by Anna Zaires
“As soon as I get the all-clear, I’m going to the States,” I say and grin at their expressions. “Yes, that’s right, to Sara. This time, we’ll be playing house for real.”
39
Peter
Esguerra wants me back at his compound, so after I catch up with my men, I board his Boeing C-17 and accompany Novak and the guards to Colombia. Ilya, Yan, and Anton go separately in our plane. I still don’t completely trust my former employer, so my teammates agreed to provide support in case things go south last minute. I don’t expect a double-cross from Esguerra at this point—for one thing, the seventy-five million is already in our accounts—but it doesn’t hurt to be cautious.
I also got my team to agree to continue assisting me in the search for Henderson. As the last name on my list, he’s unfinished business, and I have every intention of dealing with him in due time.
First, though, I need to get Sara.
She’s more important than anything.
Esguerra himself greets us when we land, his face set in hard, savage lines as he watches the guards drag Novak off the plane. The Serbian is barely walking—they didn’t bother feeding him or treating his injuries on the flight—but it doesn’t matter. He’s not long for this earth.
Esguerra won’t just kill him—he’ll take him apart.
Slowly.
Piece by piece.
I’d feel bad for the bastard, but he brought this on himself. If he’d confined himself to making inroads into Esguerra’s business, he’d have lived much longer—at least another year or two. But he went after Esguerra’s family… after Nora and her child.
There’s no love lost between me and Esguerra, but I do like Nora.
“Where’s Kent?” I ask when Esguerra comes up to me after ordering the guards to take Novak to the shed. “Did he go back to Cyprus?”
He nods. “He left right after you did.” He doesn’t elaborate, and I decide against prying further. I still haven’t forgiven Kent for what happened with Sara, but at the moment, I have bigger fish to fry.
“Did you reach out to them?” I fall into step beside Esguerra as we head toward a waiting limo. “Your CIA contacts?”
He casts me a sideways glance. “I did.”
“And?” I step in front of him, forcing him to stop. “Did they agree?”
His jaw flexes. “Let’s talk about it in the car.”
Shit. That doesn’t sound good. “Let’s talk about it now.”
His eyes glint dangerously. “Fine. Here’s the deal—the only deal they’ll make. You and your team will get amnesty for your crimes and immunity from further prosecution, provided no further crimes are committed. Whoever slips up will be arrested and prosecuted for all crimes, past and present.”
I consider that and nod. “Sounds fair.” I’m almost certain I can live as a law-abiding citizen—or at least give the appearance of one. We’ll need to be careful not to get caught when we finally locate Henderson, but I’m sure I’m not the only enemy the former general has. Alternatively, we can make it look like an accident; there are all sorts of ways to carry out a hit without it looking like—
“And there’s one more thing,” Esguerra says. “One other condition that’s nonnegotiable.”
“What?” I ask, my stomach tightening with a premonition as my hands curl at my sides. This better not be what—
“That retired general, the one you’ve been hunting,” Esguerra says, confirming my hunch. “You have to let it go. For good. Your immunity is contingent upon his continued health and well-being. If he or anyone close to him so much as gets food poisoning, the deal is off, and all four of you will be on the Most Wanted lists again.”
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck!
I suppose I should’ve known this was a possibility, given Henderson’s connections, but I somehow blocked it from my mind. I was so focused on eliminating the main obstacle to a life with Sara—my fugitive status—I didn’t even consider that it might come at a price.
Well, a price aside from the end of my business and the risk I took by approaching Esguerra. Those costs I knew and was prepared to pay. But this? Out of everyone on my list, Henderson is the one most directly responsible for the tragedy that befell my wife and son. He’s the one who gave the orders that resulted in the village massacre.
If anyone deserves to pay for Tamila and Pasha’s deaths, it’s Henderson.
He can’t be allowed to go back to living his normal, happy life after what he’s done.
“I can’t take that deal.” My voice is harsh and guttural. “You know I can’t.”
