by Lea Griffith
There were four lined up along the wall to her right, and she approached them. “Yest’ chelovek, presleduyushchiy menya! Pozhaluysta pomogi,” she pleaded. It was true. There was a man chasing her, and she did need their help.
“Don’t do it, Ella,” Jude warned from behind her.
Her body warmed even as her heart raced. She couldn’t do this much longer. Running from him went against everything inside her. How she found the strength, she didn’t know. She did feel bad for a split second that she was throwing the security guards to the wolf, but having to deal with them would slow Jude down, hopefully giving her enough time to get away from him.
“Kto etot chelovek k vam?” the most intrepid of the guards inquired.
Who was he to her? Everything. Instead she answered, “On nikogo net. On pytalsya zastavit’ menya pogovorit’ s nim, a zatem poluchil grubyy. Pomogi mne.”
All four men moved around her, meeting Jude somewhere behind her.
Once again, Ella ran. And then she ran some more. She could hear punches being landed behind her and winced. Those poor men were going to take a beating. She didn’t slow down though. She had to get to the railway station Svetlana Markov had mentioned, and then she had to get whatever packet the woman had spoken of somewhere safe.
She’d have to call Dresden. She’d have to contact the Piper.
Ella stopped on the stoop of a souvenir shop and picked up a trinket, glancing behind her surreptitiously in the glass front of the shop. Nothing seemed out of place, but again, Jude could be anywhere.
She had to rely on her senses, and nothing flared out to grab her. Her skin didn’t prickle as it always did when he was near. Her neck didn’t itch the way it had in Sarajevo and then again earlier today, as if Jude’s scope pressed into the skin there, branding her. Ella put down the trinket and began walking at a sedate pace toward the Bolshoi Theater. The railway station Svetlana had urged her to was close to the theater.
It took Ella ten minutes to reach the station, and she once again stopped, glancing over her shoulder casually before she entered. She searched for a map of the station, ignoring a lady’s offer to direct her wherever she wanted to go, and when she found the location of the lockers, she made a beeline toward them.
Locker 2207 was innocuous enough looking. At the end of a row, it had a single combination lock that looked like something the KGB had probably invented. It seemed that impenetrable. She stepped up to it, used the 24-17-24 code and, with no small amount of amazement, opened the locker.
Inside was a single packet, close to the back. Ella pulled it out, noticed whatever was inside was about the size of a thumb drive, and stuck it in the pocket of the jeans she wore. Then she walked away. She ducked into a restroom, checked each stall to ensure she was alone, and then pulled her shoulder holster off before putting her gun at the small of her back inside her waistband. She pulled her sweater down over it and trashed the holster before pulling her coat back on.
She exited the bathroom, keeping her gaze forward and searching out of her periphery for any sign someone was following her. All seemed clear. A homeless woman was sitting beside one of the active tracks, and Ella removed her heavier coat and handed it to the woman. The woman smiled and removed her lightweight sweater. With winter bearing down on Moscow, she was probably enjoying the promise of warmth. The slight woman offered up the lightweight sweater she’d been wearing. Ella took it and put it on.
Then she walked out of the station’s back entrance. She hopped into the first cab she came to and demanded to be driven around Moscow until she told him to stop. The driver glanced at her in the mirror, shrugged, and set about doing as she’d asked.
And it all happened just in the nick of time because as they pulled away from the curb, Jude walked out of the station, spotted her, and went completely still. He was too far away to catch her, and there were no traffic lights close enough to hold the car still for him to catch them.
Ella’s heart jumped to her throat. His lips moved, forming the only word he ever left her with on an op…safe. Her sob caught her, ripping from her throat as she did the only thing she could do. She pressed six fingers to the window and watched him until the cab carried her out of sight.
Chapter 7
Once again he was in the shadows of an apartment. This one was being rented by a Daisy Harper of Omaha, Nebraska—a.k.a. Ella Banning. The flat was a total of four rooms. Kitchen and living room were combined into one large area, with a small bedroom down a short hall and a bathroom at the end of the hall.
The furniture had probably been around for forty or fifty years and the same with the appliances. It was in a building right in the middle of Moscow, surrounded by offices and other flats. The paint was peeling, the wallpaper had been stripped bare in some places, and all in all, it was a small hellhole.
So while he was in the same kind of shadows as her Sarajevo safe house, the digs were definitely different.
She hadn’t shown yet, but Jude felt in his gut that it was only a matter of time. He’d followed her to the train station and lost her, finding her again as she hopped a cab and drove away. Always she was running from him, and he was sick and tired of it.
“Objective in sight,” Rook informed across his ear mic.
“Roger that,” Jude responded.
“Disable the objective and wait for us.” King McNally growled this time.
Jude didn’t respond to that. He estimated he had approximately five minutes from the time she entered until King and Rook made their entrance. He wanted to get one answer out of her before his team leader and teammate arrived.
“She’s in the building,” Rook said, voice whisper quiet.
“Disable, Jude. Do not engage her in conversation. Do you understand?” King was adamant that Ella wasn’t what she seemed.
