The Ambitious Orphan by Amelia Price

the soldier
said snapping his heels together and saluting her. For a second,
she wondered if she was meant to salute back but he relaxed
again.
    “Thank you...”
    “Colonel Markham,
ma'am.”
    “Thank you,
Colonel Markham. You've been most helpful.”
    With that, the
soldier went back the way he came, leaving her outside the door.
She was about to ask the agent with her to let her in the room when
she heard the sound of someone smacking something into flesh and a
grunt of pain. Her eyes went wide.
    “The commander is
in there,” Steven said, motioning his head towards the door and the
source of the sound. “Trying to get Nesterov to talk. Don't think
it will take much longer to break him.”
    Horror filled her
at what might be happening in the room, and her disgust at the idea
of Myron inflicting pain on another for her sake overcame all her
fear.
    “Let me in,” she
said as she saw the keys on the small table.
    “I'm not sure I'm
allowed to do that, ma'am.”
    “It's not a
request.” She gritted her teeth and looked calm but like she was
about to snap any moment. It seemed to work.
    “If he gets pissed
off I'm blaming you.”
    “Of course.” She
nodded her appreciation and moved over to the door, tucking her new
identification card into the top of her corset to keep it safe and
out of the way.
    Making sure her
face was as cold and impassive as she could get it, she gave him a
second up and down of her head so he'd know to let her in. He
turned the key and pushed the door inwards.
    Myron looked at
her first, but she strode into the room before he could tell her
not to. Not daring to look at him long enough to see if he was
angry, she took in the sight of the Russian.
    He was laid out on
the floor, chains around his hands and feet stretching him out so
he couldn't protect any of the more vulnerable areas of his body. A
mixture of water and blood covered the ground around him, and a
second later the smell of that, urine and other unpleasant body
odours assaulted her nostrils.
    For a few seconds
she could only stand and stare, fighting off the queasy feeling the
sight and smells had given her. Myron watched her, but didn't
comment. In front of Nesterov he was unlikely to admonish her.
     

Chapter 9
    Fury filled
Mycroft as he watched Amelia walk in in the middle of his
interrogation. He tried to use body language the prisoner wouldn't
notice to encourage his wayward protégée to leave, but she looked
straight past him to Nesterov.
    Knowing she was
battling her own emotions in some way, Mycroft waited for her to do
whatever she'd come to do, but the Russian was the first to break
the silence.
    “I didn't expect
to see your beautiful face any time soon,” he said, in between
gasps for air and a grimace of pain. Mycroft watched both of them,
forcing himself not to react to anything, as if she were
expected.
    “I only now
realised you were being interrogated, or I would have come sooner,”
Amelia said as she walked closer. Once she was within a couple of
feet, she crouched, making sure neither of her feet touched any of
the liquids splattered across the floor.
    “So you're the
balm that's meant to make me talk.”
    “No,” she said.
“I'm not even meant to be here, but I don't like violence of any
kind and, despite what you did to me, I don't want to see you hurt
further.”
    “And you think you
have the power to stop this?”
    “Honestly, I have
no idea.” Amelia finally looked at Mycroft, searching him for the
answer. He allowed a little of his anger to show when Nesterov also
turned slowly towards him. After a few seconds Nesterov looked back
to Amelia and studied her.
    “I don't doubt
this is a secure facility. You must work for Mr Holmes or the
government, too. Not a high-class hooker as you told my
comrade.”
    A small smile
spread across her face.
    “No, not a hooker,
but, until today, nothing more than an acquaintance. And I still
don't know what you thought I did.”
    “Well, one of