She holds out her arms and lets them fall to her sides. “I don’t have a wire. If I did, I’d wink or something. But I don’t. It’s just the two of us.”
Just the two of us and the dozen-plus Sokolov soldiers hiding in my bushes.
“How did you convince him to let you talk to me alone?” Katerina asks again.
“I didn’t need to convince him,” I growl. “No matter what your father tells you, I have the upper hand. He needs this deal more than I do. I can do whatever I want.”
She shakes her head sadly. “If that was true, neither of us would be here right now. I’d be an ocean away from these people.”
Tears well in her puffy eyes. She’s done a lot of crying the last few days; that much is obvious. I reach out and squeeze her shoulder. I never wanted to marry Katerina, but I always liked her. She wa
