by Rachel Grant
She had their mother’s eyes and their father’s hair. The last time he’d seen her was the day he’d become the Hammer, to protect her.
His baby sister.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Shoot Rudy and you’ll be killing your nephew’s father,” Sophia said.
Dimitri swallowed, trying to take in the words. “Yulian’s father is dead.” He knew this because he’d killed him.
She kissed the sleeping boy’s forehead, then took a step closer. “No.”
He watched his sister approach, uneasy and not sure what was off. Wasn’t this what he’d asked for? But where were the handlers who used his love for his sister to control him? “I don’t understand.”
“Rudy!” Sophia shouted. “Come out. It’s time for a family meeting. At last.”
Family. Rudy really was Yulian’s father?
“Stop pointing your gun at him, Dimitri, you’re scaring him,” his sister admonished. “And it’s time for you to be introduced to my husband.”
“You can lower your gun, D,” Ian said. “I’ve got mine on Fredrickson.”
“Thanks,” Dimitri said as he lowered his weapon.
“Rudy, get the fuck out here.” Sophia spoke in a singsong voice, stroking the sleeping child’s head in a show of not wanting to disturb the boy.
Leaves scraped against leaves as Yulian’s father left his hiding place and descended into the circle of the overgrown gun emplacement.
“What the hell are you doing, Alyssa? You weren’t supposed to bring Julian here.”
“Well, I could hardly not bring him when Dimitri made his presence mandatory to the exchange. You were supposed to stop that from happening, but you fucked up and made everyone suspicious of you. How this goes down is on you.”
“Why isn’t Julian moving? What did you do to him?” Rudy asked, his gaze on the boy.
Dimitri couldn’t quite take it all in. His sister and the nephew he’d ached for years to meet. The traitorous DIA agent.
This was his family.
“I gave him a sedative. He’s fine.”
“You drugged our son?” Outrage filled Rudy’s voice. “Jesus, Alyssa. What if it makes him sick?”
“Would you rather he witness the shit that could go down here?” she asked, her voice full of hostility.
“What. The fuck. Is going on?” Dimitri asked.
Sophia—or Alyssa—faced Dimitri. “You struck a deal. Yulian and me, free of Russia, in exchange for the AUUV. I have good news for you, big brother. You’re getting your deal. I’m going to use the AUUV to buy our freedom.”
“You are going to use it. Meaning you’ve been”—he nodded toward the satellite phone he’d tossed into the overgrown center of the gun emplacement—“the person on the other end of the call?”
His baby sister had been calling the shots? She’d set him up to abduct Ivy? His body flushed as he glanced at Rudy. The analyst had used his position in the DIA to send Ivy here to be abducted by Dimitri. He and Ivy both had been set up from the start—by the one person Dimitri had been trying to save.
The woman he’d been protecting from the moment she took her first steps shrugged. “Guilty.” Then she fixed Dimitri with a glare. “But I had my reasons.”
“Your reasons.” His voice came out hoarse. “How long? How long have you been pulling my strings?”
“Depends on which strings you’re talking about.”
He glanced from Rudy to Sophia. If Rudy was Yulian’s—or Julian’s—father, then the story she’d told five years ago had been a lie. How many other lies had shaped his life? “Were you raped by Boris five years ago?”
“No.” She glanced at her husband. “I wanted to go to the US with Rudy to have my baby and finally fulfill the role I’d been trained for since I was eleven, which you denied me when you had me kicked out of the program. But Boris felt I was more useful in Russia as the Hammer’s handler. Always, always my role was subservient to yours. So I lied to you, and you got rid of Boris, which allowed me to assume the identity that had been set up for me years before. And I, for the record, have been a much more valuable spy than you ever were.”
She adjusted her son’s weight against her chest and stepped closer, absolutely unafraid. But then she hid behind a child, and no matter what she’d done, Dimitri could never hurt the sister he’d cherished his entire life.