It was shocking for Jude to realize that wasn’t the most important thing to him anymore. He didn’t care one way or the other. She was his, and she was in grave danger. She would go willingly or not; King would get angry with him or not, but Jude was going to ask his question, and he was going to do it today.
A soft click heralded her entrance into the flat. Night had long ago fallen, the threadbare curtains covering the windows almost no hindrance to the lights of Moscow. Outside, horns from irate drivers blared, and night traffic noises infiltrated the silence.
Ella stepped in and went completely still. She sensed him, no doubt about it. Jude’s body came alive—adrenaline spiking, breath roughening, and dick going brick hard behind the fly of his cargo pants.
It was always like that with her. He grimaced. It always would be.
“I want to know why,” he bit out.
Her chin dropped almost to her chest, and then she straightened her shoulders and lifted her face, finding him unerringly in the darkness.
“Goddamn it, Jude,” King said across the mic. “Disable. Do not engage.”
Ella smiled, sad and haunted. “Things happened, Dagan. I just didn’t want us anymore.”
“Lie,” he growled. The tense line of her body, the way her pupils contracted in the low light, showed she was lying through her teeth. “That’s a lie, and I won’t hear another one from you, Ella.”
She turned, shaking her right arm and more than likely dislodging the small blade she carried on the inside of her forearm. “Lies are all I know now.”
“Tell. Me. Why.” He was demanding it of her. She owed him at least that.
The thump of boots echoed through the small flat. Jude was out almost out of time.
“I won’t,” she whispered, and her agony rebounded through Jude. “I can’t.”
He nodded. She wasn’t going to give him what he needed. So he’d take it.
He moved fast—in his space beside the hallway one second, on her in the next. She lifted her right arm and tried to cut him with her blade; he dodged, knocked her arm to th
e side, and used the momentum to turn her.
With his front to her back, he took both of her wrists in one of his hands and pulled the syringe King had given him earlier from a side pocket of his pants. She struggled, and he inserted a knee between her legs and spread them far enough apart that she had to concentrate on not falling instead of kicking back at him.
Dodging her head as she threw it back to clock him in the nose, Jude uncapped the syringe with his mouth. “I’m sorry,” he whispered in her ear a second before he pressed the syringe to her neck.
She didn’t say a word, just went lax in his arms with a soft release of air. The door opened, and both King and Rook entered, looking ready for WWIII.
King’s eyes swept over Jude, reprisal in their depths. “At least you disabled her. She’s become quite a handful, hasn’t she?”
Ella had done something for King she’d not done for Jude. Answered his questions…hell, given him something. She’d given nothing to Jude.
His heart mocked him. She gave you six fingers against the cab’s glass.
It wasn’t enough. Was it?
“You got her?” Rook asked.
Jude nodded as he shifted her in his arm and lifted her small body high against his chest. King and Rook turned as one and left the building. There was no reason to search the flat; he’d handled that and loaded up anything of use earlier. Jude left behind them, carrying the most precious of his burdens close to his heart.
They walked down the hallway and took the tiny service elevator to the ground floor. Rook exited and took point. King glanced at Jude. “You okay?”
Jude had never been more vulnerable than right that second. Every emotion he’d felt during the last year bombarded him, nearly sending him to his knees. He’d seen her, smelled her, but until that moment, he hadn’t held her in nearly four hundred seventy-three days.
“Dagan,” King demanded sharply.
“I don’t know what ‘okay’ means.” He met King’s gaze, took a deep breath, and said, “But I can do this.”
King nodded slowly and held open the doors. They exited the back of the building and got into a blacked-out Range Rover they’d appropriated from a used car lot on the outskirts of Moscow.
It took them an hour to reach the abandoned farmhouse in Sergeiv Posad. Known for its monastery, Trinity Lavra, the town was a quiet one and just what they needed to handle business. They weren’t going back home to DC. Not quite yet, since King felt it would be better to question Ella before returning.
Rook glanced at Jude in the rearview mirror before looking down at Ella. Jude ignored the warning in his teammate’s eyes. He wasn’t letting her go until he absolutely had to. Jude returned his gaze to Ella’s face, the lights of the roadside lamps highlighting her and then casting her in darkness. Her hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail, braided and then wrapped into a bun near the top of her head. Jude longed to release the shiny tresses, run his hands through them, and hold her still for his mouth.
His hand fisted, and he slowly removed his glove, the temptation to be skin to skin with her damn near overwhelming. Her lashes lay like fans over her cheeks. The wings of her black brows arched over eyes that could skewer a man or make him feel like king of the world.
He loved staring at her while he entered her because everything she felt was mirrored in her gaze. Her face could remain passive, but those eyes? They were truly the windows to her soul, and she’d never been able to hide from Jude.
He lifted his hand and was shocked to note a tremor. He was shaking. He lowered a single finger to her lips, stroking over the lush bottom one.
A touch was all he could stand because as he came into direct contact with her, his skin heated and he knew he was going to lose it.
Never had he loved anyone as much as he’d loved her.
Never had anyone hurt him as much as she had. Not even his mother.
He dropped his hand, used his mouth to tug his glove back on, and then stared at everything but her face.
