Turn the Tide

by Ruggle, Katie

  A tinny sound rang out. A half-dozen bullets pinged a parked car that they’d cut in front of. The back windshield shattered. Another bullet whizzed by her head and bit into a building. A spray of stone from the facade nipped her cheek.

  They rounded the corner onto a busy road, bobbing and weaving past pedestrians. Their footsteps pounded across pavement. The two-story brick building was within sight. Not far now.

  She ducked into the train station and raced up the stairs to the outdoor platform. Logan glanced around, checking their six. Catching her breath, she looked at the time for the next train.

  Three minutes. Damn! Why couldn’t it be the way it was in those blockbuster action movies, where they slipped onto the train in the nick of time and got away? None of this had been how she’d imagined—tip of the spear for the good guys. Did good guys exist?

  Logan was good. One of the best men she knew. And he was here, trusting her, believing in her. She had to keep them both alive. They couldn’t wait in the open like sitting ducks.

  Glasses was fast. Scary fast, she’d discovered in Munich.

  She peered over the side of the low brick wall and glanced one story below at the street. There. Glasses stormed across the road, barreling toward the station. Her gut twisted.

  Own the street.

  “Come on.” Ashley ran to the end of the platform and hopped off onto the tracks.

  “What are you doing?” Logan asked. “Are you crazy?”

  Yes! She was crazy. Desperate. Determined. Willing to risk her life and gamble her future on a principle, a belief, a burning desire to safeguard the greater good.

  Without answering, Ashley ran east toward the closest station on Warschauer Strasse.

  Logan followed. Gravel crunched under his heavy footsteps.

  In seconds, he was beside her, staring at her as if she’d gone off the deep end. She might’ve fried some brain cells on this foray, but she was sane enough not to let Glasses box them in at the station. They had a knife. He was ferocious and cunning and had a gun.

  Ashley knew the saying about bringing a knife to a gunfight. Not a good idea.

  She bolted—a full-out sprint not reserving any energy in the tank—as if it was the last half mile of a marathon and her life depended on crossing the finish line. The stakes were higher.

  Logan, who’d pulled himself out of a dark hole to find her, was in danger. Because of her. She’d feared losing Logan every time he’d gone on a mission. Since embarking on this op, she feared capture, torture—the horrific kind Knox had prepped her for with resistance through interrogation training: sleep deprivation, prolonged nakedness while being questioned, dousing her in water and locking her in a freezing room, waterboarding her until she almost drowned.

  This was different. She was terrified of getting someone she cared about killed.

  Ashley glanced over her shoulder.

  Glasses hit the tracks and tore off after them. Part man, part machine, one hundred percent ruthless killer.

  A train on the opposite track pulled out of the station headed east. She whipped her face forward, pushing harder.

  The flat, egg-yolk-yellow nose of a westbound train hurtled in their direction. With the timing of both trains, they would be trapped. With nowhere to go.

  Ashley’s heart pumped hard in her chest, but her insides turned to Jell-O.

  “Uh, Ash!” Logan said, barely winded, referring to their dilemma.

  The Fernsehturm, an iconic TV tower, pierced the night sky. Moonlight gleamed off the tiled stainless-steel dome like a beacon of hope. A pungent breeze from the river hit her.

  Train horns blared, warning them off the track. The sound became dull and distant in the panicked surge of blood in her ears. Her breaths had been reduced to harsh, ragged pants.

  Everything seemed to slow to a crawl. Everything except her thundering pulse and Glasses. He was gaining on them. Arms pumping, knees high, lightning stride—an Olympic-running nightmare come to life. Who in the hell was he?

  God, what she wouldn’t give to see the sun rise, to have time to look Logan in the face and tell him…tell him what she should’ve said that night he’d pushed her away but had been too chickenshit to confess.

  The eastbound train was passing on the right, passengers gawking out windows. The westbound train bore down straight ahead, bright lights damn near blinding. Leaving them one option.

  If Logan had thought her insane before, he’d have her committed to an asylum in a second.

