Caine…the name… The woman couldn’t be… “What have you done?” Ella whispered in horror.
“Svetlana—excuse me, Cameron—decided to try to hide her sister from me. Cameron and her father did their best, but ultimately, well, I’m me and I know everything. Cameron decided she would try to hide Anna Beth from me. Nobody leaves me. Nobody hides from me.” His whispered edicts had every hair on Ella’s body standing on end.
She didn’t know how to deescalate this situation. Dresden was cold and methodical. This woman’s torture was a means to an end for him. Ella didn’t doubt his sanity. The bastard simply had no soul. He’d sold it to the devil to attain power. The woman on the floor had once been important to him, and she was Svetlana—um, Cameron—Markov’s sister. Now? She was a tool. And today she’d be used to bring Ella back in line. For Dresden, it was just that simple.
The truth circled Ella’s mind… Noah Caine’s daughter. So was the woman who’d died in Ella’s arms in Russia.
Noah Caine. The Piper.
Goddamn it.
“It looks like you’ve won, Dresden.” Ella pointed to the woman. “She’s right there at your mercy, just like you like them.”
He smoothed his hair back and straightened his jacket. “Yes. Yes she is. How does it feel to know the bastard that created you, created Endgame Ops, has such a deep tie to me? God, you and your team are pathetic. Put her back into her cage, Ella. Do that for me, will you?”
Ella nodded and walked to the woman, stooping to help her up. The woman was smaller than Ella and lighter. She rose with Ella’s assistance, though it seemed a painful transition if her gasp was anything to go by.
Ella glanced at the woman and was surprised to find her deep-green gaze locked on her. Inside them was acceptance and, strangely enough, a clarity that spoke volumes about her mental health. She wasn’t insane with pain or torture. Not yet. Not by a long shot.
Ella would save this woman. She vowed it right then. But first she had to get her out of Dresden’s line of sight.
“Prepare yourself,” Ella said so softly that her words went no farther than the woman.
She closed her eyes and did as Ella instructed.
Ella pulled the woman’s arms behind her body as gently as she could. She was a pawn. Another piece on the chessboard.
How much longer until an endgame in this seemingly endless game with their lives?
“Put her up,” Dresden spat out.
Ella pushed lightly on the woman, who walked to the room. “I’ll be back for you,” she whispered before she turned and closed the door behind her.
Before the solid oak door latched, Ella heard the woman say, “I’ll be ready.”
Then Ella locked the door and turned around. Dresden was right there in her face.
She didn’t have time to brace herself for his fist. It connected with a snap, and she fell to the floor, shock coating her tongue, the blow to her cheek rendering her insensate for a precious second. Ella rode the wave of pain that threatened to carry her down.
“If you betray me, I will kill you, Ella. But first I’ll make you watch as I gut your man. Would you like that?”
He didn’t say anything else, just hovered over her until she finally opened her eyes. He wasn’t even out of breath from his exertion.
Yet, the sanity remained in his eyes. The calculation absolute and so very real she wondered if she could touch it.
But Ella was hurting now. All she wanted to do was curl into a ball and weep.
“Get up and clean yourself. We’ll speak tomorrow,” he ordered and then turned and calmly walked away.
“You won’t be able to save me. You can’t even save yourself,” the woman behind the door whispered.
“You have no idea what I’m capable of,” Ella said to the woman. She pulled herself up off the floor, wincing at the ringing in her head. She pushed the pain down deep and made her way up the lower stairs, her mind clearing with every step.
Then she made her way slowly up the grand staircase and to her room on the second floor of the huge mansion. Maids and hired help passed her, but none of them looked at her, avoiding any repercussions of helping someone Dresden had gone out of his way to hurt.
Ella ignored them too, instead focusing on what she’d learned tonight. It was information that threw everything the Piper had asked her to do out of perspective.
She concentrated on what she knew. Dresden had taken over this property from a well-to-do Ukrainian businessman who found himself no longer needing a place to sleep since the hole Dresden had dug and placed him in suited him quite nicely in his deceased state.
Dresden had taken refuge in Ukraine. The Russians wanted him. The United States would never stop hunting him, but the Ukrainians? Ah yes, the Ukrainians wanted his power and wealth because it seemed not even the Russians knocking at their door would cross Dresden.
It was all a huge game to Dresden. Because even as he played false with the Ukrainians, he sold biochemical weapons to the Russians. Or at least he sold them to Segorski. A Russian who wanted the Crimean Peninsula and all the oil that lay within it.
Ella slowly made her way to her room and walked to the balcony that overlooked a small, picturesque
