by Misty Evans
They stayed that way for a minute, and then he released her, a deep frown creasing his forehead. “Did the man come after you?”
Anya sagged without his arms supporting her. She was so damned tired. She backed her butt against the wall, and set her hands on her knees. Leaning over helped get more oxygen into her lungs, and the burning in her side eased a bit. “I was in shock. The car exploded a minute later, so I ran. I had no idea where I was going. A part of me sensed the man was coming after me, although I never saw him. We were less than a mile away from a building my father had been working in. A compound of some sort. My mother had told me we all had to go to the compound to do something important for Russia, and afterwards, we’d go for pastries. It was one of the compound’s guards who found me huddled on the ground the next morning.”
She started to shiver hard under Ryan’s coat. Even breathing deep, she couldn’t make the dots disappear. “Can we sit down?”
She didn’t wait for his okay, her butt hitting the hard floor as her legs went out from under her.
“Anya?”
His voice sounded far away. Like it was in a tunnel. Duh, Anya. Of course he sounds like he’s in a tunnel. The thought made her laugh in jerky breaths, and she closed her eyes. Next thing she knew, she tipped over. Her head hit the floor.
“Anya!” Ryan’s voice still sounded far away, but his hands were on her, shaking her, and she knew he was close.
Her eyes refused to open. “I just…need…a rest.”
“Shit.” One of his hands caressed her head, shifting it to the side. It pounded when he did that and she fought to move it back. “You smacked your head good. Why didn’t you tell me you needed a break sooner?”
She loved the sound of his voice. She only wished he’d be quiet for a few minutes and let her sleep. Sleep would help…
“Anya, open your eyes.”
Her head hurt, her side hurt. She swore under her breath in Russian. A little sleep, was that too much to ask for?
Suddenly, she was lifted into a sitting position, back against the wall. Ryan’s voice was firm. “Don’t you dare go to sleep on me.”
So bossy. Forcing her eyes open, she found Ryan’s face in front of hers, his dark eyes even darker in the shadows. Embarrassed at how weak she was, and that she was letting him down again, she fought through her body’s lethargy. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You’re weak as a kitten. When was the last time you ate?”
The fog in her brain wouldn’t clear, and she shook her head. Ouch. “I don’t know. Sometime yesterday?”
Ryan dug in the pocket of the coat she was wearing and accidently bumped her side. She flinched and sucked in her breath.
“What is it?” he asked, drawing out a granola bar from the pocket.
“Nothing. My side has a stitch from all the running.”
He tore the wrapper off the end of the bar and handed it to her. “Eat this.”
It was chewy and dry, but after nothing to eat in the past day, she wasn’t complaining. While she snarfed it down, Ryan unzipped the coat and opened it. “Double shit.”
He said it so softly, so subdued, Anya almost didn’t catch the way his jaw jumped. She looked down and stopped eating.
Blood had soaked through Ryan’s sweater.
He grabbed the hemmed edge and lifted it. “Your wound is open and bleeding again. How is that possible? It should’ve healed by now.”
She grabbed the sweater and tugged it back down. Like she wasn’t embarrassed enough, how was she going to explain this? “Anya.” His voice was steady, comforting. Like he wasn’t mad or frustrated or wigging out at all. “Did Ivanov cut you again?”
The granola bar turned to dirt inside her mouth. She forced it down, gave a small shake of her head. Hell, she was in this deep. Might as well tell Ryan all her secrets. “I have a blood disorder. Von Willebrand disease. It stops my blood from clotting correctly after an injury. Runs in my family. Usually the women are only carriers, but both my parents were carriers, so I have the full-blown disorder. It’s not a big deal.”
Except that it could be. Especially when trying to escape a madman and his army of soldiers. Bleeding profusely left her light-headed and wasn’t exactly easy to take care of on the run. She opened her mouth to say, “I’m sorry,” for the hundredth time when Ryan leaned forward and placed his forehead against hers. Such an intimate gesture, it totally caught her off guard.
“I’m sorry.”
He was sorry? “For what?”
