Her eyes are swollen and her cheeks are blotchy but there’s a determined slant in the set of her jaw that I resonate with.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t come earlier,” she explains. “I had to make sure my brothers were gone.”
“Do they know where Lev might be?”
“I don’t know. They weren’t super eager to share with me, as you might imagine.”
“I’m sorry, Polly. This is all my—”
“We don’t have time for that now,” she interrupts. “We need to find my brother.” I can tell she’s been on the same emotional rollercoaster as me in the last hour. “I heard some of Uri’s men talking earlier. Apparently, your laptop is missing from the house.”
I clutch her hopefully “Yes! But they left behind my tablet. If we can charge it—”
Polly’s eyes go wide as she finishes, “… then maybe we can maybe track it.” She nods, all action immediately. “Charger. Got it. I’ll be right back.”
She disappears upstairs and a few minutes later, returns with a charger in hand. We plug it in and then both of us huddle over it. I catch sight of our reflection in the black glass and look away immediately. I want to feel hopeful—but the look in my face says I’m already fearing the worst.
“Now, we wait.” The seconds move slower than they ever have. Every sound is overpowered by my stampeding heart. I can’t deal with long silences, so I break it with the other thing that’s been circulating in my brain since Lev was taken. “Can I apologize to you now?”
Polly sighs. “We had the best intentions. It went wrong. You’re not to blame, Alyssa.”
“Neither are you.”
“I know that. But it doesn’t matter. I should have protected him.” She tilts her head to the side and looks at me curiously. “You really care about him, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do. And I would do anything to get him back.”
Polly’s smiling at me when the charging icon changes to the lock screen. We both suck in a breath at the same time. I snatch up the tablet and type in my code with trembling fingers. It takes me only a few seconds to get into the device sharing app to check on the location of my laptop.
“They have it,” I say confidently. “About… forty minutes from here. Toward Pasadena.”
Polly looks at the screen. “I think that’s where we’ll find Lev.” We exchange a glance. “I… I need to tell my brothers. They can head there immediately.”
“Go ahead.”
She pulls out her phone and calls Uri first. No answer. She tries Nikolai next. No answer there, either.
“Fuck!” she yells, dropping her arm. “They’re not picking up.”
“Polly, I don’t want to repeat past mistakes—but this is different. If you let me out, I can grab my car and go after Lev myself.”
She nods. “I’m with you. Let’s go.”
“Whoa,” I grab her hand before she can fly out the basement door. “No, no, no. I can’t take you with me.”
“You’re not going without me.”
“I’m not about to put you in danger. I’ve already fucked things up with Lev. If you’re hurt, too, Uri will never forgive me.”
“Why do you care if he forgives you or not?” My mouth opens but nothing comes out. Polly waves a hand in my face. “Yeah, I know. ‘It’s complicated.’ I don’t care about your weird, dysfunctional relationship with my brother right now. All I care about is getting my brother back. You can’t do this on your own.”
“Yes, I can. Polly please—”
She plants herself in front of the basement door, arms folded across her chest. “Either I come with you or I lock you in and do this on my own. Your choice.”
I stare at her, wide-eyed. “You wouldn’t.”
“Watch me.”
“Polly—”
“Ten, nine, eight, seven… Hurry, the offer will expire in six, five, four, three, two—”
“Okay, okay, okay!” I shout. She grins mischievously as I concede. “You little terrorist. You’re a Bugrov, alright.”
She smiles as we head up the stairs. “My brothers took a bunch of men with them, so there’s limited security on the estate. Makes it easier for the both of us to get out.”
“We can try getting out through the south side again. The fence leads right to my place.”