Page 13 of Ruined By Sin

"She was a mole, Morin. Placed there by her uncle to gather intelligence. You idiot!" I spit the last word at him, and he flinches. Good. He should flinch. Nothing about this is good.

"I didn't know."

"You didn't check. You didn't ask her name. You didn't do your job to investigate fully who'd be in that building before you went in there shooting things up." Now my voice is raised as I begin pacing a short path between my desk and the window.

"Tim, there was no time to?—"

"Don't." I hold up my hand and he stops when I spin around to glare at him. "Don't tell me there was no time. You had all the time in the world to gather correct intelligence and you pushed this through like it was life or death. Now look at what you've done!" I raise my hands in a huff, realizing I'm getting out of control.

He runs both hands over his face and turns away from me. When he turns back, his jaw is clenched tight and he looks defeated.He knows this is bad for him, and he knows this might mean my bailing him out in front of Roman again. There are only so many times I can put myself on the line for someone before enough is enough. No matter what they've done to save me.

"What did you tell her?" he asks.

"I told her we'd verify her story and get her home. What was I supposed to tell her? Sorry my associate kidnapped you and planned to have you assaulted and murdered, but we're the good guys?" Saying it aloud makes it sound all the more absurd and he knows it.

"I never said murdered."

"You said get rid of her. What did you think that meant, Morin? A ride to the airport?"

He doesn't answer that because he can't. We both know what he meant, and the fact that he's standing here trying to parse his own words makes me want to put my fist through the wall.

"Fix this," I tell him. "Whatever you have to do, whatever it takes, you make sure this doesn't blow back on us. If Sergei Belova finds out we took his niece, our alliance is over. And it won't just be the alliance. Sergei will come for blood and he'll be right to."

"I'll handle it."

"You'll handle it clean. No more improvising. You come to me before you make a single move from this point forward. Are we clear?"

"We're clear." Part of me wants to push harder, to make him feel the full weight of what he's done. But there's no point. Morindoesn't learn from lectures. He learns from consequences, and those are coming whether I deliver them or not.

"Get out."

He walks to the door and pauses with his hand on the knob. For a second I think he's going to apologize or try to explain himself, but he just opens the door and leaves. The latch clicks shut behind him, and I drop into my desk chair.

My body is on edge now, full of anger and adrenaline, but I have to force it away to focus on the task at hand. I drop into my desk chair and open my laptop. There are a dozen different ways I could test Kira's words for truth, and calling Sergei would be the fastest, but to avoid letting him know how badly Morin fucked up, I have to go about this the roundabout way.

I dig into birth records in the state files, searching back a few decades to try to unearth anyone with the name Kira Belova, but I'm finding nothing. None of my searches uncover anything for a moment, but I go after the name she gave me for her father—Nikolai Sokolov-Belova. It's not a normal thing for a man to have a hyphenated last name and take the name of his wife, but with a family as powerful as Belova's, I believe it.

But while I don't find any hyphen in the man's name, three levels down on a branch connected to Sergei's younger sister, I find it.

Kirianna Belova.

The name isn't identical but it's close enough. Kira could easily be short for Kirianna, and the family connection lines up with what she told me. Daughter of a younger sister who died. She's a ghost in the system. She exists on paper, but she's been hidden from her family too, which only makes this all the more plausible. Of course Sergei would never send one of his familymembers that are well-known. Kira has been hidden from sight, probably for her own protection, and it makes the most sense to employ her in such a covert operation.

I lean back in my chair and stare at the screen. The anger I felt toward Morin five minutes ago doubles because now it's confirmed. He didn't just kidnap some random woman from a Mirov meeting. He kidnapped a member of the Belova family, and Roman is going to be livid when he finds out. I can't hide it from him, either. This has to come out and it has to be now, or he'll come at me next.

And I highly doubt Morin will put his neck on the line for me with Roman's wrath raining down.

8

KIRA

Iwake a little less than refreshed, but sleep comes easier now that I've adjusted to life in this place. I can't recall how long I've been here, a week, maybe, or more, but I'm starting to get used to the creaks and moans of the home. And Sonya was kind enough, finally, to bring me some fresh clothing and a new bottle of vodka. She says Timur sent them, but I've never met a man with good taste. She had to have picked the clothing herself.

Rolling out of bed, I shake loose the hint of a hangover throbbing through my head and go for a shower, which both warms and refreshes me. I have a feeling if Timur checked my story and found no Kira Belova, he'd have come back for a reckoning. But he let me sleep peacefully. I heard the door open and shut shortly after he locked me in and the house has been quiet ever since.

So when a guard unlocks the door and steps inside the room without even so much as knocking, I'm shocked. But Timur did ask me to breakfast, probably to report back on his search of my history.

"Mr. Kuzin would like you to have breakfast with him," the guard says. I feel bad not knowing his name, because these men are mostly very respectful of me. But it isn't like they wear nametags.