A door opened right beside me and a woman in a maid’s uniform stifled a scream as she saw me. I put a finger to my lips, “Sh! Shh! Bitte!” Please was one of the few German words I knew.

The woman looked at us uncertainly, but she kept quiet. Her eyes were red from crying. I tentatively put my hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay,” I told her, praying she spoke English. I pointed at Kian and me. “Good guys,” I explained.

She looked at our guns and swallowed nervously, far from convinced.

“I need to find a woman,” I told her. I put my hand down low. “Small.” The woman looked blank—maybe her English wasn’t that good. In desperation, I put my hands to the back of my head and mimed Erin’s braid.

The woman’s face lit up with recognition and, for some reason, she relaxed. She beckoned us and led the way down the hallway, almost to the far side of the castle. Then she pointed us up a spiral stone staircase. “Up there?” I asked.

She nodded firmly, then hurried away.

Kian and I slunk up the staircase, backs pressed against the wall and guns raised. At the very top was a heavy wooden door. I peeked through the keyhole and drew in a deep, shuddering breath.

“Is it her?” asked Kian. “Is she—”

I didn’t waste time answering. I backed up to the far wall, ran at the door and shoulder-charged it. There was a crack of splintering wood, I staggered inside….

And there she was, standing by the bed, her eyes wide with disbelief.

The relief was like nothing I’d ever felt. I grabbed Erin by the waist, picked her up and crushed her to me. Then I saw the chair with cord tied to the arms and the blood on the carpet, and my arms tightened even more. “I’m here now,” I told her in a choking gasp. “I’m here now.”

74. Jd

74

JD

Gabriel’s lockpicking skills had got us into one of the garages and then down into the cellars. We were creeping through a wide, vaulted tunnel that seemed to twist on forever. So far, it was all quiet and that was good. But it meant my mind was free to race non-stop.

Erin. She’d been right, at Katharina’s apartment: she wasn’t a kid anymore. And she’d been brave as hell, coming all the way to Siberia to help rescue me, and then doing everything since. But she was still my little sister and if something happened to her…