The Spy by Sophie Lark

30

Nix

Isit on the deck of the boat, bound hand and foot, while Ares steers us out of the limestone cave, out onto open water.

It’s cold and windy, the waves rough and black, tossing the speedboat like a cork. I can see the strain on Ares’ arms as he steers us through the wild currents and unexpected rocks, away from Visine Dvorca, out into open ocean.

No one is speaking because we all understand that distracting Ares at this moment might lead to us being smashed to bits in the frigid January sea.

Though I’m silent, my mind is working a thousand miles a minute.

I’m looking from face to face of each of these people I considered my friends, everyone I trusted at this school. Understanding now that they were lying to me all the while. Conspiring against me.

Kade, Dean, and Hedeon are huddled in conversation inside the protected shelter of the bulkhead. Leo and Anna are up at the wheel with Ares, helping him watch for obstacles in the water.

Sabrina sits on the deck a few feet away, watching me.

Once Ares has us pointed toward what I assume is Dubrovnik, he lets Leo take the wheel.

He comes to speak to me, tall and upright, the wind whipping his dark hair around his face. He hasn’t shaved in a day or two. Stubble shadows the hollows of his cheeks and jaw, and the cleft in his chin. His shirt, damp with salt spray, clings to his chest.

“Don’t be scared,” he says.

“I’m not scared,” I hiss at him. “I’m fucking furious.”

I yank hard on the cuffs binding my wrists together, that clamp me to the railing. The chains rattle, the metal biting into my flesh. The railing makes a sharp, splintering sound as it jerks against the wood.

Ares’ jaw tightens, but he makes no move to release me.

“I’m sorry it has to be this way,” he says.

“That’s no fucking apology,” I reply.

“I had no choice.”

“Oh shut the fuck up, you had a thousand choices.”

Now he frowns, his dark brows coming down low across his eyes.

“Maybe I did,” he says. “But I can’t see this ending any different.”

All I can think is how fucking stupid I was.

All the things I must have missed.

I knew from the moment I met Ares that he hated me. I could feel it radiating out of him.

I’ve always had good instincts. But I ignored them. I pushed aside the things that seemed strange, that didn’t make sense. And why? Because he was handsome? Because he paid attention to me? Because I was lonely, and I needed a friend that badly?

Because he made me feel things I never imagined feeling . . .

Things that keep coming back to me now in flashes, bright and beautiful and intensely sensual, protesting that they were real, that they meant something, while the chains around my wrist declare the opposite.

“Who are you?” I ask him, furiously blinking back the burning tears that want to flood my eyes. “You’re not Ares Cirillo.”

“No,” he says. “I’m not. My name is Rafe Petrov.”

The pieces fall into place.

Kade Petrov. Rafe Petrov. And . . .

Miss Robin. That beautiful face, those brilliant eyes, that low, husky voice like a thrill across the skin . . . so similar to Ares. To Rafe, I should say . . .

“She’s your mother,” I murmur.

“Yes,” Rafe nods. “She’s Sloane Petrov.”

“You lied to me all along. From the day we met.”

“Yes,” he says. And now I see a flicker of guilt in his eyes, but I don’t fucking care. I don’t care if he feels bad about it.

“So what is it, then?” I say. “Revenge? My father killed someone you love, and now you’re going to kill me?”

“No!” Rafe cries. “No one’s killing you. No one’s going to hurt you, Nix.”

“Liar,” I say, bitterly.

“Look,” Rafe says, gripping a handful of his own hair before roughly pushing it back. “Marko has my father. He’s been holding him prisoner, extorting us for money. We’re finally getting my dad back. I had to bring you as insurance. But I promise you Nix, no one is going to hurt you. I won’t let that happen.”

“You’re not going to hurt me. You’re just going to kill my father in front of me. Is that right?” I ask him.

Now Rafe’s face darkens with that shadow that I’ve seen before. When I’ve caught glimpses of who he really is.

“He has to pay for what he’s done,” Rafe says.

“I won’t help you,” I say, through gritted teeth. “I’ll fight you. I’ll stop you if I can.”

“That’s what I thought you’d say,” Rafe replies.

That only makes me angrier. He thinks he knows me, while he lying to me the entire time. Well, I might surprise him still.

* * *

My mood isas black as this sunless ocean. Every person I’ve ever cared about has lied to me, used me, and made a fool of me.

First my father, then my friends, and finally Ares. I mean Rafe. Fuck, I can’t even wrap my brain around this.

He’s the deepest cut of all.

I really thought he loved me.

I’ve never felt so connected to someone. I thought we were bound together by a thousand links, every shining moment that we spent together another clasp between us. Now it all seems tainted and tarnished, false as nickel and fragile as paper, tearing apart in my hands.

I see Sabrina arguing with Leo up in the bow of the boat. The cousins are snarling at each other, their words lost to the wind. Anna tries to interject and Sabrina snaps at her too, though usually the two girls are on excellent terms with each other.

Finally Sabrina stalks away from them, crossing the deck and dropping down next to me, no space between us.

“They won’t let me untie you,” she says, irritably.

I ignore her. The handcuffs aren’t the issue.

“What are you mad at me for?” Sabrina says. “I found out about all this the same time you did.”

I’m not disposed to believe anybody’s story right now—certainly not anybody in the process of kidnapping me.

