Mikka held the lion in his arms as she read, his own body tucked close to her. She wanted to lock the smell of him inside her, along with the picture of his smile, the joy in his beautiful eyes.
She settled him in his bed, one of ten in a room. Kneeling beside it, she reached inside to find the person her mother had told her she was.
“Mama has to go now, Mikka, but you remember this. You are strong.” She kissed his forehead, then pushed his dark brown hair from his face. “And you are loved.”
“Will you come back for my birthday?”
She pressed her hand to his cheek. “If I can.”
He rolled over and pulled the lion into his embrace, and she could barely breathe.
Lana waited for her by the door. Without a word, she pulled Coco into her embrace.
Coco let her, her jaw tight, then pushed her away and without a word grabbed her backpack and headed away from the orphanage, trying not to look back.
Trying not to break into a thousand pieces right in front of her son.
Be strong. Be a Stanlisov. Be…
She broke out in a run, breathing hard until she turned the corner. Then she leaned against the building and pressed her hands to her face.
She was a terrible mother. But she was just trying to keep him safe, right?
Just keep moving. She finally managed to pull herself together, to breath out the terrible grief in her chest. Don’t look back.
The dirt street was quiet, just a couple dogs barking at her through fences. She headed down the main street under the glow of a street lamp, onto the cobblestone sidewalk.
Her heartbeat banged against her empty chest as she walked through the semidarkness to…where? She hadn’t thought all the way to the moment when she had to leave.
Maybe a hotel—the Intourist Hotel was usually located near the train station.
Or maybe right to tonight’s train—
Footsteps behind her made her stiffen.
Clearly, she was still a little paranoid. She hunched her shoulders, put her head down, and stayed under the lights of the sidewalk.
The cadence of the footsteps quickened, rushing at her. She turned to look—
“Run!”
The voice came from across the street and she got just a glimpse—a man, solid, quick, and with enough urgency in his English—English!
“Run, Katya!”
Behind her, a woman was running at her. Dark hair, tattoos up her neck—
The woman from the train?
Coco screamed as the woman leaped at her.
She at least remembered to throw her backpack before she turned and fled down the street.
York was tired of getting there too late.
He hadn’t been able to keep Tasha, his girlfriend, from being run over.
Hadn’t been able to warn RJ of the setup.
And now, he was two steps too short from stopping Tattoo Tanya—his name for the assassin the Bratva had sent—from hurting Kat.
He’d taken a flight from Moscow straight to Blagoveshchensk, then hopped a train to nearby Belogorsk. Frankly, he hadn’t the foggiest idea why Kat had gone to Belogorsk, of all places, but he’d downloaded a Google map on the train.
A town of sixty thousand in the middle of Siberia.
Maybe she’d come here to hide. He’d tried to call her nearly a dozen times, but the calls went to voicemail and he’d nearly done something stupid and called Yanna, his contact with the FSB, to see if she could track her.
Instead, York had gotten lucky.
He’d seen Kat walking toward the vokzal while he was getting a chebureki from a kiosk. Almost didn’t recognize her with her dark hair, especially in the shadow of the hour. But she wore jeans, Converse tennis shoes, and a backpack.
She might be Russian, but she dressed like an American.
Only then did he catch her tail. A woman also, given her slim figure, dressed in black. She wore boots, her hair long. And she walked just far enough behind Kat as to not be obvious.
His gut clenched, and he’d shouted, took off running.
Run, Katya!
Tattoo Tanya took off too, something glinting under the streetlights in her grip.
This wasn’t going to be a clean kill.
Kat had flung her backpack at her, but Tanya batted it away.
It slowed her enough for him to make up those two steps. York practically flew over the curb and tackled Tanya before she could stick the knife into Kat’s neck.
Which left him dodging a lethal slice into his gut as she went down. He grabbed her wrist and slammed it against the ground. She hung on to the weapon, but he hit it again, and it released from her grip.
His tackle had landed them on a grassy area off the sidewalk, and she kicked him off her and rolled to her feet.
He did not want to hit a woman, even one trying to kill him. But she rushed him, and he stepped to the side and gave her a hard push.
She hit the dirt and rolled, coming up with the knife.
“Aw, c’mon.”
She came at him, slashing, and he dodged, narrowly missed a hit, and grabbed her arm.
She kneed him hard. A shot of agony spiked through his head, but he hung on even when she hit him in the face.
“C’mon!” He ducked his shoulder, rammed it into her chest, pulled on her arm, and flipped her over onto her back.
She landed with a whump that should have taken out her breath. But she grabbed him and pulled him down with her. He rolled backward, still holding her wrist, grabbing her other to keep the knife from slicing through him.
The weapon came up between them, he turned to face her, and in a movement he couldn’t have stopped if he’d wanted, her body weight slammed down on top of him.
The knife slid between ribs into her body.
She swore at him, lying over him, her blood hot on his body.
He pushed her off onto the grass, the knife protruding from her chest. She gasped for air.
They were hidden beneath a trio of linden trees.
“York?”
