Kiss the Killer [From the CIA 2](BookStrand Publishing Romance)

by Dawn Kunda

  She couldn’t sit here any longer. Her butt had grown numb from her cold seat under the fir tree. More than that, she had to find Vic. Stopping the trend of people dying because of her gave her strength as she crawled from beneath the boughs.

  She didn’t hear the footsteps any longer. Concentrating on the luck she felt that she’d disguised her tracks well enough to hide from a follower, she slowly stood up. When running through the woods, she’d done her best to step on mounds of pine needles and on the top of rock piles. These provided the best places to step and not leave a complete track. The darkness of the forest also let very little light through to cause the snow to give off its glow found in open areas.

  If she stayed quiet enough, maybe she could creep up and find out if it had been Vic looking for her. She decided to follow where she’d heard the person walking.

  * * * *

  Contrary to the cold around him, Vic wiped sweat from his forehead. He had a great sense of direction and turned to the north where Alina had run. The thick woods and dark night made it difficult to follow a direct path to where he hoped he’d find her. He needed to travel in an arc around the field and curve in a bit closer than the half mile he’d sunk into the trees. She probably didn’t run as far into the woods.

  Unless he heard another set of feet moving through the inches of snow, he’d assume she’d stop him if he came near her. A better plan before they split up would’ve made sense, but they hadn’t had the time to discuss anything. So far, he’d left the men behind. He’d believe the same of Alina.

  He didn’t want to consider that the men had been able to follow and capture her. Trying to ignore the intrusion of thoughts of what would happen if they caught her, he imagined her in a torn jacket, shivering, with fear building in those beautiful, hazel eyes.

  Hazel eyes always appeared large and full of character as they changed colors with the light and the emotion of the person. If the day held sunshine and gratitude for life and the surroundings, hazel eyes became the shape of almonds, more innocent, and the lighter browns highlighted a face. He also knew a sad or frightened Alina would have eyes widened with the dark green edging filled with deep brown, all shiny with unshed tears. It would only make her more gorgeous, more desirable.

  He had to find her.

  Keeping his eyes open, he scanned all around him while stepping lightly in her direction. He wanted to run and close the distance faster, but that wasn’t an option. He’d locate her. He’d be patient and careful not to disclose his or her location. The men had to be searching for them still. They wouldn’t give up easily.

  At this thought he heard a shuffle of snow and crack of a twig from the ground. He froze in mid step. He saw the frozen air escape from his mouth as he stilled the rest of his body.

  He heard a slow crunch of snow closer to him. Stealthily, he skirted behind a pine on the side farthest from the noise.

  He didn’t have a gun or any weapons to help his situation. The only resource he claimed would be his intelligence and physical strength. The knife had fallen from his pocket.

  The sound closed in on the tree he used as cover. A tall, dark shape came into view. The form in no way resembled that of Alina’s.

  His only hope was to take the man by surprise. With as little movement as possible, he looked around for anything useable as a tool. The tumbles and piles of rocks were his best advantage.

  Moving painfully slow, he reached down for a rock the size of a softball that lay at his right foot. He also picked up a small stone. Having the rock and stone in hand, he scuffed the ground with his boot.

  The man whirled around and faced the direction of the sound. Vic wanted him to come closer. With this man in his way, Vic wasn’t going anywhere. Determined to extinguish his enemy, Vic tossed the stone a few feet to his right.

  The man crouched in a ready position with the shadow of his gun facing three feet to Vic’s side.

  “Come on, asshole,” Vic muttered under his breath.

  The man unconsciously followed Vic’s order and stepped just outside Vic’s reach.

  Vic took a slow and deep breath, silently counted to three, raised his arm holding the rock, and then lunged at his enemy.

  * * * *

  Alina stopped and peered over the branch her hand grabbed to move out of her way. Off in the distance, a scuffle of snow, snapping branches, dull thuds, grunts, and coarse sounding verbiage echoed against the hard edges of rocks and trees.

  Her only thought included the beating and death of Vic. Her hand shook against the tree branch until she let go and let it slap her across the shoulder.

  A muffled shot, then a second round pinged against trees.

  Without thinking, planning, or considering the consequences, she ran. It didn’t matter how much sound she made, how many branches cracked under her weight, or which choice of rock formations she stumbled over. She wouldn’t let it happen again, not if she had anything to do with it.

  Vic had gone out of his way to help her and her miserable and farfetched idea of recovering her cousin. She berated herself for allowing her stupidity to overtake common sense. Her government had the strength and ability to save Christa, not her. Now, another innocent contributor to her cause would perish if she didn’t stop it.

  Chapter 24

  Vic slammed the rock onto the shoulder of the man who held the gun. The man’s hand splayed open, and the gun flew into a mix of snow and dead branches. The man grunted in pain and horror as he unsuccessfully grabbed at the gun with his other hand.

  Vic drew the rock back and repeated the devastating pounding of the heavy object against the man’s ear. Another howl of pure pain echoed through the guarding branches of the forest.

