by Anna Zaires
I nodded then, backing off, because as much as I’d like to pretend otherwise, I do understand Peter’s need for vengeance. I can’t imagine losing people I care about in such a horrible way, and I know it had to have been even worse for him. From everything he’s told me, those short years with Pasha and Tamila were the only time he’s experienced anything resembling family and love.
Last week, for the first time, Peter talked a little bit about his son. It was after he woke up from a nightmare about his family’s deaths, his big body shaking and covered with cold sweat. He reached for me then and fucked me, and in the quiet aftermath, he admitted how much he misses his little boy—how acutely he still feels his absence.
“Pasha was… life,” he told me raggedly. “I don’t even know how to explain it. I’d never met a child who took such joy in the mere act of existing. Birds, insects, trees, the sky and the rocks—everything was new to him, everything was fun. And he had so much energy. Tamila could barely keep up with him. He drove her crazy. And cars…” His powerful chest rose with a deep breath. “He loved cars. He wanted to be a race car driver when he grew up.”
“Oh, Peter…” I lay my hand over his. “He sounds wonderful.”
“He was,” Peter whispered, turning his palm up to squeeze my fingers, and the intensity of pain in those words gutted me to the quick.
For all of his obsession with me, my captor is still grieving the loss of his family—the people he truly loved.
38
Sara
As mid-October approaches, the men’s preparations for the Turkey job ramp up, and I decide that this is going to be my opportunity.
If they do the same thing as the last time, leaving one man to watch over me, I may be able to sneak away unseen—especially if my jailer is going to be as occupied as Yan was during the Nigeria gig.
“So,” I casually ask Peter during one of our walks, “what’s the plan next week? Is Yan staying behind again?”
To my surprise, Peter shakes his head. “He can’t. None of us can this time. The security around the politician is too multi-layered; we’ll need all four of us to get to him.”
My heartbeat jumps into sudden hope territory. Trying not to sound too eager, I say, “That makes sense. I’ll be fine here. There’s plenty of food and—”
“No, ptichka.” Peter reaches for my hand, settling it in the crook of his elbow. “I’m not leaving you here alone, don’t worry.”
I swallow my disappointment and attempt to give him a guileless look as we resume walking. “Why? It’s not like I can get down, so—”
“Exactly.” Peter shoots me a sardonic glance. “You can’t get down, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be tempted to try. Besides, I don’t want to leave you stranded here if something happens to us.”
“But then what will you do with me?” I ask, genuinely confused. “Are you going to bring me with you on the job?”
“No, of course not, though Yan did propose that. The preppy bastard wants a doctor on hand in case of any injuries,” Peter says with a grimace. “No, I’m waiting to hear back from someone, and once I do, I’ll let you know what the plan is.”
“What?” I frown up at him. “Hear back from whom? About what?”
“Don’t worry about it right now,” Peter says and holds up a branch to let me pass underneath. “If it doesn’t work out, there’s a plan B, but Plan A is much better, trust me.”
I learn what Plan A is two days before the men are due to fly out.
“You’re going to leave me in Cyprus with an illegal arms dealer?” I gape at Peter, so shocked I forget I’m in the middle of taking off my jeans. “And that’s better than leaving me here because…?”
Peter sits down on the bed. “Because he and his wife owe me a favor,” he explains, pulling off his shirt. “So if anything happens to me, they’ve promised to return you home. You’ll be safe with them until I’m able to retrieve you, and if, for whatever reason, I’m not… Well, you’ll get what you say you want, my love. Your old life will be yours again.”
Stunned, I finish undressing and sit down on the bed next to him, clad only in my underwear. “But another criminal? How do you know you can trust him? What if he double-crosses you? You did say there’s a price on your head…”
Peter shrugs, his eyes roving over my nearly naked body. “Like I said, Lucas Kent owes me a favor, and he doesn’t need the reward money. He used to be second-in-command to Julian Esguerra, a powerful weapons dealer, and now he’s his boss’s partner in some ventures. The reward money doesn’t move the needle for him, and neither would whatever favor he could curry with the authorities by turning me in.”