“For getting you into this goatfuck. I should have left you in the Palace. Taken you to Pennington and come looking for your grandmother on my own.”
“No. I…Wait. You’re not icked out about my blood disorder?”
“Of course not. I figured you were a carrier of hemophilia. Most of the royal women were. I just didn’t realize you had a full-blown condition.”
Relief flooded her. Blood icked out everybody. Even her, and she dealt with genes, mutations, platelets, and all that stuff on a daily basis at GenLife. She’d never told anyone about the coagulation abnormality. Grams and her parents had been the only ones who knew.
Ryan’s nose brushed Anya’s. “You would’ve been warm in the Kremlin, had food. Bandages.” He lifted his head and punched the wall behind her. “I should have thought this through. Should have made a fucking-ass plan. But no, I just grabbed you and ran. Very thoughtful. Very…stupid. God!”
He stood and paced, unbuttoning his shirt, and shrugging it off. Next, he whipped off his T-shirt, and stood there half naked in front of her. She would have enjoyed it if he hadn’t been castigating himself.
Imperturbable Ryan was gone. “I should have made sure you were safe. There’s no excuse for this. You need a doctor, for fuck’s sake. Not an incompetent operative who can’t even make a viable escape plan.”
He ripped a wide strip off the bottom edge of the T-shirt, folded it into a bandage, and dropped to his knees in front of her. “I’ve put you in incredible danger.”
His fingers caressed her skin as he gently lifted the sweater and placed the bandage over her wound. So gentle. So opposite of his ranting and raving.
If this was incompetence, she’d take it over expert medical care any day.
Anya touched his face. “You think I would have stayed in the Palace and let you do this alone? It was stupid of me to attack Andreev, but there was no way I was letting him imprison me. Ivanov either. If you hadn’t shown up when you did, I’d be down here on my own, not knowing where to go, or how to find Grams, because I’m the one who can’t come up with a plan. I’m safer here with you than anywhere else.”
He ripped a second strip off his shirt, the muscles in his arms and shoulders bunching with the action. Winding the strip around her waist and tying it to hold the bandage in place, he avoided her eyes. “I did this all wrong.”
Anya grabbed his hands to still them. His face was so close, she felt his breath on her cheek. She kissed the corner of his lips. “A horse has four legs, but still stumbles. Grams always says that. It means—”
“Even the most capable people make mistakes sometimes.”
His expertise extended to old Russian lady proverbs. “Exactly. In my opinion, you did everything right, except for getting involved with me in the first place.”
Some of the tension left his body. “Nah, pretty sure that’s the part I did do right.”
He kissed her then, another full-out, make-her-want-to-moan kiss. She slid into his arms, no longer feeling weak or embarrassed.
She wanted him. More than she’d ever wanted anyone. She’d lived behind a mask all these years. Hid behind it. Never able to let her guard down and love anyone. The few times she’d shown real interest in a boy growing up, her grandmother had firmly squashed her hopes of a relationship. Grams made her focus on her schooling, taking piano, spending weekends on art exhibits and ballets, never letting Anya hang out with friends, and especially not boys.
Without coming right out and saying it, Gra
ms had always had a way of making Anya feel like their family secrets were too dark, too dangerous to ever allow her the freedom her American peers had. Having a relationship meant sharing pasts, sharing personal information. Even casual dating was out because it might lead to something more intrusive. So Anya had made up fantasies from the time she was fourteen about the opposite sex. What it felt like to be kissed, to be held.
She crawled into his lap. Ryan’s arms around her was nothing short of her wildest fantasy, and at twenty-six, she had some pretty righteous fantasies. He was hard and soft and warm, even with no shirt on, and he drew her closer, molding her body against his. One hand slipped up to cup her breast and she moaned into his mouth. The kiss was long and deep and so erotic, her toes curled. She wrapped her arms around his neck and ignored the voice inside her head, reciting Grams’s rules.
To hell with rules. What had following them gotten her and her family anyway? Heartache, death.
She broke the kiss, looked Ryan in the eye. “I’ve been fantasizing about you since the cabin.”
