Chapter 36

Chapter Thirty-Six

T he look on Kira's face was painful to see. Rand couldn't imagine what she was thinking and feeling as she swiped at more tears. He knew she likely wanted more answers, but first, they had to process what they'd learned.

A maid entered the room rolling a cart laden with food and drinks. Rand took the opportunity to rise to his feet. "That's enough for today. Thank you for your hospitality, but we're leaving now."

"I insist you stay. I have two guest rooms made up. You will move in."

"No," Rand said. He might be making a mistake in making this call without consulting Kira, but she was distraught, possibly not rational. There was no way this house was safe.

To his great relief, she stood as well. "No. We must go."

"But we have years to make up for, baby sister." The words were delivered with a cold edge.

Reuben Kulik entered the room via the arched doorway to the main corridor, another man by his side. The stranger's face niggled at Rand's brain. He'd seen this man before. Or at least a photo of him.

He was probably ten years older than Reuben. Tall, with gray-speckled dark hair, he moved with authority and had the hard edges of a man who knew power. When he stepped closer, Rand spotted a wristwatch that cost the same as a luxury vehicle. Another oligarch.

Probably another proud owner of a Maltese passport. They could be in the middle of a neighborhood of oligarchs, for all he knew. He shuddered at the thought of what the homeowner's association dues might be.

He offered his hand. "Randall Fallon."

The man hesitated, then accepted the handshake, which was firm and brief. "Grigory Laskin." His gaze scanned Kira from head to toe, then glanced toward Luka. "This is your wayward daughter? The American?"

The hair on the back of Rand's neck had gone up at hearing the man's name. Years of training ensured he gave no outward sign of recognition. Or alarm.

He took Kira's arm. "Come, my love. We're done here." He used the endearment to piss off the men in Kira's newfound family. He didn't care what Laskin thought. They just needed to get away, now .

"Stay, sister. I want to hear all about our dear mother."

If Reuben wanted to run her off, he couldn't make his voice any creepier. But then, Rand suspected he absolutely wanted her to leave. She was a threat to his position as sole beneficiary of the Kulik billions, and Luka Kulik didn't look well. His skin had an unhealthy yellowish tone.

Given that Kira was innocent in her parents' deceit, there was a very real chance she could claim the aging oligarch's heart. If he had one.

Kira cocked her head. "I'm sorry for what she did to you. I didn't know."

"Right. But you conveniently showed up as soon as your dear, thieving dad bit the dust."

"I'm not going to defend myself to you. I have nothing to be ashamed of."

"Not even spreading your legs for some dumb fake author who followed you to Malta so he could cash in on billions?"

Rand wanted to grab him by the throat, but he really didn't want to give anyone an excuse to toss him in a Maltese jail cell and leave Kira unprotected, so instead he simply stepped into the prick's face and puffed himself up to let the man see the SEAL in vacation clothes. "You will treat Kira with respect."

"I'm not afraid of you, but she should be. The gallery manager never heard of you, but you suddenly show up—practically straight from the plane—the night Kira is there, and you were staying in the same hotel. Why are you stalking my sister?"

Rand caught the past tense on the hotel. Reuben knew they'd moved.

"Because she's incredible." That was true enough, and it didn't deny the truth that Rand's arrival in Malta wasn't a coincidence. They could believe whatever they wanted about him. Reuben Kulik was no longer Rand's biggest concern.

"She's back in the Kulik family now. There's no place for you. Laskin probably won't want her now that he knows you soiled her, but we have other friends."

Kira was already walking toward the archway. Rand stepped around her brother and caught up with her. A hand on his shoulder had him spinning around. He didn't draw his weapon, but he would if necessary. "Don't fuck with me, Kulik. She's not your prisoner nor is she your property. Now, we're leaving. Let us go quietly, and we won't even report all the stolen art displayed in this room to Interpol."

" H ow did you know the art was stolen?" Kira asked as the gate closed behind their rental car, and relief settled in. She'd half expected them to be detained at the gate.

"A hunch. I figure your dad had to be giving Kulik something for the intel, or if not that, he had to have a reason to believe Kulik had stolen art to begin with. Plus, the second room we were in, it wasn't for the public, not like that impersonal first room. The second room is Luka Kulik's domain with his comfy chair and all his treasures."

"I recognized a few pieces. Missing since World War II. They're in the Monuments Men and Women Foundation deck of cards. We could claim a reward if they're returned."

"I'd do it pro bono, but no way will Interpol seize anything from Kulik."

"Yeah." She huffed out a sigh, then whispered, "I can't believe I'm related to that ."

Rand's phone must've vibrated, because he pulled it out of his breast pocket and took the call on speaker. Kira saw the name on the screen as it connected. Freya.

"Take me off speaker if I am. We need to keep this conversation between the three of us."

Three. Freya assumed the car was bugged, but didn't want to say it aloud to whomever was listening in.

Kira snatched up the phone and hit the button to switch off the speaker as Rand cursed at his mistake. To Freya, she said, "I'm reminded of the line in Star Wars , when Princess Leia said, ‘Our getaway was too easy.'" She didn't say aloud the important line: They must be tracking us.

Who knew Star Wars trivia could be so useful?

