We're heading for Chicago, right into the center of Dad's operations. Right where Lazarus probably is.

Just over the Illinois line we pull off at a gas station attached to a trucker store, a lone outpost at the center of endless weedy fields. I think about my chances of making a break for it. No way would Aleksio have muscle in this area, ready to step out of the weeds.

Or would he? He's twenty-eight now. He's been off building his army-that's what you do when you're readying to go up against a man like my father.

They all get out. I get out, too, just checking how far my leash extends. Viktor starts filling up the car. Aleksio gives the other guy money and writes a list of things he wants from the market inside.

Tito, they call him. Tito wears a winter-type hat over his hair, which would be jet black if it weren't bleached at the tips.

I slip over to a square pillar that holds up the ceiling over the pumps.

Aleksio comes around to where I am, sunglasses propped up on his head. They may as well be down for all that I can read his eyes. "Going somewhere?"

I back up. Hit the pillar.

"What is it, Kitten?" he asks.

"I told you not to call me that."

He tilts his head. "I'll call you what I want."

"I want an update on Dad," I say.

"I want to know what you're thinking."

Anger flares in my chest. He can't even give me an update on Dad? "You want to know what I'm thinking? I'm thinking that you turned out to be a real fucking bastard, Aleksio. It's sad."

There's a hint of humor on his face as he searches my eyes.

"Am I amusing you?"

"I wouldn't say you amuse me, Mira, no. Not at all."

I can't help but feel like he's looking right through me, reading my secrets like the pages of a magazine. I flatten myself against the cement pillar, wanting, needing to escape his gaze.

"What, then?" I ask. "Do I sadden you, too?"

"Oh, a little. I mean, that blog shit? Mira Mira? Are you fucking kidding me?"

My face goes red.

"You never cared about that shit," Aleksio says.

I plant a finger on his chest. "Step back."

He grabs my finger. "You're not in charge."

"Ow."

He tightens his grip. He bends it.

I get the feeling he's testing himself, seeing how far he'll go. I want to tell him to fuck off, and that he won't do it, that this isn't him. But he never responded well to being defined. So I just say, "Don't."

"Don't what?"

"I'll scream for help."

"You could probably do that," he says. "You could probably make a run for it here. I don't know what kind of runner you are these days. Not fast enough to get away from me, but you could make trouble if you got the right person on your side, couldn't you?"

My pulse races as he lets go of my finger and matches his palm to mine, takes hold of my hand before I can pull it away.

"Are you thinking about it, Mira?"

Yes.

"You could even get the cops involved and tell them the story. They hold you while they call around. The feds get involved at that point."

There's a shadow of a smile in his eyes as he examines our clasped hands. Our hands together like that are a perversion of what we are. What we were. It shouldn't feel exciting.

"But you can't really be sure which people are mine, can you?" he says. "And you gotta think, how concerned are the authorities going to be about some bastard tearing down enemy number one's networks? A lot of them would be team bastard. Because I did what they've been wanting to do for years. So you need to be smart."

He lets go.

My heart sinks. Of course he's right. The cops who aren't on Dad's payroll would probably be amused. They'd help-in the way that cops "help" when they'd rather not help.

I have to get away. Save myself.

A man and a woman come out of the gas station with giant sodas. They smile, and Aleksio breaks out a beautiful smile that's like the sun. He's breathtaking.

It shakes me to see him wield such allure, such wild sexuality, but I suppose it shouldn't surprise me. People were always galvanized by him, even back when he was nine. He was never the star runner or the star ball player or anything, but the kids always wanted to be on his team.

These two coming out of the gas station don't even see me. They would never notice I'm here against my will; all they see is an impossibly beautiful man in a suit at a gas station in the middle of nowhere.

"They look like a nice couple," he says softly, pressing the back of my hand to the rough concrete pillar. "How much would it suck if things got hot? If all of these nice people die because you got stupid?"

He draws nearer.

I hate how intensely aware of him I am. How I feel him all around me-on my skin. I tell myself it's the danger. The mindfuck of him coming back from the grave so dark and twisted.

He's acting like a fucking predator-of course I'd be aware of him. The prey is always wildly aware of the predator.

Another car pulls up. A capable-looking man wearing a T-shirt with what looks like a firefighter insignia on the pocket gets out. Firefighter. That's close to a cop. Sort of.

I gasp as Aleksio cups my right cheek, staring into my eyes.

"You're not playing fair," I say.

"Really? That's your complaint here? I'm not playing fair?"

"One of them." His hand on my cheek feels electric.

He studies my eyes. He thinks I'm fucking with him. "And you don't want to try anything. Not with this guy, either. He'd get involved, and it wouldn't go well for anyone."

I regard my old friend with a steady gaze. Like I don't care. Like I'm not scared. "Seriously, Aleksio, you can't just kidnap the most powerful man in Chicago."

He smiles. Kidnapping the most powerful crime boss in Chicago is exactly what he's done, of course. His smile creates a sparkly sensation that goes clear to my core. It's fucked up. I push him, and he steps back, smiling like we're just playing.

