Page 54 of The Harbinger
I furrowed my brows and stepped away from him, a chill running down my spine.
“Poyekhat’ s ney.”
Ivan sauntered up behind me as I approached the woman. “Hi.”
“American?” the woman asked, her gaze flickering to mine.
I nodded, and she ushered me through the door, but before it closed, I stole one last glance at Sacha, my fingertips pressed to my cheek.
The darkness in his gaze sent a chill down my spine, a terrifying reminder of who controlled me and everything I did.
“No problem, I speak a little English,” she continued, pulling the tablet down to her side and exposing the black tattoo that had been haunting my dreams.
Chapter 13
Sacha
“Grigoriy,stayhere,”Isaid, motioning to the chair where Mia had been sitting. “If they come out before we return, don’t let her leave.” I held up my wrist and glanced at the time. “We have an hour. Let’s make it count.”
Dmitri walked close beside me, his gaze flickering around the hallway as Boris followed behind us. He nodded slowly. “Da,” he said.
He and I had been together since the gulags, and we’d been virtually inseparable ever since then. We’d taken beatings for each other and endured much worse. That was how the gulag guards liked to show who was in charge.
We took the elevator to the fifth floor and stepped out when the doors pulled open. Dmitri took the left, Boris turned right, and I followed, foregoing protocol.
“Down the hall. Last door on the right,” Dmitri said.
The hospital reserved the fifth floor for patients with the worst injuries that were medically stable, and that’s where she lay. “They pushed her out of the window?”
“Da.”
We shuffled down the vacant hall, looking for the room where Alena Frolova rotted away.
Dmitri pushed open the door as I glanced down the hallway, noting the nurse at the station who reserved her attention for the computer before her. I entered the sterile room and closed the door behind me, leaving Boris outside.
A woman with fire-engine red hair, tangled and matted from a week of lying on her back, lay on the hospital bed, her vital signs monitored by the consistent beeps coming from the machines.
“Alena Frolova. No family.” I flipped open her chart hanging on the end of her bed, my mind two floors down with Mia.
Why would she ask me to come with her?
“What evidence did Inspector Andrei have?” I dropped the chart back into the holder and walked to the side of her bed.
Dmitri opened the bathroom door and glanced inside. “He followed her and watched her meet with FSB.” He shut the bathroom and stood with his back to the only entry inside the private room. “She spoke with Oleg Korolev on seven separate occasions.”
I grabbed the syringe from the drawer beside her bed, placed there just for me, and filled it with air. “And they pushed her out of a window?”
How could they be so careless?
“It was an accident. She struggled while Yuri and Igor tried bringing her in. Her foot slipped, and she broke through the glass two stories up.”
I twisted the end of the syringe onto the line feeding fluids into her veins and plunged the air down the tube. Untwisting the syringe, I filled it again with another load of air and pushed that one in as well, repeating the process until my mind went numb with satisfaction. I pocketed the syringe and turned her bandaged wrist around, making sure they’d removed her identifying tattoo.
Pulling the edges of the bandage away, I noted the raw flesh beneath it, red with white sinew visible like a skinned deer. “And you’re sure she hasn’t woken up?” I asked as I dropped her hand and walked out the door.
Dmitri nodded. “She’s been unresponsive.”
“Next time, make sure the building is taller.”