  “You need to be quiet.” Vic growled as he wrapped his arms around the nearly incapacitated man who fell to his knees. Vic pressed his forearm against the man’s windpipe and held the man to his waist. “Now, tell me who you are, what you plan to do to me, and mostly why you’re after me.” Vic left out any mention of Alina, even though the man was aware of her. For all Vic knew, the man and his troops had accosted Alina and him because of her.

  Vic didn’t expect to get any answers, but he felt it only fair to offer the chance.

  The man grunted from his place on the floor of the woods.

  “You have one last chance to tell me what you’re doing.” Vic squeezed his forearm against the man’s throat.

  The man gagged and spit on the ground. “Never.”

  “That’s it?” Vic might enjoy the control, but he didn’t have time to celebrate. He wrenched the man’s neck to the side and felt the man slump in his strong hold. Vic let him drop to the ground. Searching the man’s pockets, Vic scored with a gun, cell phone, and keys to a vehicle.

  Vic pocketed his finds, then pushed and pulled the man under the low branches of a mature fir tree. The man wouldn’t be found immediately, but Vic knew he had limited time to circle back to where he told Alina to hide and wait for him.

  He still used great care in traversing the woods. He made as even of an arc as he could determine while tracing back to her side of the thick trees. With every other step he stopped, listened, and when sure of silence and no chasers near him, he continued on.

  It took about ten minutes for him to arrive on her side. He stopped and listened. Other than the creeping of a few night animals, easily distinguishable from a person’s movement, he only heard distant sounds from the field they’d escaped.

  “Alina.” He dared a whisper. Turning halfway around, he repeated his request. She didn’t respond. He continued to circle the area she should be waiting in and often whispered her name.

  The area he checked became a larger route, but she didn’t answer his calls. As worry began to set in, he expanded his search toward where he’d come from. He widened his trail in the hopes he’d inadvertently passed her.

  Another long ten minutes had passed with no luck. He stepped atop a large pile of rocks, so he might get a better view of his surroundin
gs. Just as he maneuvered down from the rocks, slippery with sheets of ice made from melted then refrozen snow, he heard purposeful, yet slow steps.

  Alina might have stayed quiet and hidden because she knew and didn’t have an opportunity to alert him of an intruder, so the noise might not be her.

  The black night among the trees made it hard for him to discern an elbow he suspected hidden behind a fir-tree limb. He crept ever so slowly to the figure, nearly holding his breath.

  The figure wasn’t too astute to its surroundings as he came behind it and lunged at the waist of the unseen body. He tumbled on top of the body as he threw it to the ground. He yanked its arms from underneath it and closed the wrists at its back followed by a sharp tug.

  She let out a muffled yelp while her face planted itself into the snow. He recognized a female voice and threw his arms up, releasing her wrists.

  “What are you doing?” She rolled her body over, pushed up on her elbows, and demanded an explanation. From what he could tell, her face had changed colors to match the red of steak blood. Her brows creased, and her breath came in exaggerated huffs.

  “Sorry, sorry. I thought you were—”

  “What? After you? I would’ve done a better job of either hiding or tripping you up.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me it was you behind this tree?”

  “I guess I assumed you’d know since I didn’t attack you first.” Her breath calmed. “You’re supposed to be the one trained at this, not me. I thought you’d be better at distinguishing between an attacker and one hiding from being attacked.”

  He kept silent while she finished ranting in a controlled and fortunately low voice. “Are you done now?”

  She raised her eyebrows in surprise and then masked her emotion. “What do we do now?”

  * * * *

  She had to forget about the near catastrophe if she wanted to get out of these woods alive. To focus on their escape was her highest priority.

  “We have to get out of here, find a ride, and get across the bridge to Denmark.”

  She let out a frustrated breath. “I know that, but how? What are we going to do?” She looked him in the eyes and challenged his integrity. Her eyes dropped to his waist. His jacket hung open and a gun stuck out of his waistband. “Where’d you get that?”

  “One of our kidnappers gave it to me.” His mouth tilted up on one side.

  “This is no time for jokes. What happened?”

  He became serious. “One of the men came upon me, but I, uh, took care of him. I now have his gun and a set of keys.”

  “Really! We have keys and can get out of here in a car?”

  “Now, I didn’t say that.” Her mouth straightened as she listened for the rest of the story. “I don’t know what the keys are for, the plane, or a vehicle, or some building that we have no idea about. We are one man less after us, and I do have a gun again.” He pulled the weapon from his pants. Twisting the metal in his hands, he whistled. “This is a pretty nice piece, too. Fully loaded and ready to go, if necessary.”

  She absorbed his tale and then turned around to scan her surroundings. “Getting back to a plan, which way do you think we should head to?”

  “I vote we go back to the road.” She raised her eyebrows. Getting a vehicle that the keys might belong to, or staying away from the road where they could easily be located seemed a better option. She still trusted his intuition better than her own, even if he attacked her. “We don’t know what the keys are for,” he answered her first thought, “and the road will get us to help faster.”

  They turned to the direction he’d come from and walked faster. She dragged behind, but he didn’t slow down or wait for her indecision to adjust to his idea. She picked up the pace. She didn’t want to be left behind and alone again.

  It didn’t take them more than fifteen minutes to recognize the hollow between the trees which held the road they initially arrived on. Twenty feet away from the lane, they paused.