“Oh.” Something nags at the back of my mind, some tidbit I can’t quite recall. Then it comes to me. “Wait, is this Kent the arms dealer you mentioned before? The one who got you your list?”
“No, actually, that was his boss, Esguerra,” Peter says, reaching behind my back. “Or technically, Esguerra’s wife, as Esguerra had sworn to kill me at that point.”
I catch his wrists before he has a chance to unhook my bra. “Kill you? For what?”
Peter sighs. “It’s a long story, but suffice it to say that Kent doesn’t share Esguerra’s hatred of me. I’ve helped him out of some tight spots, both when we worked together—Esguerra was my employer at one point too—and afterward, when Kent needed to retrieve his wife. In any case, all you need to know is that Kent owes me.”
“But this Esguerra—Kent’s partner—wants to kill you?” At Peter’s nod, I ask in frustration, “Why?”
“Because I saved Esguerra’s life, but I had to go against my orders to do so. Specifically, I had to endanger his wife, the woman he entrusted me to protect. It was at her request—she bargained with my list, in fact—but still, he wasn’t pleased.” Twisting out of my hold with laughable ease, Peter goes for my bra again.
I give up and let him unhook it. “But he and the wife are both okay?”
Peter shrugs again, his heated gaze lowering to my exposed breasts. “Okay is a relative term, but yes, they both survived, and she held up her part of the bargain by getting me the list.” His voice is husky as he returns his attention to my face and says, “You don’t have to worry about the Esguerras, ptichka. They’re in Colombia, far away from Kent’s compound in Cyprus. You’ll stay with Kent and his wife for the couple of days it takes us to do the job, and then we’ll collect you on our way back. Cyprus is right next to Turkey, in case you weren’t aware.” As he speaks, he cups my breasts, gently squeezing and massaging them.
“Is that why—” I swallow as he flicks my nipple with his thumb, sending a tingle of heat straight to my core. “Is that why you want to stash me there? Because it’s convenient?”
“Partially,” Peter answers, looking up to meet my gaze. “But mainly because Lucas Kent will keep you safe for me… safe and secure, so when I return, I’ll find you there.”
And gripping my face between his palms, he kisses me deeply and bears me down to the bed.
39
Peter
Sara is quiet, almost withdrawn in the two days leading up to the trip, and I know it’s because she’s worried. Yan told me how anxious she was during our Nigeria job, and while that pleased me at the time, I now regret that I’m causing her such stress.
Whether she wants to admit it or not, my little songbird cares about me.
She cares a lot.
I do my best to distract her from the upcoming trip by letting her talk to her parents daily, taking her on walks, and making love to her every spare minute I have. Unfortunately, I don’t have many. There’s too much to do, too many scenarios to plan for. The politician—Deniz Arslan—is used to people gunning for him, and his security is top-notch, as good as anything I might’ve set up for my consulting clients back in the day. There are only a couple of small weaknesses we’ve been able to uncover so far, and even those could potentially be traps.
This is not going to be an easy job, which is why a Uk
rainian oligarch is paying us twenty-five million euros to do it.
The night before the trip, I make us all another nice dinner, but this time, I forbid the guys from discussing anything related to the upcoming danger. We keep the conversation light, recalling amusing stories from our past, and Anton finally succeeds in drawing Sara out of her shell by telling her how we first met.
“So here I am, a twenty-one-year-old army punk recruited into this elite team, all ready to meet my new commander,” he says, grinning. “I figured he’d be a seasoned old dog, full of salty tales about Afghanistan and life under communism. And instead, this guy my age”—he waves his fork in my direction—“strides in and starts barking orders. I figured there had to be a misunderstanding and told him to fuck off, only to end up with his knife at my throat.”
Sara gasps in shock. “Peter threatened you?”
“If nearly slicing open your carotid artery is a threat, then yes.” Anton laughs and shakes his head in remembrance. “It was good, though. Helped us get a sense for what kind of man we were dealing with.”