For the first time, some semblance of human emotion warms the blue ice of Esguerra’s gaze. “I know,” he says quietly. “I figured as much. But they won’t budge on it, Peter. I tried.”
I pivot on my heel and stride toward the limo, the rage and grief I thought I’d buried bubbling up like magma in my throat. I breathe in, trying to calm myself, but instead of tropical vegetation, I smell death and ashes, charred flesh and stale blood. I taste metal on my tongue and see a pile of corpses, of body parts two meters high.
And that little hand, curled around a toy car.
I barely remember the first few days after the massacre. I know I got away from the task force soldiers who dragged me out of the village, but I don’t recall how or when—or if I hurt anyone as I escaped. I assume I did, because my own people started hunting me soon after, even before I killed my superiors for ending the investigation within weeks.
Vengeance was all that kept me going in those days—and in the months and years that followed. I promised my dead son and wife that their killers would pay with their lives, and I kept that promise.
I got them all except Henderson.
“You could just take her again,” Esguerra says, catching up to me, and I glance at him, unsurprised that he now knows about Sara. Kent must’ve told him about her—that or he heard about the kidnapping from his CIA sources. And once he knew that, it was a simple matter of putting two and two together.
Despite that, my first instinct is to threaten him and all he holds dear if he so much as breathes her way. But if he knows Sara is my weakness, then he must know what I’d do if someone came after her.
It’s the same thing he’d do if someone went after Nora.
What he’s about to do to Novak, in fact.
“She has a life there,” I reply instead. “Parents, career, friends.”
He shrugs. “She’d adjust. Nora did.”
I get in the back of the limo and he joins me there, taking a seat across from me.
“Sara is not Nora,” I say as the limo starts moving. “Her roots go too deep. She won’t be happy like this.” I don’t know if I’m trying to convince Esguerra or myself—or that dark, callous part of me that has been wanting this for months.
That has been telling me to forget this mad plan and take back what belongs to me.
“And you will be?” Esguerra tilts his head, regarding me with peculiar curiosity. “You think you’ll enjoy that half-life? Thrive in the cage of all those rules and laws?”
I shrug. “Maybe.” It’s not a concern of mine, but if it ever becomes a problem, I’ll deal with it then.
One thing at a time.
“So what then?” Esguerra asks when I remain silent. “Are you going to let her go for good? Or take the deal?”
“I’m not letting her go.” The words are instinctive, automatic. Life without Sara—that’s not even a possibility in my mind. The past eight months have been hell, almost as bad in their own way as the dark weeks after my family’s deaths.
I’d sooner die than let my ptichka go for good.
She’s mine, and she’s staying mine.
A mocking smile curves Esguerra’s mouth. “Well, then,” he says softly. “Seems like you don’t have much of a choice.”
It chokes me to admit it, but he’s right.
I either take Sara, or I accept the deal. Her happiness or my vengeance.
I can’t h
ave both.
Part IV
40
Sara
I first sense that something is off when I drive home alone after my evening shift at the clinic.
No government-issue car follows me home, and no one surreptitiously watches me as I park my car in front of my apartment building and walk in.
Telling myself I’m being crazy—that I’m just tired and not properly registering things—I shower and fall into bed. There’s no point in worrying about this. Even if I’m not having some weird reverse paranoia, maybe the Feds had to take the night off—babysit their kids or something. It hasn’t happened since my return, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
FBI agents are human too.
Still, I toss and turn, unable to fall asleep despite my total exhaustion. I try to think back to whether I felt watched at all today, but I can’t recall. Either my invisible stalkers have become even better at their job, or I’ve gotten so used to their presence I no longer notice it.
The last time I truly experienced that itchy feeling was when I got Peter’s note a couple of months back.
Could it be?
Am I no longer being watched at all?
My stomach pitches precipitously. Given Peter’s note, there’s only one reason why I would suddenly cease to be of interest to both the Feds and Peter’s hires.