Kat’s voice turned him. She stood on the sidewalk, her hand pressed to her mouth. “Is she—”
“Yeah. Or she will be.” He got up, painfully aware of the blood that saturated his shirt. He unbuttoned it, ripped it off, and wadded it into a ball. He turned to her. “Let’s move.”
He grabbed her arm and pulled her into a space between buildings. Gestured to her pack she’d retrieved. “You got a shirt in there?”
“Big enough for you? No. But I have a sweatshirt that might fit.” She swung her backpack down and pulled out a black sweatshirt.
He barely squeezed into it, pulling up the hood. He looked like a freakin’ teenager, so he pushed up the arms. It didn’t help, but he wadded the shirt up and shoved it into the front kangaroo pocket of the sweatshirt.
“Here.” She handed him a bottle of water. He washed his hands, wiped them on his pants, then took a drink.
His hands were shaking as he replaced the lid. Handed the bottle back.
She took it without words and slipped it back into her backpack.
“Let’s go.” He led her out of the alley and quick-walked toward the train station.
It had all happened so fast, neither of them said anything for a long moment. Not until he walked past the train station and turned down a shadowed street.
“What’s going on? How did you find me?”
“You called me, remember?”
“I…but, who was that? I saw her on the train—”
“She works for Gustov. One of his assassins, I think.”
Her breath shagged out, ruffled and thick.
“You’re going to be fine. We just need to lie low until we can figure out our next move.” They passed Lenin Street and then turned down a side street—Partizanskaya Street for the patriots. He spotted a two-story blue-and-white building with the Gostinitsa over the door. Hotel.
Out of the way, cheap, but by the sign, it had internet and a café.
York came over to stand by her. “C’mon.”
She drew in a breath.
He hadn’t seen her in a month since he’d dropped her off at Roman and Sarai’s apartment, and now he took a good look at her. Thin, pale, and not a little shell-shocked. Yeah, well, being on the run did that to a person.
“I’m a fish,” she said quietly. “Just swimming. Going nowhere. People watching me.”
“Oh brother. Let’s go.” He put his arm around her, and they took the stairs to the second floor.
The room was clean, the wallpaper gold, the bedspreads a light blue. He turned on the lamp between the beds, and the light pooled on a wooden floor, a thin scatter rug.
She sank down onto the farthest bed as he walked over to the window and drew the shade. Then he turned to her.
“What are you doing in Belogorsk?” He didn’t mean his tone—except, maybe he did because frankly, he was still shaking a little from the knockdown with Tanya, her blood in the cracks of his hands, despite the brief washing.
“Aren’t we going to talk about the body we left back there?”
He just looked at her a moment, then headed to the bathroom, tore off the sweatshirt, and washed himself. Then he pulled out his sodden shirt and washed it out. Blood ran down the drain, but he scrubbed his shirt as clean as he could, then wrung it out and hung it over the shower.
He grabbed a towel, draping it around his shoulders as he emerged and leaned against the doorjamb.
She was staring at him.
“My question first.” He raised an eyebrow.
“I came to visit my son.”
If Tanya had risen from the dead and burst in through the door, it would have surprised him less. He blinked at Kat, trying to wrap his—
“Yeah, I have a son. Almost five years old. And he lives here in Belogorsk in Orphanage 23.” She said it with her gaze hard in his, but behind it, he saw the hurt, the pain of her words.
So he said nothing. Just swallowed. He wanted to ask about the father, but maybe he’d died. Or just wasn’t in their lives.
Or maybe he was, and Kat just didn’t want to mention him.
Really, it didn’t matter. “Why would you come here? It just puts him in danger.”
And that was the wrong thing to say because her eyes filled. And she so didn’t deserve a dressing down from him, of all people.
She’d gotten shot on his watch, thank you very much, so there was that.
“Sorry.” He walked over and sat on the bed opposite her.
“No, you’re right. I just…” She pressed her hands to her face. It jarred him a little seeing her so unraveled.
Kat was always put together. Always organized. Always—well, she lived with the slightest edge of paranoia, so maybe this was the other side.
“I just had to say goodbye.”
Oh. His throat thickened. Right.
Because if she was going to disappear that meant… “I guess I don’t understand. How is it you have a son and he lives…here?”
Tears lined her cheeks as she looked up. “My father convinced me—well, I mean, I agreed, but—it’s just safer for him, you know?”
No, he didn’t know. Because he’d grown up without his parents and it wasn’t better. But he didn’t say that, clamping the words inside.
“I mean, if anyone knew who he was, they could kidnap him, hold him for ransom, and—”
“And put pressure on your father, the general.”
She wrapped her arms around herself and scooted back on the bed. Leaned her head against the headboard. “Yeah. It’s why he sent me and my mother to Montana—there was a kidnapping attempt made on me.”
“But you were with your mother—”
Aw, shoot, he shouldn’t have said that because she looked so suddenly beat up. It occurred to him that she’d probably told herself that a thousand times.