His eyes widened and he grinned. “I’ve been doing a bit of that about you.”
Yes. She ran her hands over his shoulders, down his sculpted arms. He had to be a runner or a swimmer. Maybe both.
Muscles jumped under her fingers. “This”—she touched him on his chest just over his heart and then pointed at herself—“you and me, right here, right now, is better than any of my fantasies.”
The grin on his face grew. “My top fantasy involves you with fewer clothes on.”
She laughed, and he laughed with her. It was a soft, inviting sound in the otherwise cold, harsh tunnel. She traced a finger over his lips, and he kissed it. Between her legs, an explosion of sensations went off. There was still one last secret to share. “I feel a lot stronger now. Maybe we could act out a few of our fantasies.”
He kissed her lips, three short, soft kisses in a row before he shook his head. “Not here in the open, under such dangerous circumstances. We need a place for you to rest up, and me to come up with a more solid escape plan.”
He slid her off his lap, and rezipped the coat. Then he helped her stand. Snatching up his button-down shirt, he shook his head a moment before he threw it on, which was a shame. He stuck what was left of the T-shirt into her coat pocket. “How’s your side? Do you think you can walk a little further? Stalin’s suite should be just ahead.”
The presidential suite. Anya shivered. Not Ivanov’s, she reminded herself. His was a brand-new, shiny version in another part of the bunker. She’d already seen that one firsthand, along with the lab he’d built.
Ryan seemed to read her mind. “The suite hasn’t been used in years. Not actively, anyway. But it may have what we need. Food, clothes, first-aid supplies.”
Knowing he was right didn’t make her any happier that he was now his old self again. Calm, cool, unflappable Ryan.
But that was okay. She’d make him lose control again, and soon. “The new bunker is down here somewhere, too. I’ve seen it. It definitely has supplies.” Calling up polite, steadfast Anya, she pressed a hand against her side and gave him a nod. “Lead the way.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
SUBWAY TUNNEL
MOSCOW
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.” John adjusted the face mask he wore to blend in with the other construction workers cleaning up debris leftover from the latest bomb blast.
Devons chuckled, his own mask muffling the sound. “Becoming a terrorist or a disaster recovery specialist?”
John moved some rubble out of the way. “Since when are you friends with Chechen rebels?”
“I might have dated one of their sisters back in the day.”
Why didn’t that surprise him? Mossad agents, Chechen rebels. What next?
Devons held out a meter meant to read air quality. A low blipping noise sounded. “Guy owed me a favor and was more than happy to unload on the Ruskies. No one was killed. Injuries were light. Fast was what Flynn wanted, and fast is what we’re giving him.”
Stealth and efficiency were John’s and Pegasus Team’s motto. “Bombings? Protests? Total overkill for a search and rescue.”
“Overkill? We’re talking about a launch code for nuclear warheads aimed at Britain and America, and a total psycho with his finger on the button.” Devons pocketed the meter. “And from the intel Del got from Truman Gunn, our operative is about to do something that could put the Cold War and nuclear annihilation back on today’s menu. The MTD says he’s down here, under the Kremlin.”
John had never met Ryan Smith, only heard stories about him. He tended to stay behind the scenes, unlike Conrad Flynn, even though they had similar positions. Word was, Smith was every bit as cunning and devious as Flynn, only more likable since he befriended people rather than pissing them off. “Tracking device or no, my mission isn’t about Smith. He’s your job. Mine is to recover Natasha.”
A heavy fog hung in the air, thus the need for air masks. Because the Russian government feared chemical or biological fallout from the bombs, the workers were dressed in full Nomex suits. Hot, sweaty suits.
Devons and John had sidled away from the main group, heading discreetly toward a maintenance door that ran behind the subway tunnels and connected to the hidden bunker. Or so Del had told them.
“This distraction gives us both the opportunity to complete our respective missions.” Devons checked over his shoulder to see if they were being watched. Satisfied the rest of the cleanup crew was paying no attention to them, he motioned John toward the steel door. “You find Natasha, and I’ll get Smitty and Anya out if necessary.”
