Page 140 of Lethal Obsession

How many times, I wonder? I’m filled with a bone-weary sense of inevitability. How many times have I sat behind tinted windows, breaking apart as the world continues around me, completely unaware?

On the way to the airport as a child, the day after news came that Papa Mikhail had been killed in a car bomb.

On the road to his funeral, surrounded by grim-faced men with visible guns and the scent of danger all around us.

Sitting in a limousine with Masha after the bomb blast in Malaga, slowly realizing that we’d been kidnapped instead of saved.

It was always going to come to this.

I feel the words rather than think them.

Someone was always going to come for me again.

Now that it’s finally happened, I feel less afraid than I do resigned. In some strange way, maybe I did sense danger coming. Maybe I’ve been sensing it for months now—just like Seline’s tarot cards foretold her own betrayal.

Seline always accused me of allowing the men in my world to control my life.

And in a way, she was right. Men rule the world I was born into, whether I allow them to or not.

The first time my family’s enemies came for me, I was just a piece on the chessboard, taken as part of a game I knew nothing about. I had no choice and no idea how to fight back.

But this time I chose it.

I chose Alexei. Even knowing it would put me in danger, still I chose him.

And there’s no way I’m going to let them play me against him.

A strange thrill of strength goes through me. I won’t be used as a pawn, I think. Not again.

Which means I need to start playing the game myself.

I glance surreptitiously out the window. We’re heading for the bridge over the Genil river, on the outskirts of central Granada. The Armilla heliport is barely ten kilometers away, but once we’re over that bridge, I’m guessing Ivan will head straight for the highway. And once we’re on that, getting away will be hard.

I shift slightly in my seat so I can touch Seline’s hand. Her eyes meet mine when our skin makes contact. I drop my own to the door handle beside her, and hers widen in understanding.

It isn’t locked.

I move my head very slightly and tilt it at the bridge coming up ahead, then cut my eyes back to the door.

Seline inhales sharply, then blinks in assent.

I turn back to Ivan. “Where are you taking us?” I demand, as the car inches through the traffic toward the bridge.

“None of your fucking business,” Ivan says disinterestedly. Taking out his phone, he punches a number, and I hear the line ring, then someone answer on the other end. “Kiril,” he says. “We’re heading out of the city now.” He launches into a conversation in Russian, which, from the half I can hear, is about a flight we’re supposed to take in several hours’ time.

To the United States.

I have to get out of here.

Once I’m on that plane, I’ve got no hope of escape.

The car is slowing as the dual road narrows into one at a set of traffic lights. I gauge the distance from the lights to the bridge at maybe a hundred meters. The traffic is virtually at a standstill, as Spain heads home for lunch and siesta.

“The lights,” I breathe into Seline’s ear. Her mouth firms into a thin line, and she gives the briefest of nods. She surreptitiously slips her feet out of her high heels.

Ivan turns away from us toward the window, his voice rising as he tries to explain that he’s moving as fast as he can.

As the light turns yellow, and we roll to a halt, Seline turns toward me, her hands behind her back on the door handle. “Ofelia,” she says in a shaking voice, “I’m so sorry for what I did to you.”