Vasel shrugged. Taking in Olena’s native clothing with something like disdain, he asked, “Precious daughter, what are you wearing? And is that any way to greet your papa?”

“Papa?” Marcus gasped.

“You’re not my papa!” She made a fist with her thumb protruding between her middle and index finger. Marcus almost shouted for her to not hit him with that. She’d break her thumb. But she just waved it in a gesture that included all of the new arrivals.

Vasel shook his head disapprovingly. The coin still flipped from knuckle to knuckle. “You’ve become such a rude girl. I don’t hold it against you. You’ve had a hard time, I know. I will make it right with you.”

The big man paced with the mallets that were his fist swinging in warning. He scowled at the arriving villagers, who’d begun to cluster around them. No one came too close.

“You can’t make anything right,” Olena said. “You let Baba Yaga have me!”

“Everything I did was for you.”

“Liar! How did you find us?”

“A father should always know where his daughter is,” Vasel said. When that clearly didn’t satisfy Olena, he added, “Tracking chip.”

“What?”

“It was for your own good. Remember when you ran away from school with that boy? What was he, Algerian?”

“French,” Olena corrected. “He was born and raised in Paris!”

“Algerian first. Algerian always.” He glanced at Marcus. “At least he wasn’t as black as this mamba. That little adventure cost me headaches, money, resources to find you. We drugged you on the flight back home, yes? That day and many after. Was not just to keep you quiet, though. Also, for you to recover from a little operation. Tracking chip. I had them place it under that tattoo you so foolishly had just gotten.” He pointed at the spot on his own lower back. “Who would’ve thought my daughter would become tramp?”

Olena’s face shifted through a series of emotions. Bewilderment. Disbelief. Shock. After all these, she settled on anger. An anger that could only be fully expressed in a torrent of words in her native tongue.

“I thought you wanted to speak English?” Vasel said.

She did, mid-sentence. “—a chip in me as if I’m a dog? That’s what you did? I hate you! Hate you!” She spat on him. It was a vicious motion, full of loathing, but it only left a few flecks of spittle on his crisp suit.

Vasel seemed unperturbed. “With the chip I always knew where you were. Always, I had people spying on Baba Yaga, waiting for the moment to take her out, and to rescue you.”

“Rescue me? You gave me to her!”

“You are alive, yes? And now you are free. When our informant told us that the shit had hit the fan in the casino, I was on my way to Baikonur. Lucky timing. I dropped what I was doing and came to find you. I should be in Talas now, taking advantage of the moment, but I came first for you. I get this thanks for it.”