Ford

by Susan May Warren

  He hoped to not find a similar end.

  The train was slowing, pulling into the station with its bright overhead lights and numerous platforms. He turned to RJ and Kat. “Listen. We’re going to get off as soon as the train slows enough. I want to get away from these lights and out into the city. There will be plenty of places to hide.”

  He wasn’t exactly sure where, but he’d hunker them down in an alley if he had to.

  The Bratva couldn’t search the entire city.

  He opened the final door and was just about to step out when he heard a shout from down the corridor.

  The conductor. A big woman in a dark gray skirt and suit coat strode toward them. “Perestan!”

  “That’s our cue, ladies,” he said and reached for RJ’s hand. Not that she needed help—in fact, it might be that he did it more for him than her, but somehow he just felt better knowing he had a grip on her.

  The train had reached the platform, slowing to a crawl. “Ready?”

  “Go,” RJ said.

  He leaped off the edge of the steps, pulling her with him. She landed easily behind him, and he looked, spotting Kat coming off behind him too.

  They quick walked across the platform, but instead of going through the main doors, he walked them around the end, jumping off the edge and onto the tracks, away from the lights.

  He turned to help RJ, but she leaped off and landed beside him. Kat too.

  “Now where?” RJ asked.

  He pointed to an alleyway between two buildings, a short fence cordoning it off from the street. They followed him without argument. He made a step with his hands and lifted RJ, then Kat over the eight-foot fence. They landed in darkness. He leaped over the fence then took off down the alleyway.

  Safe. He could nearly taste it. At least for tonight.

  Tomorrow, he’d have to figure out how he’d untangle them from this John le Carré novel.

  Footsteps sounded behind him, the noise like bullets through him, and he turned. Who—?

  He slowed, grabbing RJ and pulling her with him behind a UAZ truck parked in the alley. “Kat!” He hissed, but he didn’t have to. She was already following him behind the truck, breathing hard.

  “What is it?” she said.

  He hunkered down. “Someone’s following us.”

  RJ stared up at him. “What are you—” Her eyes widened. “York, no—let’s keep running. Please.”

  He grabbed her shoulders. Met her eyes. “I don’t know who is behind us, but they can’t keep following us. If the Bratva finds out we got off the train, they’ll comb the city for us. And you can’t be here when they do.”

  “But you don’t have a gun. You’re unarmed.”

  “I don’t need a gun."

  She drew in a breath.

  “Listen to me.” He cupped his hands around her face. “This is what I do, Ruby Jane. I get people out of trouble. Let me do my job. Please.”

  “But this isn’t your job. I made you do this. You got roped into saving me against your will—”

  “No.” He put his forehead on hers. “I signed up the minute I saw you standing there in the bold streetlight trying to save the world all by yourself.”

  Her eyes glistened with tears, and she was shaking her head.

  “Yes, RJ. Listen to me, for once, okay? You have to let me go if you want to save yourself and your sister.”

  She closed her eyes, as if his words stung. But he had no choice— “As soon as I leave, I want you to run. And you don’t look back, okay? Whatever you hear, whatever you see—keep running.”

  She opened her eyes, hers fierce in his.

  “Bristow, promise me you’ll go. Because if he—they—whoever gets past me, I can’t have you here.”

  He must have gotten through to her because she nodded, her jaw tight. “But you stay alive, you hear me? Promise me you’ll stay alive.”

  The emotion in her voice broke him, and he let himself lean down and kiss her hard, fierce, a goodbye that held the only promise he could make.

  He drew away, looked at Kat. “When I go out there, you need to run the other direction. Got it?”

  Kat took RJ’s hand.

  The footsteps came closer.

  “Go.” He didn’t look back as he edged out along the truck, listening.

  He kept his breaths shallow, refusing to give up his position.

  Closer, closer— He launched himself at their pursuer with a roar.

  The man was big—he’d give him that. And he took a punch, not going all the way down, but instead rounding and clocking York hard in the head with his elbow.

  Gray hazed his vision, knocked him sideways, but he rounded and delivered the same punch.

  The man grunted.

  York couldn’t see much of the man in the darkness, cut just barely by the lights from the nearby train yard, but he had the sense the guy could handle himself.

  The man whirled back around and delivered a shot to York’s gut.

  York absorbed it and threw a punch to his jaw.

  The man dodged, yanked him in close for a pummeling.

  Fists found his ribs, twice. Knocked his breath loose.

  Sorry, but he wasn’t going down that easily. York grabbed the assailant around the neck, forcing him down. He brought his knee up, aiming for anything soft—a belly, a groin—and connected with bone.

  Pain ripped through his leg as the man pushed him away.

  A scream tore through the haze of adrenaline.

  Please, let it not be RJ sticking around to see this. Because this guy had chops, and York would do well to stay on his feet and buy them time.

  The man kicked his knee, intending to take him down, but York bit back a grunt and launched himself at the man, slamming them against the building. Held on even as the man landed two moneymakers into his kidneys. York swore and delivered an answer into the man’s gut.

  Still the screaming.

  Run, RJ, please be running!

  Because he was starting to hurt.

  Then to his horror, the scream turned into his name.