There's a clunk over by the car. Gas gun settling back in its place. The clang of the little door to the gas tank.

"Aleksio." Viktor.

The other guy, Tito, arrives with a white plastic bag.

Aleksio takes my hand and leads me to the car like a lover, opening the door for me, so chivalrous. Unless you feel how tightly he grips. "Ladies first."

I get in.

We take off, and Aleksio grabs the bag. He passes around waters and candy. He gives me a bottle, a small baggie of English toffee, and panties.

I hold the stuff, stunned.

"Sorry, Kitten. Made in China was the best designer label they had."

He thinks I'm surprised by the panties, but it's the chocolate-covered toffee that gets me. English toffee is my favorite. Always has been. It's a treat I never let myself have these days, because if I start eating it, I'll never stop.

Did he remember?

He turns to stare out at the cornfields. "Go ahead."

"Thanks," I say, too baffled even to bristle at the designer tag insult. I put down the candy and the water. The panties are the cheap synthetic three-for-the-price-of-one kind attached by a plastic thingy that goes through a cardboard square. I yank them apart and put one of the pairs on, shimmying them up under my skirt. When I look over I catch him watching. With a bored expression, he tears into his Snickers bar.

I pick at the string on the toffee. It's the kind of candy you'd find in the sad little "fancy" section of a rural gas station. "Why'd you pick this?" I ask.

"What?"

"You had him buy me English toffee."

"Beggars can't be choosers."

Right. As if he remembered. I break off a corner, chew it indifferently. I need to get my mind around the fact that I'm in actual danger. I need to be smart. To get the hell away.

I ask a few times where we're going, what we're doing, but Aleksio only talks when he feels like it. He's back to surly silence.

People change, and sometimes they lose their fucking soul, he said. Maybe that's the best he can do, warn me who he is now.

They put up the top of the convertible, and we drive around Chicago a while, staying out of areas my father controls-or controlled. I'm not really sure about the status of the family. But if Lazarus has found out what happened, there's going to be trouble.

It's Saturday afternoon. No rush hour. Aleksio's making phone calls. Marshaling troops.

We eventually pull up in a garbage-strewn alley on the poor end of a business district where a lot of charities operate. The buildings on either side are nondescript office buildings, not old enough to be cool but not new enough to be nice. One of the white vans from the house pulls in behind us. A few guys with assault weapons come around, some of them Russian, some Albanian-American.

I'm alone in the car for a second, and then Aleksio's back with handcuffs. He cuffs me to the door.

"We'll be a few minutes." He pauses, then continues, "You still have a chance to get out of this alive. Don't blow it by hitting the horn or something."

The pack of them are at a shadowy side door. I hear an alarm beep, and then suddenly they're all in and the alarm is off. Tito remains outside, guarding.

I lean all the way over, trying to check where I am, see whether anybody is around to signal. I catch sight of a small metal plate over the door. Worland.

That's the place my father told them about. Worland Agency, he said.

Moving fast-they didn't even case the place. This tells me they think Kiro's in danger. Obviously. Why else take a risk like they did today?

And what if they can't find him? Worse-what if he turns up dead?

CHAPTER FIVE.

Aleksio The adoption agency smells like new carpet and Lysol. There are two rows of cubicles surrounded by meeting rooms and a shitload of file drawers and computers.

The guys are flinging open drawers and pulling the lids off file boxes, packing up everything that could lead to Kiro.

Kiro is vulnerable as hell right now. He could be a guy working in a suburban carwash or college kid sitting in Accounting 101. No idea what's coming at him. And if anybody figures out what we're up to, there are some heavy hitters coming for him.

It's a miracle Aldo Nikolla and Lazarus didn't kill him or Viktor that bloody night, considering the prophecy. My guess is that Nikolla didn't have the balls to kill two tiny kids. He thought he could lose them. Thought they'd stay lost.

And we thought we had time.

Tito and the rest of my tight little crew knew I'd found Viktor, and that was containable, but we recently found out the whole of the Russian mafia has been talking about it. The baby sent away, presumed dead. The brother from America comes to get him. The sleeping king. Heirs to a crime empire in America.

Fucking gangster grapevine.

The guys are taking every file and every shred of paper related to the year our family ended. A few of them are downloading the computer files. We'll take the laptops, too. I help stack the boxes at the door. I get updates from the guys watching across the street. So far, so good.

Worland is a charity that has a pregnancy counseling and adoption arm-I vetted it on the way over. It's the kind of place people bring babies they don't want, no questions asked-that's one of the things on their home page. And apparently it's also the kind of place a guy sends a baby he wants lost.

It really is possible Aldo Nikolla doesn't know anything beyond the agency name. The agency could've set those terms to protect itself.

The files are building up. I have some guys check the basement, and I get others started on bringing the shit out to the van. It's amazing to think the key to finding our baby brother could be hidden in all this paper.

Kiro.