Sara turns to me, her hazel eyes wide. “So you became a team leader when you were only twenty-one?”
I nod, finishing my poached salmon. “At that point, I had four years of experience tracking down and interrogating people, and I was very good at my job.”
“I can imagine,” Sara says dryly. Glancing at the twins, she asks, “Did all of you start working together at the same time?”
Yan shakes his head. “Ilya and I joined later, after the team was in place for a couple of years. These two”—he nods toward Anton and me—“were pros by then, but we managed to keep up.”
“Oh, please.” Anton snorts. “What about that time you got stuck in that well near Grozny? How is us having to haul your ass out with a water bucket ‘keeping up?’”
Yan shrugs, smiling coolly. “I got a lot of intel on those Chechen rebels by being in that well, and diving in was better than ending up in pieces from the bomb.”
Sara pales at the mention of a bomb, and I shoot Yan a dark look. We agreed to keep things light tonight, avoiding whatever might remind Sara about the upcoming trip—and bombs definitely fall into that category.
Realizing his mistake, Yan elbows his brother and says, “Now this one did have some trouble. Remember that hooker who stole his boots?”
Ilya reddens as Yan launches into the tale amidst Anton’s guffaws, and I reach for Sara’s knee under the table, squeezing her jean-clad leg reassuringly. She smiles at me, and I feel that soft, warm glow in my chest, the one that makes me feel so alive when I’m with her. We’re surrounded by my teammates, but we might as well be alone, because she’s all I’m aware of, all I hear and see.
My Sara.
I love her so much it hurts.
We finish the dinner with lavish dessert, and then I lead Sara upstairs, where I make love to her until we’re worn out and sore.
40
Sara
It feels strange to walk to the helicopter with Peter and know that I’m leaving the mountain for the first time in four and a half months. For some reason, I didn’t do that math before, didn’t add up all the days and weeks that have been passing by, but now that I have, I realize it’s been a year since Peter came into my life… a year since he broke into my home and tortured me to get to George.
I haven’t seen my family in four and a half months, and if I don’t escape, I may never see them again.
Unless Peter gets killed, an insidious whisper reminds me, and my heart falters for a beat. Worry for my captor is a constant heavy band around my lungs, unbreakable and suffocating, and no matter how much I reason with myself, I can’t make the fear go away.
I don’t want my freedom.
Not at this price, at least.
I haven’t given up on the idea of escape, but given these new developments, my new plan is to get away in Cyprus. I don’t know what kind of security this Lucas Kent has in place, but there’s a chance he’ll be more careless than Peter and his men, less invested in keeping me away from the internet and phones. He might even have qualms about acting as my jailer, though I’m not counting on that.
Men in Peter’s world don’t seem to care about a woman’s freedom.
As the helicopter takes off, I watch our mountain retreat grow smaller in the window, but instead of hope, all I feel is dread. I should welcome this change, should seize the opportunities it offers, but while I intend to do precisely that, I can’t help wishing we weren’t going.
I can’t help fearing what happens next.
I don’t sleep on the plane this time—I can’t—and by the time we land on a private airstrip in Cyprus, my eyes burn from dryness and exhaustion. Peter didn’t sleep either, spending most of the thirteen-hour flight going over last-minute logistics with the twins, but he looks as fresh as the moment we stepped on the plane—and so do his men.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think all Russians are superhuman.
It’s pleasantly warm when we step off the plane, the tropical breeze carrying a hint of salt and sea. A black limo is waiting for us by the air strip, and it takes us on a scenic ride through a sparsely populated area. A couple of times, I even spot what looks like a wild donkey. The drive itself, however, makes me nervous. Not only do we drive on the left side of the road, like in the UK, but the roads are narrow and winding, occasionally stretching alongside some dangerous-looking cliffs.
Finally, we reach an automatic gate, and at the end of a long driveway, I see a Mediterranean-style house on a bluff overlooking the beach—Kent’s home, according to Peter. It’s large and beautifully maintained but not nearly as ostentatious as I expected from a wealthy arms dealer.