  “York, stop! Stop!” RJ was there, not obeying him, not running into the safety of Yekaterinburg, but grabbing him by the elbow, pulling him back from his attacker. “Stop! That’s my brother—it’s Ford!”

  The man pushed him away, hard.

  York stumbled back. “What—?”

  He just stood there, freshly punched, reeling, his knees about to buckle as RJ turned and threw her arms around his attacker.

  Her hero, apparently.

  The man caught her up, pulling her tight against him, making the sounds that York felt like making. Tiny whimpers of relief, perhaps, maybe even anger.

  He bent over, breathing hard.

  Ford.

  Her brother, the SEAL.

  No wonder his ribs hurt.

  He stood back, watching the reunion, not sure what to say, a strange ache curling through him. Nearby, a petite dark-haired woman glared at him like he might be the devil.

  “How—where—?” RJ pushed away from Ford.

  “We just got to the station when the train pulled in,” said the woman. “I saw you go off the platform, but I wasn’t sure…” She looked at York almost accusingly. “Who are you?”

  “He’s my friend,” RJ said before York could come up with an answer. “And he’s been trying to get me home.”

  Her friend. Huh. He hadn’t exactly thought of that moniker.

  Maybe.

  Nope. Not even close. He didn’t know what they were, but friend didn’t seem to cover it. She was his responsibility, his cohort, his—no, not partner—and then there was the kiss. The mind-blowing kiss that made him painfully aware of all his brittle, aching places.

  Especially now. “You were supposed to run!” He took a step toward RJ, wrapped his hand around her arm. “What were you thinking?”

  “Step back, dude—” Ford started.

  But RJ put her hand up and turned to York, her eyes wide. “I did run! And
then—” She grabbed his hand off her arm. “Are you kidding me? How was I supposed to run when he was beating the crap out of you—”

  “I was fine.” He glared at her. “If this guy hadn’t been your brother—” He looked up at Ford, who looked like he might want to have another go.

  Sure, pal. And York didn’t know why suddenly he felt like going another round or putting his fist into something hard. Again and again—

  “You’re shaking,” RJ said, her voice lower.

  He looked back at her, his jaw tight. “You could have been killed. You didn’t listen to me, again. How am I supposed to keep you alive when you don’t listen to anything I say?”

  “I’m not Tasha,” she said quietly, her eyes holding his. “And I’m fine.”

  The world stilled, and his throat thickened. Whatever possessed him to think that he should get tangled up in this mess?

  With her?

  Ford stared at him, his mouth in a grim line. “You’re York.”

  York wiped his hand across his mouth and came back with blood. “You might have mentioned who you were before you started punching me.”

  “You jumped me. I didn’t have the first clue who you were. I just saw you with my sister—”

  “How’d you find us?” RJ asked. She reached out to touch Ford’s arm, and he took her hand.

  “We went to Moscow. I met with an agent there, who said you were on the train.”

  “Curtiss,” York said.

  “And Yanna, his wife,” the woman added.

  “You met Yanna?” Kat emerged from the shadows. “She’s FSB.”

  Ford had stilled at her voice. “Coco?”

  “Hey, Ford.” Kat lifted a shoulder, like no big deal, and Ford took two steps and pulled her into his embrace, a family kind of affection in the way he lifted her up, swung her around.

  The petite woman next to him wore a strange expression, something almost of hurt on her face.

  He put Kat down. “Are you kidding me? Wyatt said you were here, but…how’d you get involved with this?”

  “She tracked down the real assassin,” RJ said.

  York glanced toward the railway tracks. A light shone on the yard, the long green train now moving as it ended its stop.

  They needed to get going, get away from anyone who might have boarded the train looking for them and found them gone. The other end of the alleyway opened into the street, the lights there bathing the escape like the floodlights of the DMZ.

  Possibly, his imagination was getting away with him.

  “They may still be chasing us. We need to get moving,” York said.

  “We were attacked by the Bratva,” RJ said. “York was cut—”

  “The Bratva,” Ford said, but didn’t sound surprised. “We met them in Moscow.”

  “Perfect. So now all they had to do was follow you,” York said.

  “You weren’t that hard to find, pal,” Ford snapped.

  York turned to RJ. “Let’s go. We can’t stick around here.” He reached out for her hand, but Ford caught his wrist.

  “She’s going with me.”

  York yanked his arm away. “Step back there, frogman, this isn’t your play. Keep up, if you want, but Ruby Jane is my responsibility.”

  “Hardly. She’s my sister. She’s been my responsibility since we were in the freakin’ womb, tough guy, so—”

  The first bullet pinged off the UAZ parked in the shadows.

  “Get down!” York leaped for RJ, slamming her hard into the dark pavement.

  She grunted.

  “Sorry.”

  Beside him, Kat had also hit the dirt.

  Another shot and he lowered his head, his breath close to RJ’s ear. “Do. Not. Move.”

  He felt her nod.

  Then he got up and sprinted through the darkness toward the shooter.

  9

  Ford hadn’t tracked his sister halfway across the world to watch her get shot in a grimy alleyway in the middle of Russia. Nearly Siberia, if he remembered his geography.

