“I don’t know,” I hiss. “You were the one who wanted to leave. What was your plan?”

“To go back to New York.”

“Which we can’t do because Boris is there.” I sigh, rubbing my hands down my face. “Ok. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to leave Russia, and we’re going to go to France.”

“France?” Vik scrunches up her face. “Why France?”

“Do you have something against France?” I ask her.

She shakes her head. “No. I just don’t know why France.”

“Because Mom’s family is from France. She has family there. If you ever cared to look beyond yourself, you’d know that.”

Vik huffs and stands up, shaking her finger at me. “I’m so tired of you judging me.”

“And I’m tired of you trying to ruin my life.”

“How have I ruined your life?”

“I wanted to stay.”

“So?”

I jump to my feet. “But you wanted to leave, so I just have to leave with you so we stay together. I’m giving up my life here. For you!”

“Hey, guys,” Mila whispers. “Keep your voices down.”

She’s right. We can’t have Mary overhearing us again.

“We’re going to France,” I say. “We’ll get the tickets at the airport. It’s the safest way. We should leave now. It could take us a while.”

“Fine,” Vik says tersely.

I ignore her and quickly go to my room to grab the suitcase. I make sure to wear comfortable shoes, but Mikhail didn’t supply me with anything other than dresses, so I have no choice but to wear one.

I give my suitcase to Vik as we meet in the hallway. “Ok. I’m going to head downstairs and keep an eye out for Mary. I know she tends to clean the bathrooms at this time of day. I’ll signal you to come down.”

Walking on my tiptoes, I sneak downstairs and go to the front door. I don’t spot Mary once. My eyes land on Mikhail’s office door, and all I can think about is that I’ll miss him.

I never thought that would be the case. But I think I care about him.

Ripping my eyes away, I motion for Mila and Vik to hurry downstairs. They keep their steps light as they hold the suitcases up from banging on the steps.

Then, we walk right through the front door without anyone stopping us.

A guard is stationed at the end of the hall—one of Mikhail’s men. Shoot. I didn’t think about that.

He glances at us as we walk past. “Do you need assistance, Mrs. Ivanov?” he asks.

“No. My sisters and I are just going out for coffee. We’ll be right across the street.”

“I’ll let Mr. Ivanov know.” He pulls out his phone.

“My husband already knows. But you can call him. We’ll be going now.”

“I should go with,” he says. “You’ll need protection.”

“It’s just coffee.”

His eyes narrow slightly. “It’s my job, miss.”

“Ok,” I say, forcing my tone to be cheerful. “Let’s go get coffee.”

“Why do you have your suitcase?” he asks as we leave the building.

“It’s more convenient than carrying a purse.”

“Yeah,” Vik adds. “More room for tampons and pads.”

That makes the guard go red in the face, and he coughs and looks away. “Understood.”

One perk of being a woman—we can always use the tampon excuse to freak men out.

We head across the street to the same café Irina works at and settle down at a table while the guard remains outside. Unfortunately, he has a clear view of us through the large windows out front.

“What are we going to do?” Vik whispers.

“We need to sneak past him,” I respond. I look around the café, and my eyes land on Irina, leaving the back room. I get up and approach her. “I need your help.”

She eyes me over dubiously. “With what?”

“I need to escape out your back door. Can you go outside and distract that man?” I subtly point to the guard.

“Finally had enough of your husband?” she asks.

“You can have him to yourself again if you help me.”

Irina looks me over before sighing. “Fine. You can use the back door.” She heads outside and approaches the guard. I’m not sure what she says to him, but his attention is riveted to her.

I motion for my sisters to follow me. We hurry through the back entrance and out into an alleyway. We deliberately go in the other direction to avoid the guard.

“We need a taxi,” Vik grumbles, limping behind with her cast.

When we reach the main road, I flag down the nearest taxi. It takes a few minutes to do so, and every minute that passes fills me more and more with worry.

A tax starts making its way toward us, but then a black SUV pulls ahead and parks directly in front of us. The window rolls down, revealing Andrei behind the wheel.

I stumble back. “How …”