He met her eyes again, and for the first time, they glistened. “Me too.”
She stepped up to him and put her arms around his torso. He clasped her to himself, his heartbeat against her ear slowing. Steady.
In tune with hers.
Finally.
“I can’t believe you’re in Russia,” he said quietly.
“Me too.” She leaned back. “Aren’t you going to get into trouble? How did you get leave?”
“It’s a long story.” He smiled down at her. “I will always show up for you, RJ. Always.”
She knew he meant the words to reassure her, but oddly, they reached in and turned her cold. And when she closed her eyes, as he drew her again against his chest, she heard Coco’s raspy breathing as she lay beneath her on the pavement, her moans as the bullets pinged the truck overhead.
RJ should have pulled her under the truck, but she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.
“Hey.” Ford’s voice tugged her away from the darkness, and she opened her eyes. “She’s going to be okay.”
She looked up at him.
“Coco.”
Right. Because he could still read her mind.
“I’m going to get you out safely, RJ. I promise.”
“And I’m going to get you out safely too. Because maybe I shouldn’t have stopped you from trying to save us, but figured out how to go with you.”
He grinned at that, something sweet, and for a second she saw the brother she’d known better than herself. Proud, strong, faithful, determined, and yes, just reckless enough to save them all.
Scarlett had seen this coming. And yet, like a golden retriever, she’d followed Ford across sea and borders hoping…oh, she was such an idiot. She sank down on the bench, her hands wrapped around herself, steeling herself against the cold metal, the frigid breath of the metro station, watching as Ford clung to his sister.
His words echoed into her heart, banged around. I will always show up for you, RJ. Always.
Of course he would. She was his sister.
Scarlett was petty and small and selfish to think that those words belonged to her.
Had been spoken only for her.
But now, at last, she knew why Ford liked her, why he wanted her in his life.
She was the replacement for the sister he’d lost. And sure, he’d kissed her—something quite different from a sister, hello—but every single time Scarlett had been the one kissing him first.
At the ranch, weeks ago. In Prague. On the train to Moscow. Even on the plane, she’d been the one to initiate something more from the kiss he’d placed on her forehead.
A very sisterly kiss.
That she’d turned into something more.
Scarlett closed her eyes. Heard her stupid, heartbreaking words. I’d let you make me a promise, if you wanted. Could nearly feel his fingers against her skin as he said, Oh, I want.
Of course he did. He was a red-blooded American male, and she’d nearly thrown herself at him.
Not nearly. All the way.
She’d barely stopped to pack a suitcase when he suggested they jump on a plane for their Epic Adventure.
What are you doing here?
Good question, but she heard it anew now, in the voice of Yanna, the pretty FSB agent who had saved her hide back in Moscow.
Yanna had brought them back to an apartment on the ninth floor of a secure building. Scarlett guessed it might be a safe house, but it was stocked with precious amenities, like a shower, shampoo, soap, and even fresh clothing that was delivered as Yanna made them tea in the kitchen.
Then, while Ford showered too, Yanna sat down with her, across the table. Her long sable hair was pulled up in a bun, and she wore a black dress, her body lean and strong. She looked every inch some exotic spy, a woman of intrigue and danger, and next to her Scarlett felt like a third grader.
Brittle and hungry, too, and rattled from her attack on the elevator at the hotel.
Maybe Yanna knew that, because she made the tea strong. “What are you doing here?”
Scarlett knew she wasn’t asking for the facts—the woman probably knew more about their situation than she did. No, Yanna had met her eyes, and the question slid deep, tugging.
“I…because…”
“You’re not an agent. And you’re not…an operator. I can tell you’re afraid. So…”
It was a good question. She gave a lame answer that made her cringe and reach for the tea. “Ford asked me to come with him.”
Yanna made a sound of understanding.
“We work together. We’re friends.” Scarlett had put down the cup. Ran her finger around the rim. “He needed me.”
But even she knew how hollow that sounded. Ford needed her like he needed a sucking chest wound. She’d been nothing but trouble—even her so-called save in Prague was nothing but sheer luck.
He would have gotten his information from Roy without her. Roy just wanted to have some fun, probably.
To her surprise, however, Yanna said, “He does need you.”
Scarlett frowned.
“He didn’t need David.” She raised an eyebrow, added a smile. “The man wasn’t going to stop until he found you.”
“It’s because he’s a SEAL. He has a creed.”
“He has a…what is it they say in America? A crush.”
Scarlett looked out the window, past Yanna, across the skyline of Moscow, the blue skies beyond. Oh, she had wanted to believe her.
Too much.
She was smarter than this. Her mother had taught her better than this. Scarlett knew men. Could see down the road, knew that eventually they broke a woman’s heart. Probably that’s what propelled her question to Yanna. “How can you marry a man who is, at least not formally, but in theory could be the enemy of your country? Aren’t you afraid of him betraying you?”
“No,” she said. “David would do anything for me.” She met Scarlett’s eyes. “He nearly died for me. Came to find me when I was in way over my head. And he loved me long before he could have me. He waited until I was ready.”
She took a sip of tea. “Actually, I would have given myself to him long before then, but he was a Christian and he had rules.”
