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delivering a warning to leave the city and stay away from Dmitrey Rodchenko's property -- all of it.
    With just the clothes on his back, a few dollars in his pocket and the bank where he kept a secret safety deposit box closed for the day, he spent the night in the park cradling his bruised ribs and thinking of Alina as a midnight storm blew through the city.
    Friday afternoon, he bought two bus tickets for Chicago, one for him and the other for Alina. Then he entered the library an hour before closing and found a place to hide, his large frame compressed between the underside of a long conference table and the seats of the chairs he had pushed in.
    When the security guard came in a few hours later and swept his flashlight, he saw nothing but empty floor and wooden chair legs. All night long Mishka stayed like that, the battered ribs screaming fresh agony with every breath he took.
    Only once the library opened did he crawl out of his hiding place and pull a baseball cap over the yellow hair he had dyed black before buying the bus tickets.
    Alina always came in the morning on Saturday, before the day got too busy and her father became as stingy with his men as he was with his money. Mishka knew where she would go in the library from the books she would always show him upon her return. Classic literature filled with love and war, longing and loss, always drew her. She favored English authors, but Tolstoy and his contemporaries could be found pressing cozily against one of the Bronte sisters on Alina's nightstand.
    Hugging the side of a wall, the brim of the cap pulled down to hide his bright blue eyes, he made his way to the Russian section first, his ears alert to any familiar voices.
    Using a small mirror, he looked down the aisle and found it empty. Moving two rows over, he waited against an end cap, his body turned sideways so that no one scanning the rows of books would see him.
    Long minutes passed, each one promising a more brutal beating than what he had received at the docks if Rodchenko's guards found him.
    How ironic and like the old man would it be to keep Alina at home but send his thugs to the library?
    Stuck on the thought, he heard sound in the aisle at last. Checking with his mirror again, he confirmed that it was Alina and she was alone. Taking a book from the end cap, he placed it on the floor and eased it into her view, know that she would pick it up if she saw it.
    He counted the seconds, not sure how long he could afford to wait for her to find it. She might have already selected a few books and moved on.
    Edging the mirror out again, he stared at her reflection. She hadn't stirred since he last looked, not even a fraction of an inch. Her hands rested against the spines of several books, her fingers splayed, her face caving in on itself as she stared into nothing.
    With a light clearing of his throat, he tried to draw her attention down the row. No sound answered the attempt, not even a rustling of clothes.
    Sucking in a deep breath, he stepped into the center of the row and quickly closed the distance between them. Capturing her elbow, he drew her behind the end cap, her soft body compliant as he tugged and steered.
    "Alina, it's me," he whispered, lifting the brim of his baseball cap.
    She seemed out of it, drugged perhaps. Had Rodchenko given her some kind of medicine so she would be willing bait?
    Cupping one of her round cheeks, he lightly tapped the other to rouse her senses.
    "We're leaving now. Do you understand?"
    Comprehension began to spread across her lovely face only to shut down an instant later as her gaze turned hard and cold.
    "I'm not going anywhere with you."
    This was not his Alina talking. It didn't even sound like her voice. There was an edge to it as thin and sharp as a razor blade.
    "Leave before they find you."
    Whatever her reason for ordering him away, he ignored it. She was afraid, that was all, afraid her father's men would hurt him.
    "How many guards?"
    "More than a boy like