous.

She is speaking quietly to General Ergorov. Beneath her arm is a yellow folder, and while in her hands she’s holding a sleek tablet that her eyes keep darting to. Eventually, their conversation finishes, and General Ergorv turns toward me.

“We will meet again, Miss Craft.”

Something in the way he says it tells me he means soon—and it’s not a promise. It’s a threat.

He walks out, leaving me in this fluorescent cage with Miss Russian Ice Queen. I meet her gaze, unnerved by how much she reminds me of my mother. There’s something in her eyes—familiar, cold, calculating.

She addresses me in a smooth, accented English. “Hello, Sabina. Welcome home.”

Sabina.

My stomach knots. They don’t know I speak Russian, I realize. That might be the one advantage I have right now.

“Sabina?” I repeat. “My name is Sabrina. And this sure as hell isn’t my home.”

I move toward the chair she gestures to and slide into it as she takes a seat in front of me at the wooden table. I’m glad to sit as my legs feel like jelly, and I don’t want them to see my fear.

“You do realize what you’ve just done qualifies as an act of war, right? Kidnapping an American citizen? Not exactly diplomacy.”

She doesn’t flinch—doesn’t blink. Just places her elbows on the table and laces her fingers together.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” she says. “You may live in the United States and be a citizen there now. But you were born here in Russia… but not as Sabrina Craft.”

She pulls out a sheet of paper from the folder, which is crisp and official-looking, and slides it across the table. I don’t want to look. But I do.

It has my date of birth and time of birth, but the name is not mine; it reads ‘ Sabina Mariya Zorin’.

The surname knocks the air from my lungs.

Zorin.

That was the name on the birth certificate Tara had hidden in that box she’d hidden—the name tied to Lidiya Zorin.

My voice shakes as I push the paper back. “You’re lying.”

“I may not know you now,” she says, “but I saw you the day you were born, Sabina.”

I stare at her. My body goes still. “Who the hell are you?” I whisper.

The woman leans back, graceful as a swan. “I am Yelena Zorin.”

Fuck! The name of Lidiya Zorin’s mother—her name rings in my ears like a funeral bell.

I stare at her, bile rising in my throat. “What? Are you trying to tell me you’re my mother?”

“No,” she says. “I’m your aunt.”