And right then, Scarlett liked her. “Ford has rules too.”
“Good.” Yanna handed her a stack of thick cookies. “These are pareniki. Molasses cookies.”
Scarlett took one. “My mother used to make these.”
“Not like we do in Russia. Sometimes, when we were young, we’d run out of sugar, and still the factories would pump them out. We’d all eat them and pretend we liked them.” She smiled. “But sometimes something looks so good, you just have to have it, right? And pretend to like it, even if it’s terrible, just to prove you didn’t make a mistake.”
Scarlett put the cookie down. “Are you saying I made a mistake coming to Russia?”
“Nyet. Just… It’s okay to be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid. I’m just…wary.”
“Of Russia? Good.”
She nodded, but no.
“Ah, see, you forget. I know when people are lying.” Yanna raised an eyebrow.
“Right. FSB.”
“No. Actually, I grew up with a mother who bought every lie a man told her. I knew how to recognize them.”
Scarlett stared at her. Frowned. “I…knew…someone like that.”
Yanna leaned back, folded her arms. “I see it now. The reason you didn’t panic when those men attacked you. You were good, you know. Calm.”
“Yeah. It’s not until after I get out of trouble that I throw up.” She wasn’t entirely kidding. “But that wasn’t my first run-in with a guy who wasn’t well-behaved.”
Something flashed in Yanna’s eyes, a shared understanding perhaps. Her mouth thinned to a dark line. “I learned quickly that depending on a man made me weak. So I refused to be weak. Until I got in over my head. And that’s when I realized that I didn’t have to be the strongest one in the room. That maybe G
od had sent David. And that got my attention. David reminded me that maybe I wasn’t alone.”
A dove landed on the window, began to pick at breadcrumbs left on a plate outside.
Scarlett didn’t know why—maybe it was the sound of the shower running in the next room—but Ford tiptoed into her head with his lethal, beautiful words. Maybe that’s why God sent me into your life because whatever happens, I will show up for you, Red.
Heaven help her, she believed him. “My mother fell for any guy who looked her way. She was desperate for love. And when she found it, there wasn’t room in her life for more than one.” She broke apart the cookie into smaller bites, eating a few of the pieces. “I guess I’m here because I don’t like being left behind.”
Yanna reached across the table and touched her hand. “I will never leave you or forsake you.”
Huh? Scarlett frowned and Yanna laughed.
“It’s from a Bible story. David likes to tell it to the children—it’s about Moses of the Old Testament, and right before he dies, he tells his people that God will go with them. That they won’t be alone. All they have to do is call out to Him, and He’ll be there. Every time. He does not forsake His people.”
Scarlett picked up her plate and walked to the window. Opened it. “I’m used to being alone.”
“Maybe. But it doesn’t mean you’re meant to be alone.”
The dove flew away, but she put the cookie crumbs out for it. “I don’t need promises. They’ll just get broken, like you said.”
“Not with the right man. Didn’t you say Ford was some sort of Spetsnaz?”
Scarlett frowned.
“Special Forces?”
“Yes, he’s a SEAL. We’re both in the Navy, and for the past three years I’ve been his radio contact. Relaying orders, keeping him informed of what the drone sees.”
“You’re his partner.”
“No. I’ve just been his eyes and ears. His fellow teammates are his partners. But we did have a connection. It started me thinking that I wanted more… I think I let myself believe that I wanted to be part of his spec ops world. And not just him—I liked the idea of rescuing someone, not being the rescuee anymore. So I asked to try out to be a Rescue Swimmer.”
She turned, her back to the window.
Yanna had turned too. “Oy.”
“I passed the initial test. And he helped me. But the thing is, in order to save someone, you can’t let them hang on to you. You have to push them away, get control of the situation.”
She looked past Yanna to the hallway where Ford might appear any moment.
“I feel like I’m holding on too hard to Ford. That he’s drowning. And he’s too polite to push me away.”
“Oh, maya doragaya. That is just your fears talking. You don’t see things as they are—you only see through the window of your past, through the things you believe. I know—I thought David could never love someone like me. With my fractured past, with my broken beliefs. But my past made me who I was, and he loved that person. I wouldn’t be who I was without that past. Don’t let your past decide your future. Open your eyes and see what I see. Ford is holding on just as hard.”
Ford had picked right then to show up, a towel raised to his hair, scrubbing it dry. He had worn a clean shirt, unbuttoned, and a pair of black pants, and her traitorous gaze had gone to the dark hair on his chest, the ripple of muscle along his stomach. Those pale green eyes that latched on her and swept away everything but the longing that maybe, just maybe, Yanna was right.
Ford is holding on just as hard.
Yanna’s words filled her head now as she sat on the train station bench, her eyes painfully, fully open.
Ford did need her—needed her to watch his back, listen to him after an op, and sure, he would be glad to kiss her when she threw herself at him.
But he wasn’t holding on to her. Not anymore.
Maybe not ever.
She made herself a little ill with her own weakness.
She might not ever be a Rescue Swimmer, but she had the grit to at least qualify. She’d helped him find his sister, and that was enough.
