I felt my mouth go dry. “What?” This was not a road I wanted to travel.

“Your brother’s being taken. It wasn’t your fault. From the way you described, it was planned, right? The beach was mostly inaccessible; he had a getaway car available. It was planned,” he repeated. “If it hadn’t been then, it would’ve been some other time. Some other place. You’re trying to make up for something you didn’t do.” To someone who’s not your brother was the unsaid tag on that statement.

“Misha.” I shook my head and tried for a smile, only to fall short. “Now just isn’t the time, but . . . thanks.” I didn’t think it would ever be the time for that discussion if I could avoid it, but I realized what the effort said about Michael. He had been locked away in a place of rigid authority and people who could’ve passed as robots for all the emotion they showed. That he could still reach out to someone was extraordinary, and I wasn’t about to slam a door in his face.

He dipped his head in acknowledgment and began to meander about the room, still putting the cards through their paces. From the bookshelves to the stereo system to the massive collection of DVDs, it all received a thorough examination. “I like this place. Is your house like this?”

I snorted. “You wish, kid.” Actually, I didn’t have a place to live anymore. Going back to the condo at any time in the foreseeable future wasn’t an option. I’d suspected that before I left, even without the added complication of Konstantin’s death. I’d taken everything important to me, which hadn’t been much. The majority of my money was for finding my brother. Material things hadn’t meant much, except as unnecessary expenses. But Michael hadn’t been allowed ownership of anything in the Institute. Of course the bright and shiny things in life were going to fascinate him. “But don’t worry. Whenever we settle in one spot, you can fill up your room with anything your greedy little heart desires.”

“Anything?” He moved to the window that faced the back of the property and looked over his shoulder at me with impudent challenge. “Honestly?”

“Anything that doesn’t come from an adult bookstore,” I amended.

He turned to look out the window, but I heard the indistinct mutter of “Issues, issues.” As he tilted his head, his attention was caught by something other than giving me a hard time. “There are fountains and a maze. It looks . . . nice . . . with all the snow. Peaceful.”

“It’s always prettier when you’re watching it from someplace warm, eh?”

His lips moved in a sheepish curve. “Strange how that happens.” Shifting to get a better look, he said, “There’s your uncle Lev. He’s talking to some people.”

Puzzled, I walked over to join him. It was Lev. I only caught a glimpse of him before he disappeared back into the house. The four people he had been talking with began to walk to their cars. All of them were obviously servants. One was the cook; I recognized her from previous visits. The man was Larson, and I didn’t know the other two—housekeeper and maid probably. But why would they all be leaving so early in the day?

It was a stupid question—colossally, monstrously stupid.

“Hide.”

The air was so clear and sharp, I was vaguely surprised it didn’t cut Michael’s face when he turned to look at me. “What?”

I gave him a hard push toward one of the couches resting against the side wall. “Hide!” Without further question he ran and pushed behind the piece of furniture, slithering out of sight. My gun had found its way into my hand, I couldn’t recall how. It was remarkably similar to a magic trick. Abracadabra. There it was, clenched in a grip carved from bone. My fingers should’ve ached. Maybe they did ache, but I didn’t feel it.

The crystal knob of one of the double doors began to slowly turn, and I stepped smoothly to the wall beside it. Lev had closed the door behind him as he’d left. He could not have possibly carried his weight up the stairs in the seconds that had passed from the sighting of him via the window, but I called his name nonetheless.

“Uncle Lev,” I said with laughter that passed through my throat like chunks of regurgitated ice. “Give me a hand, would you? This kid has me pinned to the floor. Thinks he’s some sort of wrestler.”

Wasn’t that a disarming picture? Michael and I rolling around in horseplay, laughing and joking.

A perfect target.

The door was kicked open in a shower of splinters and a gun fired, chewing up the antique rug in the center of the room. It was Sevastian, my old adversary from back in Miami. The bastard. It didn’t surprise me. Only he would be overconfident enough to fire at what he couldn’t see. As cocky as he may have been, he wasn’t entirely mindless. He saw his mistake instantly and was already turning his weapon toward me when I shot him.

I took the chest shot. It was the easiest. With broad bands of muscle that rippled even through the covering of a thick black sweater, he was built like a bull, and when he fell, he shook the floor as heavily as one. Swiveling, I jammed my shoulder against the door to slam it shut. There was a resounding crash as someone hit the other side face-first. Yanking it back open, I straddled the fallen body and swung my foot into the shaking chin in a hard kick. And that was it for number two. Pavel had always been Sevastian’s shadow. Sevastian went first and Pavel mopped up what was left, which usually wasn’t a whole hell of a lot.

An arm came across my throat like an iron bar and my thoughts of Pavel vanished instantly. The crushing pain managed to cut through the layer of numbness that sheathed me. “I knew you’d fuck up one day, Korsak,” came the gravelly voice in my ear. The accent was still thick after fifteen years out of Moscow and he slipped into the Russian that came more easily to him. “Segodnya etot den. ” Today’s that day.

I could feel his blood, hot and plentiful, soaking the back of my shirt. I should’ve known one bullet wouldn’t take the son of a bitch down. I started to bring my gun up to try for an awkward shot, but his other massive hand fastened around mine. The bones in my wrist creaked to the point of breaking as it was bent backward in an unforgiving grip. Before I could shift weight to try and throw him off, a knee hit the back of my thighbone and buckled my leg instantly. Sevastian had once been in the Russian army, and what he’d learned there trumped anything I’d picked up in my few working years. The fall was over before I knew I was going down. Sandwiched between the floor and a hulking mountain of flesh, my lungs expelled every molecule of air, leaving me wheezing desperately.

Ripping the gun from my hand, he flung it across the room. With his arm still around my neck he tightened the pressure until yellow and black spots washed across my vision. With all that air forced out and now with no way in, if I didn’t do something within the next few seconds, Michael would be on his own. He might be the fastest healer around, but I didn’t think that would save him from a bullet in the heart or brain. He was a boy, not a vampire. He wasn’t going to rise from the dead, and Sevastian wasn’t one to leave witnesses any other way.

Feebly I raised my hand up and behind me to scrape uselessly against his face. He chuffed a laugh stinking with the copper of blood against the back of my neck. The bastard’s lungs were filling up. Without medical help he’d be dead in fifteen minutes. It didn’t matter; I’d be dead in five . . . and that was a blue-sky estimate, a best-case scenario. If he let me asphyxiate, it would be minutes. If he snapped my neck, it would be seconds.

My hand continued its path up his jawline, the motions as fragile as those of a newborn child. “You’re barely struggling,” he said in a clotted whisper, switching back to English for my benefit. He knew my Russian wasn’t as fluent as his, and he wanted me to understand every word. “It’s so much more satisfying when you struggle. I want to feel you flop under me like a fish out of water. I want to feel every twitch as brain cell by brain cell you die, traitor.” A hard prodding at my hip told me what I’d always suspected. Death was the ultimate hard-on for Sevastian. Twisted and sickly perverse as he was, neither women nor men held much attraction for him. Killing was all. He lived it, breathed it, and if he could somehow make death itself tangible, he would probably fuck it.