"My thoughts exactly," Freya said. "Not sure if you're bugged, but a tracker is almost a certainty. You need to ditch the car. I've arranged for you to pick up a clean one at the bus terminal just outside the main Valletta gate."

The bus terminal was smart. The Kuliks would waste time checking cameras to see what bus they'd taken of the dozens that passed through every hour. To Rand, Kira said, "We're catching a bus. Head to the Valletta terminal."

"What do you think they're after at this point?"

The question was directed at both Freya and Rand, but only Freya could answer without being overheard. "You, Kira. Luka wants his daughter back. Reuben probably wants you to disappear again, but this time never to return."

She thought of the little boy who watched his mother and sister disappear and was stuck in a rowboat for hours, crying. That had to have changed him. Her heart ached for the brother who'd died right along with her that day.

Both their lives were forever distorted, through no fault of their own.

She spoke the words that had been nagging at her from the moment she understood that Luka Kulik was her father. "Fr—" She cut herself off, realizing she shouldn't say Freya's name aloud. She switched from Star Wars to Battlestar Galactica . "Frak. I'm three years older than Luka Kulik's dead daughter."

Freya let out a short laugh. "You aren't the first person to call me that." Then her voice sobered. "And that's what threw me off too. Why I never considered the possibility. Luka Kulik's wife's married name was Alesya Ivanova Kulika. The daughter's name wasn't listed in the references I was able to find—she— you went missing and were presumed dead before internet usage was even possible for most people, and there weren't any news reports of missing persons at the time. All I could find was Reuben Lukovich Kulik's account that his mother and sister went into the water and never surfaced. They were too far out to have survived an underwater swim without scuba. They were presumed dead and likely it was determined their bodies had washed out to sea."

Kira searched her memory for that moment in her life that changed everything. She thought she remembered water, panic, but then…nothing.

When she was a child, she'd been afraid to swim. Her father—Conrad—had forced her to learn, taking her screaming and crying self to the public pool and forcing her to get into the water and let go of the wall. Over time, her fear was conquered. Every time they had a swim lesson, she was given Neapolitan ice cream. Her favorite as a child because she could never choose just one flavor.

She swiped at a tear as Freya continued. "It wasn't until today, when I searched on the name Kira Lukovna Kulika that I found you."

It was damned convenient that Russian patronymic nomenclature embedded the father's name in the child's name. Still, Kira felt the blood drain from her face at hearing her real name for the very first time.

Weren't there superstitions about saying the names of the dead? What if it was your own?

"I'm sorry," Freya whispered. "I didn't look into the dead wife and daughter because there seemed to be no question they were deceased. I fucked up. And yes, you don't match the missing girl because it appears your parents added three years to your age, probably to hide you from Kulik, should he search for Alesya and Kira. Between your mother's name being changed to Anna Hanson, your obscured age, and the fact that Conrad Hanson managed to conceal his wife and daughter from his Maltese contacts for thirty-plus years, you stayed hidden. Luka Kulik had no idea you were alive and well in the United States. He probably never even looked for you."

"But then my face was all over international news last December."

"And you look so much like your mother…"

It was easy to fill in the blanks from there.

Rand placed a hand on her knee as she sobbed silently, unable to say out loud the emotions that swirled through her. It would take at least thirty minutes—probably longer—to get to their new car where she could speak freely. For now, all she could do was listen as her oldest friend—the only person who'd known her when she'd been an awkward, insecure twelve-year-old—told her that the reason she'd been so terrible at socializing with her peers was because when Freya had been twelve, outgoing, and popular, Kira had been all of nine, with matching maturity, and thrust into the same social group.

"I suppose it's my fault, really. I begged Mom and Dad to send me to school. Mom didn't want me to go. She'd been homeschooling me and doing a damn good job, considering I was far ahead of my biological age in my studies. At least in the curriculum, I could keep up."

"You were brilliant, Kira. We all knew it. And you were shy and sweet." She paused, then added, "I know it doesn't feel like this right now, considering what you went through in school, but I believe your parents were trying to protect you."

"My mother was having an affair with Conrad. She was trying to protect herself." Her tone was bitter.

"That may be so, but Luka is a dangerous man and very, very powerful. There's a reason Reuben has a good shot at a minister position in the next government, and it's not because Luka is kind and generous and respected by his peers. He is feared by them. When the president wants someone gone, but doesn't want the taint, he whispers to Luka, and it's taken care of.

"On paper, Luka has just enough distance from the current president to not have his assets seized in the recent round of sanctions against Russian oligarchs, but only just. And Reuben is shortening that distance, not widening it."

"If my parents were protecting me, why leave her son behind?"

"I can only speculate there, but in all probability, he was too old to forget his father. And no way would Luka lose his only son without draining the Mediterranean to try to find him."

Kira placed a hand over her mouth to silence her sobs. Her brother had been sacrificed, left with a cold, dangerous man, only to become one himself.

She thought of her mother's lifelong sadness and the empty cradle in the portrait that hid in the basement. Her mother had loved her son, but still, she'd abandoned him in an act of selfishness while saving her daughter.

"I've—I've got to go." She hit the End button and set the phone on the center console, curled into a ball, and silently sobbed while Rand stroked her back with one hand and steered the car down the Maltese highway with the other.