“What is it you always say from that movie, kid? Never tell me the odds?” Then Hans rushed back into the fray just as the Russians breached the cabin.
Elena stumbled the second the flares began arcing in the sky and the shooting echoed in the distance. Dimitri caught her, holding her close. In his other arm, he held a firm grip on a sniper rifle with a flash suppressor. They both stood silent for a moment, listening. Dimitri adjusted his grip on the rifle, his gaze locked on the woods leading back to the cabin. She knew what he was thinking, and she felt it too. Another flare lit the sky as more men set off the snares they’d set up around the cabin.
“Oh God, Dimitri, we have to go back.” She turned toward the sound of danger, needing to be there, to stand alongside the men who were risking their lives for her.
“No, we have to keep moving.”
Dimitri spun her to face away from the cabin. Her eyes blurred with tears as she tried to follow him.
A few moments later, a deafening explosion behind them sent them both tumbling to the ground. Dimitri covered her body with his. When they got their bearings back, she looked over her shoulder. Part of the cabin was on fire. She saw the agony carved into his features. The urge for them both to go back deepened.
He surged to his feet, lifting her up with him. They started to run even faster toward the escape route they’d planned. In the distance, she saw the SUV ahead of them. Dimitri pulled his gun out and froze, halting her beside him, and then he moved them both behind a tree. He lifted his rifle up, sweeping it across the woods, searching. If he fired, the flash suppressor would keep their location concealed more easily, but any shot fired would still give away their general location.
“Dimi—”
“Shh . . .” He continued to scan the woods.
Elena pressed close to him, blood roaring in her ears. Her eyes scanned the darkness. Between shafts of moonlight, she saw several figures sweeping in on them. They were surrounded. He picked off three men with his rifle before they both faced the awful truth—they were heavily outnumbered.
“Dimitri,” she gasped, terror squeezing her chest of all breath.
He held her tight, his lips touching her ear. “Whatever happens, know that I love you, kiska.” Then he shoved her down into the snow and rushed into the open, drawing the fire of the men advancing on them. Time slowed down, like a nightmare where her legs wouldn’t move. Dimitri was hit—once, twice, three times—and fell in a hail of gunfire and lay still twenty yards away.
She was frozen in place, unable to tear her gaze away from Dimitri’s body. No, no, no . . . She took a step, but bullets fired, digging into the trees around her, and that more than anything forced her back into motion. She had to draw the men and their fire away from Dimitri. If she ran, these men would follow . . . and maybe Royce and the others could find Dimitri. It was the only way she had to save him, even if it was but a sliver of fast-fading hope.
Elena had a mere second to react. She sprinted toward the SUV, but something arced in the air over her head, and in the next second, the SUV exploded in a fireball.
Elena was blown back, landing in the snow, ears ringing and vision blurred. As she regained her breath, three men dressed in black advanced, guns pointed at her. The man in front pulled off a black ski mask and goggles and tossed them to the ground. He looked older in person than she had expected, but she recognized him from the surveillance pictures Leo had shown her.
“Vladimir,” she whispered.
“Ms. Allen.” Vladimir nodded at the men on either side of him. They bent and grabbed her arms, hauling her up onto her feet. Somewhere along the way she’d lost her backpack, but that didn’t matter now. Nothing did. She wasn’t getting away from this.
They dragged her deeper into the woods, and with each step Elena’s body grew heavier as the shock of what had just happened wore off. Dimitri was dead. Odds were, most of the other men were too. She didn’t want to go one step farther, not now, not ever. Dimitri had become her world, and now she was alone. She didn’t think that she would ever love anyone but him. It was strange, but she knew it was the truth. Deep in her heart, there was no other but him.
She jerked free of the men who held her. Vladimir held up a hand when one of the men raised his hand, ready to strike her. The man lowered his arm.
Vladimir scrutinized her. “You look so like your mother.”
Her heart began to skitter wildly. “My mother?” She hadn’t expected him to speak. She’d been told they’d just kill her without hesitation.
“Your birth mother, of course. I was sent to kill her twenty years ago. She got away. She was pregnant with you, and I assumed she would die in the snowstorm. I never imagined she would survive long enough to get to a hospital. To find you alive after all these years . . .” He frowned. “And to learn what you really are . . .” Vladimir slowly reached out and gripped her hair in his hand as though fascinated.
“A Romanov. Anastasia’s blood runs through your veins.” He smiled wryly. “So little, too, only twelve point five percent, but it is enough to warrant your death.”
Elena was numb as she stared back at him. “I was no one, just a woman living a quiet life. You could have left me alone to live my life.”
“Perhaps. But so long as you lived, there was always the risk of someone finding you and using you as a symbol. There have been pretenders before, but even if any of
