But Zivon . . . Zivon had always been traditional. Evgeni shook his head. “Perhaps his rage is quiet. But that makes it all the more deadly. He will take everything he knows now and try to destroy the Bolsheviks with it.”

Her face was hard. “We won’t let him. We’ll go to London, we’ll find him, find what he knows, get the information the Prussian gave you—and we’ll silence him.”

It was a wonder the rock didn’t crumble under his fingers. “You will not kill my brother.” He’d been careful to say we before, when speaking of Alyona, even though he’d been kept out of the loop once they’d made a decision. But there was no we here. He would do many things for the party, for the new Russia, for this woman he loved, despite all logic telling him she’d walk away at the first sign of trouble.

But that wasn’t one of them.

Her hand landed on the photo album, tugged it from his lap to hers. “If you have a better suggestion—”

“I do. We convince him to live quietly, to retire from any military affiliation. He could have a career teaching at any major university, or translating again. He could just disappear, as so many of the nobility have done.”

Her gaze didn’t budge from the photo she’d opened to. “So what then? We go to London so you can convince him?”

“Hardly.” It came out a snort as much as a word. “He likely thinks I’m dead, and it’s best that way. I’ve never been able to convince him of anything—and he can see when I’m lying in half a second.”

With one of those disarming, lightning smiles of hers, she bumped their shoulders together. “So can I. And don’t forget it.”

And this was why he’d fallen for her so fast. He’d never met anyone else who could be so fierce and yet so teasing all at once. He leaned into her shoulder a bit. “He would never give up his career for me. We have to make him want to.”

She grunted and flipped a few more pages. Then a few more, but more slowly. Her shoulders relaxed. Her face went from hard to satisfied. “I think . . .”

He knew that tone. It was the one that had convinced him to make a risky charge at her side in the heat of battle. The one that had dared him to meet her later in an abandoned barn. The one that had insisted to their superiors that they could handle the meeting with the Prussian, and that Zivon’s determination to flee Russia would be the perfect ruse.

That tone meant trouble. And possible glory. And feeling more alive than he ever had before. “You think . . . ?”