No. I slam the door on that terrifying thought.
Peter is not dead or captured.
He can’t be.
I close my eyes and force myself to take slow, deep breaths. One night doesn’t make a pattern, and there’s every chance that when I wake up in the morning to go to work—at this point, less than five hours from now—the Feds will be circling my block in their gray sedan.
I just have to believe it.
But the Feds aren’t there when I drive to work, and as hard as I try, I can’t figure out if I’m being watched by anyone at all.
I go through my day in a state of barely suppressed panic. Fortunately, all I have today are patient appointments, and since we’re double-booked, I don’t have much time to think. I just rush from patient to patient, performing examinations, writing birth control prescriptions, and discussing prenatal care—all the while reminding myself to keep breathing, to stay calm and ignore the fact that the Feds are gone.
That for the first time since my return, I’m on my own.
Just as I’m about to head home, Phil, our guitarist, calls to inform me about an upcoming performance, and I impulsively ask if he wants to round up the guys and go out for a drink. It’s a Tuesday night and I have both a full workday and a clinic shift tomorrow, but I don’t want to be alone with my thoughts.
To my relief, Phil agrees, and we meet at a bar in Uptown Chicago. Only Rory is able to join us—Simon is attending a local book signing—but after we each order a beer, we settle into the same comfortable dynamic as always, with Phil launching into his weekly tour persuasion speech.
“Don’t you ever want to just chuck it all?” he says, waving his beer around. “To get something more out of life? Something invigorating and exciting?”
“Dude, you sound like an infomercial,” Rory tells him, and we all laugh. I can hear the desperate edge in my laughter, but to my relief, I seem to be the only one. My bandmates are oblivious to my growing turmoil, bantering and carrying on as though the world isn’t ending.
As though it’s just another Tuesday night.
And for them, it is—the kind of normal, predictable Tuesday night that Phil wants to escape. The kind I haven’t had in a long time, because from the moment I met Peter, nothing about my life has been either normal or predictable.
I wonder what Phil would think if he learned about that—about how my husband’s killer forced me to “chuck it all” by keeping me captive in Japan. Would he find my reluctant romance with an assassin exciting? Invigorating in some twisted way?
This outing is meant to be a distraction from my anxiety-riddled thoughts, but I can’t stop thinking about Peter, and I find my eyes wandering from one person to another, looking for that one guy who doesn’t fit… for any clue that I’m still of interest to the Feds.
“Are you waiting for someone?” Rory asks, noticing my persistent rubbernecking.
I force myself to smile and stop looking around like an idiot. “No, sorry. Just thought I saw an old friend.”
Phil immediately perks up. “Ooh, an old friend. Of the male or female variety? Because I have to say, that Marsha friend of yours is muah!” He dramatically kisses the tips of his fingers, and we all laugh again.
Marsha, Andy, and Tonya came to one of our performances a couple of weeks ago, and we all went out afterward. Naturally, Marsha hit it off with my bandmates, as she always does with men.
One of these days, I’d love to meet a guy who doesn’t fall head over heels for her blond bombshell looks—or at least doesn’t try to get into her pants right away.
“Your Tonya is not too bad either,” Rory says when the laughter partially dies down. “Is she single?”
I grin. “Yep, pretty sure.” I don’t know the young nurse that well, but I’m almost certain she doesn’t have a boyfriend—or if she does, he’s fine with her partying with Marsha from dusk ’till dawn.
“Dude, you sure you don’t want the redhead?” Phil says with a straight face. “Just think of how pretty your kids would be. Carrot tops galore.”
“Oh, fuck off. You’re just jealous I still have this.” Rory fluffs up his dramatic mane, and I nearly choke on my beer as Phil instinctively touches his receding hairline before flipping Rory the bird.
“That’s enough, you guys,” I gasp out when I manage to stop laughing. “Andy is taken in any case, and—”
I freeze, the words dying in my throat as I notice the man coming up behind Phil.