“Don’t let the size of the house fool you,” Peter says when I mention that to him. “Kent doesn’t like to have live-in staff, but he owns all the land as far as the eye can see, including the beach below, and he has extraordinary security measures in place. Right now, there are several dozen guards patrolling the area, and upward of fifty military-grade drones surveilling us. If Kent thought we were in any way a threat, we wouldn’t get within a kilometer of his place without getting blown into bits.”
“Oh.” I glance up, my stomach tightening. Though it’s only late afternoon in this timezone, the sky is covered with clouds, and that makes it even more threatening somehow, the fact that something so deadly is hovering above us unseen.
“Don’t worry,” Yan says, apparently divining my thoughts. He’s walking behind me and Peter, carrying a bag slung casually over his shoulder. “If Kent wanted us dead, we wouldn’t still be walking.”
“Shut it, you idiot,” his brother mutters, casting a worried glance at Peter, but his boss is not listening. Instead, he’s looking at the tall, broad-shouldered man who just opened the front door and is coming down the steps toward us.
I stare at him too, fascinated by the granite hardness of his features and the iciness of his pale eyes. His light-colored hair is worn short, almost in a buzz cut, and his skin is darkly tanned. Like Peter, he looks to be in his mid-thirties, and like my captor, he must also be former military. I can see it in the way he carries himself and the keen alertness of his gaze.
This is a man used to danger.
No, I realize as he comes closer, a man who thrives on danger.
It’s not anything specific that gives that impression—he’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt, with no weapons or tattoos in sight—but I feel certain of my conclusion. There’s just something about men who are intimately acquainted with violence, a kind of fearless ruthlessness that civilized people lack. Peter and his teammates have it in spades, and so does this man.
“Lucas,” Peter says in greeting, stopping in front of him. “It’s good to see you.”
The blond man nods, his smile as hard as his face. “Sokolov.” His pale gaze flicks toward me. “And you must be Sara.”
I nod warily. “Hello.” For some reason, I didn’t expect an American accent, but that’s
precisely what I hear in Lucas Kent’s voice as he greets Peter’s teammates.
“Congrats on your recent wedding,” Peter says as our host leads us up the stairs to the entrance. “Sorry I didn’t get a chance to send a gift.”
Kent seems amused by that. “It’s probably for the best. Esguerra was barely restraining himself as is.”
“Ah.” Peter grins. “So he still has it in for your bride?”
“You know how he is,” Kent says laconically, and Peter laughs.
“Better than most, I’m sure. Where’s your new wife, by the way?”
“In the kitchen, cooking up a storm,” the arms dealer says, his tone warming slightly for the first time. “You’ll meet her in a minute.”
I listen quietly as they continue talking, mentioning people and places I don’t know. I’m curious what Kent meant when he said that his boss/partner was barely restraining himself. It sounded as if this Esguerra doesn’t like Kent’s new wife, and if so, I wonder why that is.
When we enter the house, a savory aroma of cooking meat and various spices makes my stomach growl. We ate sandwiches on the plane, but that was hours ago, and I’m starving again. I doubt Mrs. Kent’s cooking will come anywhere near Peter’s delicious concoctions, but if tonight’s dinner tastes half as good as it smells, it’ll hit the spot.
Peter and his men are flying out immediately after dinner—they have some scouting to do tonight—so Lucas directs Anton and the twins to a bathroom by the entrance before leading me and Peter to the room where I’ll be staying. As we walk through the spacious living room, I note that the interior of Kent’s mansion is modern but surprisingly cozy, with overstuffed couches and warm wood finishes softening the sharp lines of Scandinavian-inspired furniture. Floor-to-ceiling windows let in a tremendous amount of light and display gorgeous views of the Mediterranean Sea below, while the walls are covered with pictures of a smiling couple—our host and a beautiful young blonde who must be his wife. A teenage boy frequently appears in those pictures too, his resemblance to Mrs. Kent leading me to think he’s her brother.