“Why would he blow his cover for this Russian gal?” John said before he thought it through. If it were Lucie—a woman he’d been crushing on for months—inside the Kremlin, he’d do the same thing. “Never mind. Let’s just get that door open.”
The steel door was locked, but when did that ever stop an Agency operative? As John stood lookout, Devons used a handheld lock pick to open it. The door was heavy and rusty from moisture, squeaking loudly as they shoved it open.
The squeak echoed in the crumbling tunnel. The heavy fog, still full of debris, helped hide them from any curious eyes. John heard a shout from behind them, so he pushed Devons through, jerked the door shut, and flipped the lock.
Next to the door sat a heavy cart filled with tools, a hard hat, and other paraphernalia the subway’s maintenance workers used. Once he shed his mask, John took a breath of clean air, and picked up a couple of hand tools. Devons, clearly liking the idea, did the same.
John had been on plenty of dangerous missions, but entering the heart of a Russian Cold War bunker topped the list. As always, he had an entrance and exit strategy. It was what lay in between that made his palms sweat.
He drew out a map—courtesy of Del—from his coveralls, got his bearings, and motioned Devons to follow. “Half a kilometer west we should find Stalin’s bunker. The torture chambers Grigory told us about are there.”
“What if she’s dead?”
Then the search and rescue mission became a search and recovery. “We bring her body back.”
“And if she’s not there?”
Ah, the fatal question that hung over every mission. The possibility of failure. “Then I’ll keep looking until I find her.”
They ran at a good clip, the slapping of their feet echoing in the tunnel as they covered the ground. Light from fixtures mounted on the walls gave the tunnel enough illumination for John to see Devons’s face. The spy persona was gone. Not even the fake cop persona seemed alive.
At an intersection, Devons stopped to catch his breath and looked around. “You eat, breathe, and sleep this special ops shit, don’t you?” he panted. “I ever go missing? I want you heading up my rescue. Got that?”
Sincerity. That’s what Devon’s face revealed. John nodded. “And if I ever need a ‘distraction’ of this magnitude again, I’ll call you.”
Devons held out a
hand. John shook it.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Anya was asleep in Stalin’s presidential bedchamber. There were no guards in this section, which worried Ryan more than he would admit. What he’d told Anya was true. GI 42 hadn’t been actively used to the best of anyone’s knowledge since Stalin. Didn’t mean it wasn’t kept functioning and ready for action in the event of war, even if Ivanov had created a new, improved version nearby.
The shock-wave proof doors had been locked, of course, but they’d also been updated to a computerized system from the time Stalin had originally had them installed. Probably by one of his successors. While able to withstand a twenty-ton nuclear blast, the locks fell to an average guy who knew his way around a digital lock.
Inside the abandoned presidential bunker were three central rooms: the president’s suite, a communications/weapons room, and a kitchen/utility area. Ryan had found a first-aid kit and doctored Anya’s wound. He’d also found some MREs stored in the kitchen—ones created in the current decade, too, with fancy names. The fancy names did nothing to change the fact that the ready-to-eat meals were mostly canned beef. He also found tea and sugar. The beef tasted like hell, but Anya didn’t complain. She ate what he fed her and drank the tea, which was a yellow color, but had no flavor outside of the sugar he’d added to the cup.
Anya was so damn tough. Hard to believe. She looked fragile on the outside, all pale skin, white hair, and lanky limbs. A few vulnerable spots here and there, and yet, she didn’t let those stop her from giving one hundred and ten percent. “Strong-willed,” that’s what his mother had always called him. That’s what he saw in Anya.
“Ryan?”
His body gave its normal happy response to the sound of her voice. Nerves tingled, his pulse sped up, and his crotch tightened.
Smiling, he paused typing on the keyboard in front of him, and turned from the control panel to face her. “You’re supposed to be sleeping.”
She’d wrapped a blanket around her body, hair sticking out on one side of her face. Free of makeup, her white-blond eyelashes made her eyes look even more like blue crystals. He wished she’d leave off the mascara permanently. He liked her better this way.