  Another shot skipped off the metal surface of a dump truck–sized vehicle that blocked the entrance of the alleyway. His sister lay on the ground, Coco, also prone next to her.

  He glanced around in search of Scarlett. “Red!”

  “Over here.” She was huddled behind the front of the truck. He slipped over to her. “Stay here.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To get that shooter.”

  He still couldn’t believe they’d spotted RJ running off the platform—actually, it had been Scarlett who’d seen the fleeing trio. He’d been sprinting toward the train, his focus on getting aboard.

  But Scarlett had grabbed him, watching his back as usual.

  If she hadn’t stopped him, hadn’t seen what he’d missed—

  They’d be on a train for Siberia right now. He wanted to grab her and plant a kiss on her lips. Instead he pulled her close and kissed her forehead. “Please stay down.”

  Then he turned, glanced down the alleyway, and sprinted toward a dumpster parked on the other side.

  He landed next to York, his sister’s so-called bodyguard.

  Frankly, he didn’t like the way York touched her—way too familiar for Ford’s taste. He’d get the guy alone later. Right now, he wanted to give him props for shielding his sister and Coco—

  Coco.

  Wow. He didn’t even know where to start with the appearance of his former foster sister. She looked good too. Grown up, but confident and beautiful, her hair short, and he could still remember the way Wyatt looked at her.

  His big brother always did have a thing for her. Ford had caught them in a tangle in the barn years ago, probably intercepting something that would have gone too far.

  Of course, at the time Ford had feared a little for his life, the way Wyatt looked at him.

  Truth was, he’d always been a little jealous of Coco. She fit into RJ’s life in the way he used to.

  “The shooter is behind that pole,” York said, their fight clearly a bygone, at least for the moment. “He shot out the light above it.”

  Ford nodded. The area in front of the vokzal, the train station, was a wide-open space, better lit, but darkness engulfed the entrance of the alleyway. Next to Ford, York was edging out. Ford grasped his jacket. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to jump him—”

  “Alone?”

  York turned to him. Silence. “Yes. Alone.”

  “Nope. That’s my sister—”

  “Then you should get back to her.”

  “Wow. And I thought I had issues. What’s your deal?”

  Another shot pinged off the truck.

  “My deal,” York hissed, “is that I made her a promise, and I intend to keep it.”

  “Yeah, well, me too.”

  Ford shot a look toward the truck. RJ still lay on the ground next to Coco, and he wanted to tell her to scoot under the truck, but that would only sharpen the shooter’s aim.

  “Listen—we’ll do this together. I’ll draw his fire, you jump him,” Ford said.

  York nodded.

  “Go,” Ford said and took off down the alley. York must have waited a minute—Ford didn’t see, but two shots chipped off cement behind him, and he dove behind the edge of a building.

  Another shot pinged off the truck.

  York had vanished into the shadows on the opposite side.

  Ford gauged the distance between his position and the end of the alleyway. It opened beyond that into a dark plane of shadows, but in the far distance, he made out a statue, or maybe a sign.

  If he could get there…

  He scrabbled around at his feet and found a chunk of cement. Then aiming for the shooter, he let it fly and took off, hoping York saw his movements.

  Maybe he’d hit the guy, because it gave him a few precious, fruitful seconds where he sprinted down the alleyway, heedless of the darkness, and right out into the square before the shots burned past him. One nicked the
dirt at his feet. Another dinged into the cement behind his head.

  He launched himself behind a towering pillar and clung to it as shots snicked off the plaster around him.

  Then, abruptly, the shooting stopped.

  He scrambled to his feet. Shouts, the sounds of a brawl, and in a second Ford found the figures in the darkness, grappling.

  York knew how to fight. Ford didn’t know what kind of training the guy had, but he could still feel a few of the man’s punches in his gut. Ford sprinted over to the tussle and found York on his back, the man on top of him also on his back. York’s arm was locked in a sleeper hold around his neck.

  Ford grabbed the shooter’s arms and held him down as he struggled.

  A few more seconds and finally the man went limp. York shoved him away, breathing hard.

  Ford got up, held out his hand.

  York considered it, then grabbed it. “Thanks. It’s been awhile since I had backup.”

  Ford had nothing for that because he’d possessed the same instinct to run for the shooter, alone.

  Who do you depend on?

  Scarlett’s voice crept over him, settled into his bones. Because he was exactly the lone wolf Ham had accused him of being.

  Maybe he was trying to prove something.

  “You got something to tie him up with?” Ford asked.

  “And then what?” York said. “We drag him down to the local authorities? We’re on the run, if you haven’t noticed. We gotta get out of here, hunker down and figure out what to do next.” York picked up the man’s gun and pocketed it.

  Only then did Ford hear the screaming from the alley. It lifted the gooseflesh on his skin, skittered down his spine.

  RJ!

  He sprinted for the alley and nearly plowed over Scarlett. He caught her arms. “What?”

  “It’s your sister. She’s been shot!”

  Oh…the words took him out at the throat, his breath gone.

  In that moment, York swore and sprinted past him.

  No…no… Please God, not like this…

  Scarlett had him by the shirt, was pulling him back to himself, down the alleyway.