It was the longest hour of his life.
They let King out of the Rover half a mile from the abandoned farmhouse they’d reconned and set up for tonight’s purpose. He would make sure their surroundings remained clear and return to them.
It had taken Jude hardly any time to read what Vivi had sent him, and then he’d called King. Rook’s words two days ago had reminded Jude of why he was in Endgame Ops…brothers, family, teammates. He couldn’t continue to let down his brothers-in-arms, because the relationships he had with them were now the most important.
He couldn’t let Ella, or what he felt for her, interfere with that anymore. He’d resolved that he would use tonight to get his answers, and then he would leave her alone. He wouldn’t chase her any longer.
It was clear she didn’t want Jude, no matter that she’d held six fingers up to a goddamn window. No matter that he still loved her like hell on fire. She didn’t get those pieces of him anymore.
He’d contacted King, given him everything he had, and he’d listened to the man he respected more than any other tell him they’d figure it all out. King was angry, and that was to be expected, but he was a leader, and all leaders knew when to ream you out and when to let it ride.
Jude wouldn’t get a free pass, but the fact that King had let him stay on this was proof that his leader had his back.
King returned, waving them forward and walking beside the Rover as they drove up the dirt path to the farmhouse. Within a minute, they were out of the car. King stepped up, adjusted the strap on his rifle so the weapon rested on his back, and held out his arms.
Jude froze. First steps were a bitch, but if he was going to do this, he had to let her go. He transferred her to King’s hold and walked into the house. They had set a tarp on the floor of the living room. There was a huge hole in the ceiling, and once the clouds had cleared from the rain earlier, the moon shone through, giving them enough light so they didn’t have to set anything up.
The original structure had been built well over a hundred years ago, and time and Russia’s climate had taken over. Weathered walls and floors, furniture moldy and falling apart—the place had an ancient, broken feel. It probably wouldn’t last much longer, but it was perfect for their purpose. There were ghosts in this house, and even more now with Ella’s presence.
King placed her in a chair in the middle of the tarp. He blindfolded her—Jude thought for effect. She’d have to rely on her other senses, and when a body was stressed, those senses could lie. Ella had been a wonderful CIA analyst, but like Rook’s Vivi, she hadn’t exactly been a dyed-in-the-wool soldier.
Rook wound long lengths of rope around Ella’s torso and each leg, strapping her in place. She could move—Jude was sure Rook hadn’t tied her tight enough to cut off circulation—but she couldn’t escape. Rook was a master of knots. Jude steeled himself to remain impassive. Those ropes represented so much.
They told of failure and betrayal. Love and lies.
“She’ll wake soon. We didn’t give her enough to keep her out for very long,” King murmured as he walked to the other side of the room and leaned against a doorjamb, facing Ella.
Rook moved to the opposite side, taking up much the same position. Jude moved to behind her and waited.
The air felt charged moments later, and Jude knew she was awake. He tamped down his body’s response to her by force of will alone. His pain at her betrayal helped him.
Silence reigned. She’d obviously decided she’d let this play out. King took a step toward her, and she straightened in her seat.
What was she feeling? Trapped? Did she know the fear Jude had felt when he’d thought her dead? Why did it bother him that she might understand that?
King walked until he was standing beside her. Ella’s chin notched in the air.
“Just say something,” she demanded roughly. Her voice was strained and gravel
ly.
Jude found himself wanting to give her a sip from his canteen. He fisted his hands and crossed his arms over his chest, holding himself back.
“What are you doing in Russia, Ella?” King asked in a bored voice.
“Oh, you know, touristy things. I’ve never spent much time here, and so…” she said with a small, gruff laugh.
King laughed with her. Then his voice lowered as if Satan himself were speaking through him. “What are you doing in Russia, Ella?”
She cleared her throat. “I told you, I wanted to see Russia.” She coughed, and Jude lowered his arms, almost walking to her, but her words stopped him. “Let’s see, I know you’re here. I’m guessing Dagan and, hmmm, Rook? Yeah, Rook’s here too, isn’t he?” she questioned in a polite tone. Making everyday conversation, huh?
“I’m here, Ella-Bella,” Rook informed her in an easy tone. Rook had a soft spot for women.
“Rook, how’s your wife? You know, I meant to talk to you about that in Beirut a few weeks ago. You have got to control her better. She’s really nosy, and she’s sticking hers in places where it might get lopped off.”
Rook straightened at the underlying warning in Ella’s voice.
She laughed again, the sound ricocheting off the walls of Jude’s heart. “I won’t hurt her, but Dresden is a real bastard, and he does his best to watch every move she makes.” She turned her head so she seemed to peer over her shoulder, and Jude was grateful for the blindfold that kept him from seeing her eyes. “Hey, Dagan, Rook know you’re pumping his wife for information on me?”
“He knows,” Rook said before Jude could reply. The man threw Jude a look that told him to keep his mouth shut. Jude ground his back teeth together.
“Aww, scared of Rook, Dagan? Since when are you scared of anyone?” She seemed to taunt him.
“He won’t bite the bait, Ella,” King said. “Now tell me why you’re in Russia.”