She cupped his cheek with her free hand. “You can thank me for your assignment to join the Coast Guard. The powers that be still wanted you in the Navy so you could join the SEALs as their ultimate inside man. You’d have been so good at it, and I was sick of hearing your accolades. When I learned they needed someone to watch over Yuri Kravchenko, I suggested you. You got to cool your heels reporting on nuclear sub movements—which anyone with a decent spy satellite could see—in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, while I was in DC, working as a party planner for several embassies and married to a DIA agent who was oh so very pliable.”
“Fuck you, Alyssa,” Rudy said.
She smiled. “He’s still pissed about being caught in a honey trap. He didn’t know I was either Russian or a spy until he was in too deep. He’s a good father but a lousy American—more concerned with covering his ass than the secrets he’s helped me pass on to Cuba, China, and Russia.”
“Cuba and China?” Dimitri asked.
“Oh yes. You see, the real money—the real power—is in the information exchange. Cuba is a great dealer in secrets, and China has deep pockets. Plus, why would I want to give everything to Russia when our motherland has been so very awful to me?” Her jaw hardened. “You see, dear brother, when you had me booted out of the embed program, you took everything from me. I was nobody in that foster home, and the food was shit. My foster father was even worse than the caretakers at the orphanage. Worse than Boris. You have no idea what you put me through.”
Her son stirred, and she returned to the singsong voice, an eerie shift in the jungle, as his allies who had guns trained on Rudy remained hidden in the vegetation. “But you were the golden boy, the one the GRU was eager to appease, so I was the outcast while you completed your training. Once a month, you’d swoop in like a gift from the heavens, your mere presence a blessing on my blighted existence.”
“You could have told me.”
“I did! I said I wanted back in the program, but you wouldn’t listen. Because you were a man and so certain you knew what was best for me.”
“I was protecting you. Like I promised Mom. If you’d told me—”
“I’d have been sent to a new home. Or worse, back to the orphanage. They would have done what you wanted. Not what I wanted.” Her eyes flattened. “So I figured out how to deal with my foster father on my own. Just like I figured out how to deal with you.”
She stroked her son’s hair. “You know, you never asked me if I wanted out of the program. You just assumed you knew what was best for me. For all of your Americanisms, you were yet another pigheaded, sexist Russian man.” She glanced at her husband again. “But then, sexism isn’t confined to Russia. Dear Rudy couldn’t fathom a women being as cunning as I was. His myopia was my opening. And I took it.”
“How long, Sophia? How long have you been dictating my assignments?”
She sighed. “Your regular assignments came from the GRU. I controlled the Hammer.”
He could have accepted almost any other statement, but he physically recoiled at that. “I…I became the Hammer because of you. Because Boris raped you and made me listen to your screams.”
“Boris didn’t touch me. At least not then. Faking that rape was my idea.”
The day he’d listened to Sophia’s screams, he’d crossed a threshold into a dark place that both haunted him and fueled the rage he needed to perform his duty. He’d given up a piece of his humanity in exchange for the hope—the belief—that he was doing the right thing to protect her.
She patted his cheek. “That day was my vengeance. For all the times you didn’t hear me scream.”
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nbsp; The embodiment of his nightmares stood before him, and he couldn’t raise a hand to strike the demon down. She was the baby sister he loved, holding the nephew he treasured. No wonder she’d walked into the jungle unarmed and confident. She knew she had nothing to fear from Dimitri, no matter what she’d done.
“What do you want us to do?” Luke asked in his ear.
Dimitri stared at the remote in his hand. He could blow up the AUUV. But what would it gain him?
“What happens now?” he asked Sophia. Jesus, he’d lined up allies who would now be asked to protect a woman who might well be responsible for the biggest national security leaks of the last five years.
If she had sold DIA intel to Cuba, there was a good chance they’d sold it to Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, and Iran. Special forces operators had likely died because the enemy had advance notice of operations.
He couldn’t ask Luke or Ian to protect her, not when men they’d fought beside might’ve died thanks to her.
But Yulian—Julian—was a different matter. The child deserved everyone’s protection. And it was Dimitri’s fault the boy was even here.