  “I don’t think we should walk on the road. We should stay in the trees,” he said. She knew something about acting covertly. He could forget about thinking she didn’t have a brain other than for books. She’d grown up in the country and was well aware of how to sneak around in trees.

  Her sisters and her had done this many times in order to keep away from their male cousins when they gathered together for holidays and family picnics. She’d gotten quite good at ducking behind whatever the terrain provided when in need. A little rusty when she first jumped over the snow mound and into these trees, the ability came back in a hurry.

  “Exactly.” She scowled at his back as he led the way.

  They continued through the woods, down the side of the road in silence. Sounds from the highway alerted them of their objective.

  “You have family in the area.”

  He checked up on her, otherwise he wouldn’t know this. Being mad helped her continue with strength, but she had gotten tired of anger as a regular feeling. She grabbed the back of his jacket. “How do you know this? Have you checked up on me?” He kept walking. He didn’t pay attention to her hand attached to his jacket, so she jerked the nylon material. “What else do you know about me? Why do you think it’s okay to research people you don’t know? Oh, that’s right, we slept together one and a half times.”

  She noticed him cringe at her last remark. Good, that’ll teach him. “Alina, I had to.”

  “Had to, why? Was I part of your mission before we accidently met, so you needed to know all my personal details?” She was on a roll. “I suppose you know that my fiancé died in Baghdad. And I suppose you know it was my fault?”

  He stopped and she ran into his back, causing her to release her hold on his jacket. He raised his chin to the sky. “You were not part of my mission when I met you. You were not part of my mission until you told me you were going to head for a dangerous zone to save your cousin.” He turned around. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know about your fiancé.” He didn’t say anything about agreeing it was her fault.

  He looked down at her. His eyes showed nothing other than caring and normally what she’d consider a look of love. Wrong on the love part, she wouldn’t allow her to give him credit in that area. Besides, he barely knew her and research on the Internet didn’t count as knowing someone.

  She disconnected their eye contact and trudged on ahead of him.

  Within a couple minutes, he trotted up to her and grabbed her sleeve. “Listen, your cousin Reggie, the one in Linkoping, can he help us?”

  “What? I will not involve any of my family in this.”

  “We have to.”

  “I’m not supposed to contact them according to the witness protection program.”

  “If you haven’t forgotten, you’re doing a lot of things you’re not supposed to do.”

  “That’s by my choice, and I choose to not get him involved.” She kept stomping through the snow as she talked.

  “That’s fine if you want to walk to Denmark and probably get accosted by those men or their compadres again.” He kept up with her.

  She halted.

  He came up behind her, resting his hands on her shoulders. Before he had a chance to try to woo her, she shrugged him off. She stood for a moment, then continued to walk.

  “Hey, your cousin doesn’t have to know anything. He can leave us in his village. We’ll find another vehicle from there.”

  “Really? What are we going to tell him? That we’re secretly leaving the country to get married? Wait, better yet, we can tell him we’re working on world peace and are going to stop all the terrorism and killings and mistreatment of citizens from other countries.”

  “I know you’re mad at me—”

  “Whatever gave you that idea?”

  “…but we’ve got to do something other than walk.”

  Alina slowed down as she considered how right he was. She didn’t want to admit it after reprimanding him for his new plan, but she hadn’t come up with anything else.

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p; “I don’t know his number.”

  Vic came up to her. “We’ll get it from information.”

  Alina reached her cousin, Reggie Van Hasten. They spoke briefly. She got around his questions and he agreed to meet them on the highway in about an hour. She gave him sketchy details as to where she and Vic could be found. Reggie assured her he wouldn’t have a problem in exchange for the story on what he eagerly assumed was a dangerous adventure.

  Reggie was three years Alina’s junior. His imagination and sense of adventure never tired. She believed he’d be satisfied with a made-up journey for her job as long as she included a story of what kind of chemicals she’d save the world from in her underground laboratory. He’d make up half the details on his own and be satisfied to be a part of her exciting life.

  After the abridged conversation, she threw her jacket on the ground.

  “What are you doing?” Vic watched her.

  She remained silent as she pulled off her sweater to reveal a light blue T-shirt. She turned away from him and pulled the shirt over her head. “I’ll include you in my plan.” If sarcasm could melt snow, they’d be standing in a lake. “I told Reggie I’d leave my shirt as a flag near the highway, and we’d stay in the woods till he came.”

  She didn’t care if her words had been muffled while she pulled her sweater back on and grabbed her jacket from the ground.

  “That’s a good idea.”

  She looked his way and frowned. “Agreeing with me won’t put you on my good side.” She turned around and looked along the ground. “I need a branch to hang my shirt on.”

  Vic found a dead branch. He reached his hand out for her shirt, but she yanked it away from him.

  “I’ll do it myself.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Alina, I have the gun and I won’t let you run out to the highway where there’s no cover.” She kept her shirt tight in her hand as he reached for it again. He took her wrist, and said, “Let go. I understand you want to do this and anything else you can on your own, but I’m not going to let you be stupid about our situation. That’ll only put both of us in more danger.”