More, she’d lived just fine by herself for a decade, not needing Ford or any other man to rescue her. Protect her. Get her home safely.
She had a life waiting for her back at home. One that included a brother who needed her.
Ford released RJ, and Scarlett stood up. “I’m going to check on the train,” she said, his partner on this op.
Then she headed up the stairs toward the platform.
The sun was just barely denting the east, the lights casting an eerie pallor of gray and black over the train yard. Quiet, dark trains on tracks sat in wait. Overhead, a light buzzed. Not quite 0400, perhaps. According to the schedule she’d checked, the train to Petropavl on the border of Kazakhstan left just after four. She turned, and in the distance, she barely made out the pinpricks of lights slicing through the darkness.
The breeze slicked up, and she wrapped her hands around herself. Shivered.
“You’re a pretty thing to be lost in Siberia, aren’t you?”
She froze.
Turned.
Swallowed hard as the man she’d seen in the hotel, the blond with the clubbed ears, gray suit, and obsidian eyes, reached out and grabbed her by the throat.
It happened so fast, she didn’t have time to scream, to get a hand up to stop him. His thumb pressed into the well of her throat even as she grabbed his wrist.
Ford!
Except he was below with his sister, and she couldn’t depend on him to show up every time, despite what he said.
“Thank you,” Blondie said, yanking her close, breathing a haze of vodka into her ear. “I’d lost the trail.”
For a split second, she was again fifteen. Alone in her bedroom as Gary pressed her against the wall.
Only, this time her brain didn’t go blank, void of her self-defense training. The Navy had taught her to stay cool. Keep her wits.
Made her who she was today.
She drove her knee up with everything inside her.
Connected.
He grunted and loosened his grip. She turned his wrist out, broke away, and then she hit him hard in the jaw with her open palm.
He stumbled back, just a step, but it was enough for her to put her foot in his chest.
It knocked him away and she turned to run.
Except—the tracks cordoned off her escape.
She whirled back around, stymied, and her breath caught.
Ford had come barreling up the stairs, took two steps toward the man, and leaped at him.
Blondie turned and landed his fist into Ford’s solar plexus.
Ford made a terrible sound, his breath whuffing out. His knees buckled.
Behind him, RJ breached the entrance and screamed.
Blondie sent his fist into Ford’s face, dazed him.
Then Scarlett, too, screamed as the man grabbed Ford and with one heave, threw him off the platform and onto the tracks.
Into the path of the oncoming train.
“Ford!”
Scarlett watched in horror as Blondie advanced on RJ, grabbed her around the throat, and shoved her against the cement entry to the metro station.
No—no—
The train barreled into the station.
10
Get. Up.
Ford shouldn’t just lie there, in the oily gravel between the sets of tracks, gasping for air, but his body had turned to liquid with the realization that he’d nearly been cut in half.
Instinct, a thousand hours fighting through one impossible evolution after another in BUD/S, and every leg of his STQ training had propelled him off the tracks just as the train rolled in.
He touched his chest. Yes. Alive. Breathing.
Scarlett!
He remembered seeing the man in the hotel—and it didn’t take a genius for him to realize that he’d followed them from Moscow.
Why didn’t matter.
He rolled
over to his knees, breathing in hard, fighting to fill his lungs, to clear his vision. His breath whooshed in, and he roared to his feet, turning to find a way through the mess. His feet crunched under the stones and dirt.
The train blocked off his path to the station, slowing as it rumbled by. In between the cars, he made out Scarlett and RJ grappling with someone.
Ford ran, caught the edge of the stairs, and swung himself up between cars. Crossed to the other side. Leaped out onto the platform, nearly stumbled, but found his feet.
The man had vanished.
RJ slumped against the cement wall that led down to the metro. She’d dragged his pack up with her, still clutched in her grip.
Scarlett held a hand to her eye, breathing hard.
Overhead the lights bore down on them, turning the scene sickly yellow.
“RJ!” He ran to her, crouching in front of her. “What happened?”
She clutched her throat, her eyes wide. “He tried to choke me—I think. He…”
“He kissed her.” Scarlett ran up, her eyes hard on him. “He grabbed her by the throat and kissed her.”
Ford’s insides curdled, sick with the thought. “Did he want to rape you?”
“I don’t think so. He said he didn’t have to kill me because I was…” She blew out a breath. “I was more fun alive.”
What? The train had stopped for its short stay in-station. “We need to get on that train. Now. Before he comes back, maybe with friends.”
“No!”
RJ’s words yanked him back.
“We need to go after him, Ford. What if he’s Damien Gustov?”
“He was in Moscow. He followed us here,” Scarlett said.
For the first time Ford saw why she held her hand to her face. A terrible bruise swelled the skin around her eye.
“He hit you!” He winced and reached for Scarlett’s hand.
She jerked away from him. “It’s fine.”
He frowned, but let his hand drop. “What happened? I turned around and you were gone.”
“I told you I was going to check on the train. He grabbed me from behind and I just reacted.”
RJ climbed to her feet. “Let’s go.”
“Why did you take off? You shouldn’t leave, Red. You could have been killed.” Ford reached out for her again, but she slapped his hand away. What—?
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