“Give me the AUUV,” Sophia said. “You and your team walk out of the woods. You sail off with Ivy and live happily ever after.”
His eyes narrowed. Ivy. She would be in danger now that Sophia couldn’t be used against him. “How the fuck is that supposed to happen with GRU still jerking my chain?”
Sophia smiled. “Simple. They don’t know you’re alive. I told them months ago that you hadn’t reported in, no matter how much I baited you on the dark web. You’ve been declared dead. There was quite the ceremony honoring your sacrifice.”
“But what about you, Rudy, and Julian? You can’t go back to DC after what you’ve done.”
She shrugged. “I knew that was out the moment Rudy fucked up and suspicion turned to him. All you had to do was see a photo of his wife and my cover was blown. So I’m going to use the AUUV to cut a deal with Cuba. We’ll be comfortable there.”
“I’m not going to fucking Cuba,” Rudy said.
“Don’t be an ass, Rudy. Of course you will. Do you really think the DIA is going to overlook everything you’ve done?” She shifted Julian’s sleeping weight to her other arm. “Right now, I bet Boyd is trying to decide if he should shoot you.”
The crack of a bullet punctuated her sentence, and Rudy dropped to the ground. His forehead bloomed red.
Dimitri jerked toward Ian’s position, hardly able to believe he’d done it. No. Ian was a professional. No way had he fired the shot.
Leaves rustled, drawing Dimitri’s attention to the right. Ivy was thrust through the branches, Zack Barrow behind her, shoving her slack form forward. “What a perfect entrance line. There I was, wondering who I should shoot, and you gave me that little gem. Thank you—is it Alyssa or Sophia? I can’t quite keep up with all the aliases.” Zack pointed his gun at Dimitri. “Hammer, Jack, Parker, Dimitri. So fucking confusing. Pick one.” The gun switched to Julian. “Even the boy has two names.”
Dimitri held his breath. He’d blow the AUUV if he believed Zack would fire, but the moment he hit the button, any leverage he had was gone.
The gun returned to Ivy’s side, under her arm, where a bullet would pass through a lung before reaching her heart. “And then there is poor, sweet, one-named Ivy.”
Ivy’s head lolled, and her body was limp. At five-nine, she wasn’t light. Zack was expending a fair effort supporting her deadweight, something Dimitri could use to his advantage.
“What’s wrong with her?” he asked. “What did you do to Ivy?”
“Sleeping beauty here was tagged by a tranq dart. I didn’t think it was fair you excluded her from the fun, and I knew my buddy Ian would take potshots at me if I didn’t have a human shield. Where is Ian?” He glanced around the jungle. “Ollie ollie all come free.” Zack’s voice lost its playful edge. “Or I shoot the bitch where she’ll slowly bleed out.”
Branches parted, and Ian descended from his position in a tree. “It’s ‘oxen free,’ asshole.”
“Drop your gun.”
Ian stooped down and set his gun at his feet.
“Where’s your new SEAL buddy?” Zack asked. “The golden boy who doesn’t take a crap without alerting the media. Surely he’s up a tree somewhere?”
“He’s in Koror holding a press conference,” Ian said.
Zack forced a laugh. “Sevick better get his ass in the circle, or I’m going to start shooting.” He glanced toward the dead DIA man and added, “Again.”
Did Ivy’s eyes flutter? Dimitri couldn’t be certain. “Do as he says, Luke,” he said.
Luke followed Ian’s lead and emerged from his hiding place, setting his gun at his feet.
“Sophia/Alyssa, give the boy to Veselov,” Zack instructed.
“No,” Sophia said. Her arms tightened around her son.
“You don’t understand, you aren’t calling the shots anymore, sweetheart. I am. And while I’m sure you’re a cunning spy and deserve all sorts of credit for how you’ve been playing everyone for years, I’m fairly certain you aren’t the fighter Veselov is. Which is why I want him holding the goddamned child.” Zack let out a low whistle, and four armed men emerged from the jungle behind him.
