their windshield wipers flicking back and forth. My heart ricocheted in my chest as mud sloshed beneath tires. When we pulled to a stop, Ronan finally turned to me. He unzipped my coat and slipped a roll of cash into the inside pocket. Turning on my phone, he handed it to me. I watched him with a serene feeling as he zipped my coat back up like I was a child. He didn’t say anything to me, and the pain splitting my chest overrode my fear of anything else. Before he could open the door, the heartache escaped my lips with a desperate breath. “Proshchay.” The word sounded soft, but its meaning held a poignant note. It meant goodbye forever. Fingers on the door handle, Ronan watched me for a long second. I could practically see D’yavol rising to the surface of his eyes. Soulless sophistication. When he didn’t respond, my throat tightened. He had to say something. He had to let me know this—J—meant something to him. I deserved the words, or I knew they would haunt me forever. “Aren’t you going to say it too?” “Nyet.” The reply was so cold, its ice burned the backs of my eyes, sending a single tear down my cheek. It wasn’t until he watched it fall that I noticed the tightness in his shoulders; the turmoil he hid so well behind Giovanni. A rough thumb wiped the tear away. “Ya ne govoryu togo, chego ne imeyu v vidu. ” Then he opened the door and stepped out, gesturing for me to follow. I did without a word, my thoughts too chaotic to muse on what he said. I stayed close to Ronan as doors slammed shut and men filed out. I knew Victor drove another car that had followed us here. I’d hoped it was just a precaution and not because we were going to war. I’d be a sitting duck in my bright yellow coat. Six men stood across from us, my papa and Ivan taking the center. My papa wore a gray tweed suit I’d bought for him last year. The silver in his hair was more pronounced than I remembered, but nothing else seemed to have changed. He still looked like the papa I’d always known and loved. Though when my eyes met his, pictures of the child he’d tortured flipped through my mind. Then the faceless girls he’d trafficked. And the memory of my mother lying dead on our library floor.