  Crisp air burned her lungs, and a cold sweat slicked her face as they almost made it to the center of the Oberbaum Bridge. She grabbed onto the railing and swung her legs over the side, willing her stomach not to heave at the hundred-foot drop.

  Glasses hadn’t reached the bridge and wouldn’t beat the train. Maybe they’d lose him.

  Logan’s face contorted in disbelief, his brows snapping together, eyes blazing. He either wanted to strangle her or strap her in a straitjacket. Maybe both. But he climbed over the railing, trusting her.

  “Ladies first.” He cracked a sexy, lopsided grin, and her heart thrummed for an entirely new reason.

  In that instant, she’d never loved Logan Silva more. “Together.”

  She swallowed a lump of emotion and grabbed his hand. The train roared past their backs with a startling gust of freezing wind as they leapt off the bridge in a breathless rush and plummeted into the river.

  Chapter 4

  Berlin, Germany

  Saturday, March 5, 11:42 p.m. CET

  Logan clambered out of the freezing, wet blackness, crawled up the embankment, and dropped beside Ash. She was a stronger swimmer and had beaten him but lay panting against the rocks.

  His chest heaved. He gasped and gasped, coughing up rank water. How much pollution had splashed into his straining lungs?

  The bone-deep chill in the air paled in comparison to the icy water. The merciless cold had settled into his marrow and numbed his brain.

  Hypothermia was the most pressing enemy. If they didn’t get warm, it’d kill them.

  Ash sat up, shuddering. Her blond hair was plastered to her head, brown eyes weary, teeth chattering, lips pale blue.

  Logan couldn’t stop shaking, no matter how hard he tried. Rolling to his knees, he hauled himself upright. He extended a hand and tugged Ash to her feet. Vapor shot from their mouths in cadence with their ragged breaths. He looked around, getting his bearings.

  No sign of the son of a bitch who’d chased them. Glasses, Ashley had called him.

  “We’ve got to get out of the cold,” Logan stuttered, his words slurred. “Get warm. Dry.”

  “Need a car,” she said. “Go to crash pad.”

  For a green agent on the run twenty-four hours, the fact that she had a crash pad was impressive. Smarter than hiding out with relatives she’d endanger.

  They made their way to a wide road. His clothes, heavy with frigid water, clamped to his skin. Ashley clung to him as if her body were leaden. He bore her added weigh without a second thought. If his strength hadn’t been sapped, fatigue repossessing him, he would’ve carried her.

  The TV tower—a tall spindle with a disco ball at the top—seemed to follow them.

  “Get a car,” she said, pulling away, her voice barely audible.

  “Where are you going?”

  She pointed to a convenience store, Boxi-Kiosk.

  “I’ll go with you,” he said. “Best if we stick together.” In truth, he was terrified to let her leave his sight for a heartbeat, fearing she’d disappear or, worse, that Glasses would materialize.

  “Smarter to divide and conquer before we freeze to death. You’ll have the heat running in a car by the time I get back?”

  What was wrong with him, thinking she might leave him? No, she wasn’t going to vanish. She’d been relieved to see him. And thus far, s
he’d taken care of herself with Glasses and a security team from BioGenApex hot on her ass.

  With a scowl, he nodded. She was right, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

  Logan searched the street for an older car with no alarm, easy to hot-wire. Passing buildings covered with graffiti that straddled a fine line between grunge and trendy, each footstep grew heavier. Each breath pricked his chest as though icicles laced the air.

  A topaz Opel looked ripe for the plucking. He found a large rock and broke the back driver-side window. Sticking his arm through the hole, he unlocked the front door.

  His hands had a terrible shake, fingers numb, making it difficult to manipulate the wires.

  By the time he’d gotten the sedan running, she was back with a white plastic shopping bag dangling from her wrist and two Styrofoam cups with steam rising from the tops.

  She handed him a warm cup and the bag. “Faster if I drive.”