Shit. Their hidden ace—Palea perched with a sniper rifle above the bomb shelter—didn’t seem adequate against Zack’s small army.
Sophia stepped forward and offered her son to Dimitri. He took the sleeping child. His nephew. He’d dreamed of meeting him. But not like this. Never like this.
“I’m sorry,” Sophia whispered as Julian settled against his chest.
He couldn’t even take in the weakness of her apology versus her actions over the years. “Do you hate all people, Soph, or just me?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t hate you, exactly. I just…wanted something different. I found a way out, but it meant using you.”
“Everything I did was to protect you.”
“I never asked to be protected. Your protection was a curse.”
“How is it you had a lead on where the AUUV was hidden?”
She flashed a proud smile. “Because it was one of my men who stole it and hid it before he was captured. His final message included the area, but not coordinates. Even he didn’t know exactly where in the Rock Islands he was.”
“You stole it from Russia with one hand—and then received information from the GRU about their interrogation of your own operative with the other. Information you then passed on to me so I could find it for you.”
“You say that like it surprises you, brother, that I am a very, very good spy. And yet we went through the same training. You always underestimated me. Everyone underestimates me. That’s why the GRU never guessed I was both their faithful spy and their biggest enemy. They never knew I cultivated China and Cuba as clients for my intel. I am loyal to no one but my son.” She stroked Julian’s head.
“The family reunion is touching but I’m ready to take my AUUV and go now,” Zack said.
She glanced at her husband’s body. “If anything happens to me, you’ll be Julian’s only family. Protect him better than you did me.”
Thirty-five pounds of boy rested against his chest. The woman he loved was unconscious in the clutches of a man who was using her as a human shield—a man who’d already shot her once. And he’d just learned his sister was the source of every evil act he’d committed in the name of protecting his family. He couldn’t process the flood of emotions.
He needed to be the Hammer. He needed to be the monster his sister had created, so he could protect Ivy, Julian, the men who’d volunteered to back him up on this nightmare op, and yes, even his sister.
In spite of everything, he would protect her.
“Get the fuck over here, Sophia, or I’ll shoot the boy and your brother.”
Sophia backed away, then turned and walked purposefully toward the former CIA agent who’d allied himself with Ivy’s ex-husband.
She stopped in front of Zack and lifted Ivy’s chin, making a show of inspecting her face. “So. This is Ivy. Rudy always talked about how smart she was. When I saw her picture in the online tabloids, I wondered if he was attracted to her for more than just her brains. She’s passably pretty, but there’s also this innocence that would have appealed to him.”
She glanced back toward Dimitri. “But I never would have taken her for your type. I would have guessed innocence would repulse you.”
“Must be a case of opposites attract,” Zack said. “C’mon. Show me where the AUUV is.”
She looked up at Zack. At five-two, she was dwarfed by him and Ivy. “I have no idea where it is. Perhaps we should get Ivy’s drone and have it scan the jungle?”
Zack pressed the barrel of his gun to Sophia’s forehead. “Or I can shoot you, then ask again nicely. He might not mind seeing you eat a bullet at this point, but he cares about Ivy.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Ivy had started to return to consciousness on the boat as they reached the island. It was a well-established fact that she couldn’t act worth a damn—well, except for when she’d shot Dimitri, but then she’d taken all her anger at Rudy and projected it onto Dimitri. This time she was too terrified for that to work. But she could play unconscious. It was all about keeping the muscles slack and loose. She could do that. Her brain was damn fuzzy anyway.
With each passing minute, the world grew a degree clearer. But she didn’t dare open her eyes. She pretended she was Raggedy Ann. Soft and lax. Her life—and Dimitri’s—depended on her pulling this off.
When Sophia lifted her chin, she was certain it was to determine if Ivy was truly unconscious. She’d chattered on—her voice low and calculating. Ivy remained relaxed, blank faced, a burden to Zack.
Through slitted eyes, she saw the barrel against Sophia’s forehead. She couldn’t give warning by stiffening or taking a deep breath. She needed to go from rag doll to weapon in a single moment.