The Blood Code by Misty Evans Page B

the dinner tonight?” Ivanov scanned her face, looking for approval. His accent was heavier, thicker. The alcohol was affecting him after all. “Did you enjoy the children?”
    She didn’t want to discuss the dinner or the children’s chorus, but as Grams had taught her, the best defense was a good offense. He wanted her approval, so that’s what she gave him. “The evening was a success, and I’m glad we finally have a chance to talk. About my grandmother…”
    “President Pennington and Prime Minister Morrow were impressed, da ?”
    “Everyone was impressed.”
    Ivanov smiled his Cheshire cat smile and lifted his glass to her. His eyes reflected the flames of the fire as he gulped the vodka. “I have special events planned all week. For you.”
    His meaning was clear, his intent as well. The heat from the fire might as well have been the north wind blowing outside. Anya’s blood ran cold. “I need to know my grandmother is okay.”
    Ivanov heaved up from the sofa, empty glass in hand. “There is something I want to show you.”
    Her heart leapt. Was he going to take her to Grams? As he grabbed the bottle of chilled vodka from the refrigerator once again, she rose from the sofa to follow him.
    The trip was disappointingly short, ending at the bookcases near his desk. He refilled his glass and offered to top off hers as well. Since she hadn’t even sipped her vodka, she shook her head, and set her still half-full tumbler on the malachite desk.
    Ivanov threw another shot down his throat. Then he faced the books on the nearby shelves and skimmed his fingers over the spines. The titles were in Russian and Anya struggled for a second to shift to her native language and the Cyrillic alphabet. She was fluent in Russian, but after Grams insisted she purge the first eleven years from her memory, she was rusty.
    He removed a twelve-by-twelve, leather-bound book and set it on the desk. The book’s Russian title was imprinted in gold lettering on the front— Romanov Family Tree —and Ivanov ran his fingers across it as if it were sacred. Opening the cover, he flipped through several pages, all of them encased behind page protectors. Anya tried to see what was on the pages, but she couldn’t without moving closer to him.
    Finding the page he was looking for, he ran a finger down the plastic protector. “Here.” He tapped the page and glanced up. “Natasha Maria Romanov.”
    Curiosity got the better of her and Anya inched closer. Like the title, the words were in Russian, but she recognized the name she had printed out hundreds of times during her school years before moving to America. Romanov .
    The page held a diagram, labeled with various names. A horizontal line ran from Gram’s name to Anya’s grandfather’s name, Anton Radzoya. Below their union, a vertical line connected them to another name she recognized. Peter Romanov Radzoya. Anya’s father. His name connected to her mother’s, Ekateirna, and below them a new tier of the family tree held Anya’s full name.
    “The great Imperial Dynasty,” Ivanov said, his eyes glowing with pride. With his empty hand, he motioned at a collection of books behind them. “I have researched and documented the complete ancestral history of each royal family dating back to the founding of our Russian monarchy.”
    Our Russian monarchy . The way he emphasized our made it sound like he and Anya shared dominion over it. And while she knew Russian history had been researched and documented by hundreds of scholars all around the world, she once again understood Ivanov wanted to impress her. He wanted her approval. He was bragging, as if he had done all the work himself.
    She couldn’t bring herself to flatter him, so she went with a generic response. “That’s an impressive amount of work.” Probably all done by someone else .
    Her feedback egged him on. He reached for another leather-bound book and took it from the shelf, opening it on top of her family’s history. Just