  After occupational therapy, including a driver rehabilitation program, Logan was capable of driving and fending for himself, but since she knew where they were headed, he didn’t argue. He trudged to the passenger’s side, sipping the salty, hot liquid, and gagged.

  Mushroom instant Cup-a-Soup. He hated mushrooms.

  “Drink up,” she said. “Cost a hundred euros to get the owner to make it and forget he saw me. Sorry it’s mushroom.” She pulled into the street, driving with one hand while drinking from her cup. “The other option was tomato.”

  Tomato sauce on pasta and pizza, sure. Tomato soup was a hard pass—as in, he’d rather get hypothermia. “Good choice.” His voice had softened, sleepiness seeping in.

  They needed to hurry before the cold got the better of them.

  “What are you doing here getting yourself caught up in my trouble?”

  “How about ‘Nice to see you, Logan. Thanks for jumping off a bridge with me like a lunatic and freezing your nuts off to save my ass.’”

  “Thanks.” Stopping at a traffic light, she gave him an arrested glance, her gaze skimming his face. She reached for him. As she wiped soup from the corner of his mouth with the soft pad of her thumb, he held his breath. “How did you find me?”

  When Ashley got nostalgic, she reminisced about summer vacations and Christmas markets in Berlin. He paid attention. To the way her cocoa-brown eyes twinkled, the type of smiles that curled on her lips, if she played with her butter-blond hair when she spoke about certain people.

  “I went to see some of the folks you’re still close to here. Franzi was the hardest to find. But you described the Alexanderplatz near where she lives and the view from her window so well.”

  “And she just told you where I was?”

  The racetrack-style traffic light went from red, to red and yellow simultaneously, to green. Ashley drove, keeping under the speed limit. Cool air whistled in the car from the broken window.

  “Franzi wouldn’t talk in front of Knox.” Logan gulped the last of the soup. “But she recognized me from your description of my gorgeous face. She said you told her that you love me. Like a brother.” Hearing the words then and repeating them now stung his gut like battery acid.

  A brother was worse than a friend, with no chance of anything more. Made complete sense why Ashley had rejected him the one time he’d kissed her—a kiss he’d replayed over and over, hoping for a different outcome in his memory. Years before the car bomb had demolished the long-shot hope of being with her.

  “Franzi was worried about you dealing with Hans alone. I sent her into full-blown panic mode, and she spilled her guts.” Logan dug in the shopping bag and took out two burner phones.

  Ashley sighed, setting down the empty cup.

  He saved the number of each phone in the other and gave her one. “The Agency thinks you’ve gone rogue.”

  She took the phone. “I guess I have.”

  Logan stared at her in stunned disbelief, waiting for her to give an explanation he could wrap his head around. “What? Are you trying to run so you can sell what you stole?”

  “Of course not.” Ash shot him an offended look. Her nose was red from the cold, but her lips were no longer blue. They were a sweet, rosy pink. “You know me better than that.”

  “I thought I did. Why are you running?”

  “I’m trying to do the right thing.” She parked the car. “Come on.”

  They schlepped a block to a squat low-rise of orange brick and hustled inside to a second-floor apartment.

  “A friend owns the building.” She unlocked the door. “This floor is vacant.”

  There appeared to be only two other flats on this level.

  Once Ashley opened the door, old instincts kicked in and Logan did a quick sweep of the studio apartment to be sure it was secure. A kitchen devoid of appliances. Thin curtains on the windows let in a flood of moonlight. A mattress made up with rumpled sheets and a heavy blanket sat on the floor of the two-hundred-square-foot place.

  She dumped her sodden coat on the radiator in the short hall, and he did likewise.

  “We’ve got to warm up.” She led the way to the tiny bathroom and started the shower.

  Ashley peeled off her shirt and black lace bra. Logan lost his gaze somewhere along her bare skin. The sight of her toned belly and firm breasts with tight, pointed nipples imprinted on his brain and had his one good eye crossing. The oxygen in the room thinned.

  “Take off those wet clothes. You don’t have anything I haven’t seen before.” She unbuttoned her jeans and shimmied them past her slim hips. His breath caught in his chest.