“Sorry. I’m just trying to wrap my mind—”
“I was scared! I had this baby, and I didn’t know what to do, and my father…he helped me. I know he’s not exactly the warmest coat in the closet, but he convinced me that Mikka would be safe and that I could visit him all the time, and I did—I do. Every chance I get. He lives with this woman named Lana, and he’s strong and beautiful and happy, except…” She closed her eyes, the tears still running down her cheeks. “Except I think he might be sick.”
She inhaled, her breath ragged, and looked at him as if he might have answers.
Not a one. “What kind of sick?”
“I don’t know. Lana says he’s fine, and he is an active boy, but he’s got bruises and is getting bloody noses and it…” She wiped her face again. “It reminds me of when my mother first started getting sick.” She drew in another long breath. “She died of leukemia.”
Oh, Kat.
And he wasn’t sure if he should reach out and pull her to himself.
He didn’t do big emotions. They sort of snarled up inside him and cut off his breathing. Close to how he’d felt the first time RJ had kissed him.
Full-out panic followed by a confused desire.
He felt none of that now, however, just a deep sorrow. But before he could move over and reach out to comfort her, Kat shook her head and bounced off the bed.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going back there to get him. I’m going to take him to Khabarovsk and have Sarai test him.”
“What about the doctors here?”
“What about them?” She rounded on him. “This is my son. And I’m sorry, but the medical care in America is…well, it’s light years ahead of the care here. If he’s sick, we’re going to America.”
He stood up. “Calm down. As far as I know, that woman who followed you is the only person Gustov sent after you. Mikka will be fine tonight. We’ll go back first thing in the morning and get him, okay?”
She looked up at him, her eyes big. Nodded. “We have security there, too, so…”
“See? He’s going to be fine. You look wiped out. Go to sleep. I’ll keep an eye out for trouble.”
She sank back onto the bed. Considered him a moment then rolled over onto her side. “You’re a good man, York. I can see why RJ loves you.”
She closed her eyes.
He sat on the bed, stared at his wrinkled hands, and tried not to let her words cut off his breathing.
Because maybe the very last person RJ should love was him, despite his feelings for her.
In fact, in his gut he knew he probably wasn’t the kind of man any woman should love.
6
“What are you going to do after you find her?”
The question came from Nat, who sat across from Wyatt. She had wound her hair up into a bun this morning and was reading a newspaper offered by the conductor when she’d trolleyed by with her food cart earlier.
Nat hadn’t tried, not even once, to suggest anything beyond their business arrangement. Just done her job, from helping him escape the train to purchasing him a ticket back to Khabarovsk. When they arrived, she hustled them through the station to catch yet another train, this one overnight.
What had happened to airplanes, he wanted to know, but when he’d asked, she’d told him no airplanes landed in Belogorsk.
It was a little like saying a plane wouldn’t land in Duluth, Minnesota. Although, yeah, he’d been there a few times and he wouldn’t want to land in Duluth, Minnesota, either.
“I don’t know,” he said now. He hadn’t gotten any further in his head beyond step one: find Coco.
Step two might be to convince her to come to America with him.
That was the extent of Wyatt’s plan as he tossed the night away on the hard berth of the sleeper car in their private coupe on the train to Belogorsk.
He spent some time thinking about Jace’s shouts as the train pulled away without Wyatt, hightailing it across some vil
lage train platform in the boonies of Far East Russia.
Wyatt might be in a smidgen of trouble when he got stateside.
Finding Coco was worth it.
Finding her, and getting to the bottom of why she’d say something as impossible and idiotic as Just forget about me.
He wasn’t that guy, and he was about to prove it. Maybe that’s all she wanted—a guy who wouldn’t let her go. Who chased after her.
He should have done that two years ago probably, instead of letting his hurt keep him paralyzed, cut off his breathing, and leave his heart in shreds. But he’d been young and stupid then.
Today, he was on a train to a remote town in the middle of Siberia.
He’d bet Tate and Ford had never been to Siberia.
“She’ll be surprised to see you, no doubt.” Nat gave him a soft smile over the top of her newspaper. “Do you know why she’s in Belogorsk?”
He shook his head. “I was just told she was here.”
“By?”
He didn’t want to tell her. But, “The FSB.”
“Is she in trouble?”
He couldn’t decide if she was pretty or simply handsome. Shapely enough, she had a sort of edge about her that, if he didn’t know better, would tag her as military. Lean, spare, and with an awareness of people who walked by that seemed reminiscent of his brothers. He’d put her in her late thirties, maybe, not the typical age for a woman in her, um, profession.
Maybe she was a reporter.
“No. Nothing like that,” he said.
“Then what’s the urgency?”
Good question. Desperation, maybe? “If I don’t, then I…I feel like I’ll never see her again.”
Hopefully Nat wasn’t taking notes for her exposé on goalies who’d been hit too many times in the head.
“You Americans are so romantic.”
He snorted. “No. I have four brothers. Trust me, we’re not romantic. They’re all cowboys—”
“My point exactly.”
“Don’t believe everything you read.”
“I know. I’m a reporter.” She winked but put down her paper. “So, why this girl? Why now?”
Wyatt Page 10