Valik ripped aside the curtain that separated the two rooms.
“Where is your sister?” he growled.
Emma licked her lips, hastily conjuring a lie to cover Anya’s absence. Whatever Anya had done, she was still her sister. Her only family. And Emma would protect her with her dying breath.
“A guard came by a few minutes ago to take her from the room.”
She ignored Dimitri’s searching gaze as Valik stepped toward them.
“What guard?”
“How would I know? It is not as if we were in a position for introductions.”
Perhaps sensing Emma was hiding the truth, Dimitri shifted until he was standing between her and the slave trader.
“You have no time to linger, Valik,” he warned. “Not if you want to keep your head attached to your body.”
“Fine.” In one smooth motion, Valik reached into the pocket of his jacket to remove a pistol he promptly pointed at Emma. “Do not forget for a moment that your lover’s life depends on you. You attempt something foolish and she dies.”
Dimitri’s expression hardened, but he said nothing as he tucked Emma close to his side and led her down the stairs. Too terrified to protest, Emma barely noticed as they moved through the silent brothel.
She had no notion if Dimitri had followed her to the brothel or if Valik had captured him. She didn’t know where they were headed, or what was going to happen when they arrived. And for the moment, she did not care.
All that mattered was that Dimitri was in danger and it was entirely her fault.
Sick with dread, Emma stumbled through the narrow door that led to the back alley. A strange prickle made the hair on the nape of her neck rise, as if she were being watched from the shadows, but she dared not glance around with Valik pressing the pistol to the center of her back.
“The carriage,” Valik growled, steering them past the pavilion to the waiting vehicle and yanking open the door. “Get in.”
Already suspecting what was about to occur, Emma grudgingly climbed into the dark interior, her mouth dry as Dimitri settled on the seat opposite with a grim expression. She sensed that it would take very little to prod him into a foolish bout of heroism.
Her fear was confirmed when Valik reached inside the carriage, yanking her hands over her head to lock them in the dangling manacles.
“No,” he snapped, surging forward.
A pistol pressed against her temple. “I warn you, Tipova, sit back.”
Emma tensed, not out of concern for herself, but the horrifying fear that Dimitri would be injured.
“Dimitri…please,” she whispered between lips that were stiff with foreboding.
His eyes flashed with golden fire, but with a grudging motion he settled back on the leather seat and turned his glare toward Valik.
“That is not necessary.”
“We play this game by my rules, Tipova.” Valik stepped back with a humorless smile and slammed the door.
Dimitri muttered a few of the more foul Russian curses as he noticed the lack of a handle, accepting that they were well and truly trapped. Then, he cursed again as they felt Valik climb onto the driver’s seat and with a jerk, they were rattling down the narrow alley.
“How did you find me?” she demanded, as much to distract her dangerously infuriated companion as to ease her curiosity.
Dimitri’s jaw knotted as he waged a battle to maintain his composure. He had ruthlessly devoted the past twenty years to carving a place for himself in the world where he was always in command of the situation.
To be at the mercy of another had to be worse than torture.
“I didn’t,” he said, his words clipped. “I was at the brothel before you arrived with Valik.”
Emma narrowed her eyes, forgetting the painful steel biting into her wrists and the jarring sway of the carriage. Discovering that Dimitri had already been at the brothel was not at all what she had expected.