Still, Sabrina did try to stop Rafe hauling me off down the stairs. She followed us onto this boat because she was worried about me—and because she loves to be in the thick of drama.

“Are you going to help them?” I demand.

“Probably,” Sabrina admits.

“Well fuck off, then!” I snap.

Sabrina sits quietly for a minute, not offended, but obviously considering what to say to me next.

At last she says, “It’s impossible to be neutral in our world. You have to pick a side. Are you sure which side you want to be on?”

“I’m not going to turn against my own father,” I hiss.

“And Rafe won’t turn against his,” Sabrina says. “So I guess you’ll both immolate yourselves for your dads.”

I look at Rafe standing at the wheel again—a stranger in name, but achingly familiar in the shape of his broad shoulders, his lean frame, and his shock of wind-tossed hair.

My chest is burning, my eyes are burning.

I’ve never had to struggle so hard not to cry.

Is he tearing apart inside, like me?

Does he feel like he’s dying, minute by minute?

Or was this easy for him all along?

“Just leave me alone,” I mutter to Sabrina.

“Alright,” she says. “But I’m not actually leaving you. I’m here with you, as much as them.”

Right, I think. Until it’s time to kill my dad.

* * *

We pullinto the port of Dubrovnik.

Rafe unlocks the handcuff tying me to the rail, and the ones between my feet, but leaves my hands bound.

“Will you come along quietly?” he asks me. “I don’t want to have to gag you.”

“You’ve gagged me plenty of times before,” I say.

The muscle at the corner of his jaw twitches.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have been intimate with you.”

“Is that what we were?” I say. “Intimate? Or was it just me who was intimate, and honest, and real, while you were a fucking lying snake.”

Now Rafe’s anger flares to match mine. He seizes me by the front of my shirt, bringing our faces close together.

“I’ve told you things I never told anyone in my life,” he growls. “I felt things with you I’ve never felt. I fell into you like a well and I’m still fucking falling. I never lied when I said I love you.”

“Just about everything else!” I cry.

“I don’t care about anything else!” he shouts back at me.

Someone clears their throat on the dock. I see three people standing watching: a tall young man with a shock of wild black hair and a ferocious expression, a slim, dreamy-looking girl with eyes dark as bruises in her pale face, and Miss Robin—or, Sloane Petrov, I suppose I should call her.

It’s plain as day that this woman is no librarian. I’m not sure how I ever believed she was. She’s dressed in black, her hair no longer red, now a deep midnight shade that mirrors her companions. The glasses are gone. She stands taller, straighter, radiating that dangerous energy I intimated the first time we met. Now her power is unleashed, like a shade taken off a lamp.

“Let’s go,” Sloane says.

Rafe takes my arm. I try to shake him off, but he pulls me along with that unnerving strength he tried so hard to conceal.

I see Kade grin at the black-haired young man, passing him a couple of scuba tanks.

“Are you getting shorter?” the man says, grinning back at him.

I’m guessing this is the famous Adrik Petrov—famous at Kingmakers, at least.

“You fucking wish,” Kade says, sizing up their relative heights in a glance. “You’re lucky if you’ve got a solid inch on me still.”

“I’ve still got several inches on you where it counts,” Adrik says, winking not at Kade, but in the direction of Sabrina Gallo.

Sabrina rolls her eyes, picking up the last two scuba tanks.

Adrik holds out his hand to take them from her.

Ignoring him, Sabrina leaps lightly down to the dock.

Adrik narrows his eyes, following close after her.

He doesn’t know Sabrina likes the hunt herself. Showing obvious interest is the quickest way to bore her.

I’d be amused to see how this will play out, if I didn’t have more pressing things on my mind. Like where the fuck we’re all going, and what these people plan to do when they get there.

We all load into two SUVs. I’m in the first car with Sloane, Rafe, Hedeon, and the dark-haired girl.

The girl slides into the backseat next to me, with Rafe on my other side.

“I’m Freya,” she says, quietly. “Rafe’s sister.”

This is not how I wanted to meet Ares’ family.

I blush, remembering the stupid fantasies I had of meeting the Cirillos on some beautiful Greek island. Being welcomed into their home.

I was such a fucking fool.

“Rafe wrote to me about you,” Freya says.

Her large, dark eyes are similar in color to Sloane’s—a deep amber color with rings of forest green. Their character is entirely different, however: there’s nothing sharp in Freya’s gaze. Rather, she’s looking at me with a level of sympathy that pains me.

“I didn’t know you existed,” I say, trying to hide my hurt, and failing miserably.

We’re speeding through the dark streets of Dubrovnik. Time seems to collapse and extend like a spring. Each moment is painful and jarring to me, and yet it all streams by too fast, because I don’t want to arrive wherever we’re going. Too soon we pull up to a private airfield outside the city. I can see a jet waiting on the tarmac—one similar in size to my father’s.

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” I ask Rafe.

“Almaty,” he says.

That means nothing to me.

“In Kazakhstan,” he clarifies, while explaining nothing at all.

“What’s in Kazakhstan?” I say, blankly.

“My father,” Rafe replies. “And by the way, your father is traveling in the opposite direction, from there to here. So whatever reckoning is coming to him, he should be safe at least for tonight.”

That shouldn’t comfort me—the Petrovs obviously intend to kill my dad as soon as they get the chance.

But I am relieved to hear that we won’t be seeing him now.

A hundred things could happen between tonight and tomorrow.

* * *