I blink, unable to believe my eyes, but the apparition doesn’t go away.
Instead, his sculpted lips curve in a magnetic smile. “Hello, Sara,” he says in the deep, faintly accented voice that haunts my dreams. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friends?”
41
Peter
Sara’s heart-shaped face leaches of all color. She doesn’t look like she’ll be able to speak any time soon, so I turn to the two men gaping at me.
“Peter Garin,” I say, using my new identity, and extend my hand. “And you two are?”
I know who they are, of course, but if I’m to integrate myself into Sara’s life for good, I need to act like a regular citizen, not someone who does extensive background checks on every person close to my ptichka. That also means I can’t put my blade against their throats and slice deep enough that they’d never salivate over her again.
Not in the middle of the bar, at least.
The chubby one recovers first, reaching over to shake my hand. “Hi. I’m Phil Hudson.”
“Nice to meet you,” I say and resist the urge to crush the bones in that ridiculously soft palm.
“Rory O’Rourke.” The redhead’s grip is firmer, his hand nearly as callused as mine—though for vastly different reasons.
He lifts weights in the gym to win trophies, while I train to stay alive.
Trained to stay alive, I correct myself. If all goes according to plan, I won’t need to do as much of that.
Sara touches my arm, drawing my attention to her. “What—” Her melodious voice cracks. “What are you doing here, Peter?”
I’ve deliberately avoided looking directly at her, because being this close without grabbing her and fucking her on the spot is a special kind of torture. Her touch on my arm, as light as it is, is like being shot with a Taser. My whole body is vibrating with awareness, all my senses in overdrive. She’s half a meter away, and we’re both fully dressed, yet I can feel her as intensely as if she were pressed against me naked.
In fact, my cock is convinced we should be naked and is doing its best to burst out of my suddenly-too-tight jeans.
I should’ve probably waited for her at
her apartment, where we could’ve been alone for this meeting, but I was too impatient. After a month of bureaucratic bullshit, I finally got the all-clear from the US government, along with my new identity and citizenship papers, and I hopped on the plane right away—only to learn that instead of coming home, Sara decided to go out.
With two men who habitually drool over her, no less.
I take a deep breath and remind myself that integration is the name of the game. This is what I’ve been working for all these months, the reason why I agreed to let fucking Henderson live—a promise that still fills my throat with bile. It would be stupid to blow it all just because Sara is gazing up at me with those hazel doe eyes, looking so heartbreakingly beautiful that I want to wrap her in a potato sack and carry her off to my lair—after first ripping the balls off every man who so much as dares to glance her way.
“I got a chance to come home early,” I tell her, and despite my best efforts, my voice is far too husky for a public venue. “In fact, I quit my job.”
“You… what?” Her eyes grow huge. “How can you—”
“It’s a long story, ptichka.” I fight the urge to reach over and gather her against me. “Let’s go home, and I’ll explain.”
The redhead—Rory—clears his throat. “Are you two… together?” Both he and Phil are staring at me incredulously—and more than a little enviously.
The fuckers are beyond lucky I’m law-abiding these days.
“Yes,” I tell them, and something in my tone makes them blanch regardless. “We are.” I turn to Sara. “Ready to go home, my love? We have a lot to discuss.”
And firmly clasping her delicate hand, I lead her outside, leaving her stunned bandmates in the bar.
42
Sara
I feel like I’m in a dream. Or maybe a nightmare—I can’t decide. Peter and I are walking on a crowded street together… without the slightest hint of subterfuge on his part. He’s somehow even bigger than I remember, his broad shoulders straining the seams of his soft-looking black T-shirt and his powerful legs flexing in the tight confines of his well-worn jeans. His dark hair is longer than before, waving slightly in the warm evening breeze, and my fingers itch to bury themselves in that soft, thick mass, to clutch fistfuls of it as he goes down on me, his skilled tongue driving me to completion.