The silence that followed the voice on the secure line was heavier than the G-force of the interception. In the pressurized cabin of the Gulfstream, the air suddenly felt thin again, as if we were back on the peaks of the Pichincha. Roman’s hand, which had been resting possessively on my waist, turned into a fist of white-knuckled iron. His eyes, those shards of grey ice that had watched me burn my father’s legacy, now looked toward the cockpit with a predatory focus that made the hair on my arms stand up.
"Sofia," I whispered, the name tasting like salt and terror.
She was my only piece of a normal life left—the cousin in Queens who thought I was just on a long vacation, far away from the blood and the emerald dust of the Volkov empire. To the Commission, she wasn't a person; she was a
