more than anyone else to have her back bonded over their hatred for Kristof—the one person she once trusted more than anyone else. The man he’d become might not deserve her defense, but the boy he’d once been had earned it with blood, broken bones, and unimaginable pain the three years they’d endured that camp together.
She’d never intended to share details from that time with anyone, but her silence was adding unnecessary tension to an already precarious situation.
“I was seven when Peter took me there the day after we buried my parents,” Addy said into the silence. “I was thrown into a small and dark cabin in the dead of winter with no heat or food. The spigot that dripped water was frozen over. This hag would come in and spew things at me in Russian, which I didn’t know. I learned quick, though. I wasn’t allowed to speak English. Only Russian. Punishments were severe. Or, my seven-year-old self thought they were.”
“Shit,” Beast said. “Don’t go through that shit for us, Red.”
“You wanted it. Shut up and listen,” Addy growled, her voice low. “I wasn’t obedient, not even back then. I had my mom’s brains and my dad’s stubbornness, and I clung to both with a determination that dared everyone in that hellhole to try and break. You want the details, I’ll give them to you. But that shit isn’t happening while this com in my ear is on and everyone else in this fucking room is forced to listen.”
“Red…” Shep said, his voice gentle.
“I was ten when Lavrov arrived at the camp. He was fourteen. I was facing another punishment for refusing to kill a rabbit that was caged in the corner of the room.” Addy looked down as emotion clogged her throat. “He didn’t know English, but my Russian was pretty fucking spectacular by then. Misha was going to make an example out of me to scare him straight his first day there. My choice was simple—kill the rabbit or remain standing with one foot atop a skinny post with my arms extended and my other leg drawn behind me, the bottom of my foot exposed. She’d come in routinely and whip me. Bottoms of my feet. Backs of my legs. Anywhere that’d make it hard to stay on that post. If I fell, my time started all over again. No food. No water.”
“Fuck,” Cracker said.
“She messed up that day,” Addy whispered. “She didn’t scare him straight. He fed me the food they’d left for him and dug a hole in the bottom of the cabin with the whip handle. He set the rabbit free.”
“Shit.” Beast looked at Addy. “When Misha came back?”
“He took full blame and offered to kill an animal worthier of her than a small rabbit.” She swallowed. “For three years he was my shadow and I was his. In a hell like that, it was the closest thing to a friend that I’d ever had. Think whatever you want about him, but I’ll be damned if I sit here while you find him guilty before we even know what the fuck is going on.”
“He’s not a good man,” Johnny whispered.
He was. He’d once been the most protective and caring person in her world. So what if he wasn’t that boy anymore? She wasn’t that girl. They’d both changed. Circumstances dragged them into perilous lives where there was no clear right or wrong. Sometimes the only way out was through immoral actions.
She hadn’t ever led a life where “doing the good thing” was always a possibility. Was that what’d happened to him?
“You think we’re any better?” Addy asked. “We’ve danced across that moral line almost more than anyone else. Again and again. You think the shit we did off the books for Peter was any better than what Lavrov does?”
“Look, I get what you’re saying, Red. We all do.” Thunder spoke for the first time as he took her hand. “But we were talking with Jesse earlier. He thinks Marshall and his team should take point to find the other missiles. We agree.”
“He’s opening up wounds on you we can’t heal because you won’t let them alone,” Johnny said. “You’re in the corner alone and chewing at them.”
He wasn’t wrong. “I don’t dump on people. Talking out the crap in my head hasn’t ever been me. It won’t ever be.”
“We know that,” Cracker said. “That’s why we’ve got to drag you out of the zone and get you safe from whatever he’s screwing up inside