“Like God.” The old lady next door invited me and Kristian over sometimes. We went for the tea and biscuits while she read us passages from the Bible. So many “thou shalt nots” and pointed looks over her glasses. “Kind of like God,” I said, and after a moment of silence, a smile touched my lips. “But I’d rather be the devil.” I took a drag from my cigar. My mother didn’t remember what she’d done until the police knocked on the door the next moming and asked why her car was in the Moskva. She talked—or, rather, fucked—her way out of it, and then she made me and Kristian syrniki. The decent meal was almost worth it. “Viktor is questioning Anna,” Albert said. I stared at him, not knowing who the fuck Anna was. “The girl who’s been serving your meals for the past three years.” “Ah,” I mused. “The little mouse.” She was the most obvious suspect. Although, I had my doubts. I only needed to look in the girl’s general vicinity, and she’d tremble with fear. It annoyed me so much, I ignored her presence like she was a frightened, stray dog. If she poisoned Mila, she didn’t do it alone. “How’s Mila?” My eyes narrowed at the concern in Albert’s voice. “Alexei’s daughter is fine.” Kirill was confident she didn’t ingest enough poison to be in a critical condition. Thank fuck I called the girl a whore. Otherwise, she might not have destroyed the rest of the poison in her teacup, and I would have lost my collateral. But the thought of my revenge slipping through my fingers didn’t explain the tight sensation inside each time Mila’s look of betrayal flitted through my mind. “You know she doesn’t belong here,” Albert said. Darkness spilled through me. “You got a new mind-reading ability you haven’t told me about?” “If Alexei hasn’t relented yet, he’s not going to.” I held his gaze. I hadn’t told anyone but Kristian her papa was ready to trade himself in. The knowledge of that getting out would make me look weak, as if Mila had actually dug her Mikhailov claws into me. She hadn’t. I just wasn’t finished with her yet, and I knew if I let her go now, I would