  Logan had fantasized about getting Ashley naked more times than he could count, but not once in his vivid imagination had it been with him scarred, shivering, and flaccid.

  Holy hell. A raging hard-on wouldn’t improve the situation, numb nuts.

  He turned around and undressed, his clothes landing in a sopping smack.

  Flexing for some stupid reason, he stepped into the confines of the shower, sharing the hot spray of water. The ceiling was low, requiring him to hunch. His choices were to face the wall like a punk, or face her like the badass he used to be.

  He chose her.

  God almighty, she was beautiful. Shimmering eyes, perky breasts—small handfuls that would please his palms—and long legs. Between her thighs, she was nearly hairless with only a small landing strip. He was the luckiest cursed bastard on the planet. Water sluiced down the feminine line of her statuesque figure, kissing every inch of her pale skin. He drank her in, never wanting this shower to end.

  An inappropriate and inconvenient heat kindled in his groin. The temptation to touch her the way he’d yearned for years, to have her up against the wall and in the bed, was excruciating.

  She stepped in between his spread feet, and her arms went around his waist, her supple body flush against him, her cheek pressed to his chest, her palms to the scars on his back.

  All the air left his lungs as if vacuumed out.

  Was she creeped out by the texture of his scars? Forcing herself to make this awkward situation tolerable? Hiding her body from his gaze? Warming them faster so she no longer had to endure the sight of him undressed?

  Shit. He was shaking and not because he was cold.

  She squeezed him tighter, tighter, tighter, burying her face in his chest.

  He wrapped his arms around her and inhaled, testing his lungs. Her silky softness and lush curves melded to him. His muscles uncoiled, relaxing.

  She peered up at him through the water. Soft color infused her cheeks. Her shiny brown eyes went wide, full of dreamy pensiveness, and the acute awareness that she would never be his was devastating.

  Unfortunately, his growing erection didn’t get the memo. “Sorry.” He cleared his throat. “Just a physiological response.”

  A half smile illuminated her face, but she didn’t shrink away. Her gaze fell t
o his pendant. “You still wear it?” Her voice was quiet.

  “Always. St. Jude saved my life.” You saved my life, Ash.

  “Patron saint of impossible causes. I thought it was the perfect choice to watch over you.”

  “Speaking of impossible causes, why are you running?”

  “I opened the files on the thumb drive. The Agency had me steal—”

  “I don’t want to know,” he said, cutting her off. “Don’t need to. It doesn’t matter.”

  She frowned, nose wrinkling. “In the wrong hands, monstrous things could be done with it. How can you say it doesn’t matter?”

  “Maybe the CIA wants to keep BioGenApex from doing bad things with it. Maybe they plan to do horrible things with it themselves. It doesn’t matter because the job, as an operative, is not to reason why but to complete the mission.”

  Eyebrows drawing together, she gaped at him. “Are you kidding me? I have a moral responsibility—”

  “I told Sanborn you weren’t cut out to be in the field.”

  She stepped back, severing all contact with the expression of a hardened soldier. “I am capable. I completed the mission.”

  “No. You didn’t. The mission was not opening the file and transmitting the data to Langley. That was the job. You failed.”

  The water steamed around them. Her chest heaved, enticing his gaze to drift over her body. Need tightened in his throbbing cock, and his sanity started unraveling. But he swallowed back his lust like a dose of castor oil and forced himself to meet her stormy eyes.

  “These are extenuating circumstances,” she said.

  “What’s required of an operations officer is tough. Nonnegotiable. There’s a stringent protocol for a reason. You signed up for this. Begged Sanborn to be a ronin for an imperfect institution that does questionable things.”

  Bewilderment shrouded her cute features. “Ronin? A wandering samurai?”

  “The movie with Robert De Niro? Ronin. A bunch of operatives are tasked with stealing a mysterious briefcase and safely delivering it. They run around chasing people, killing people, trying to survive and through it all, they never learn what’s in the case.”