She stared up at me until I looked back down at her. Her braid had come undone, and wisps fluttered around her face.She had a wary look in her eyes. “Going forward, you need to leave me alone.”
I recognized the look on her face. The last time she had worn it, she was staring at Sergei. “You know I can’t do that.”
“This,” she swept her hand in front of her, “this stupid pretend thing is over between us.”
When she tried to walk away, I reached out and grabbed her wrist. “You know we’re not done.”
“Let go of me,” she said in a cold voice.
I immediately dropped her wrist. “Get some sleep. We’ll talk later.”
Her eyes flashed with emotions, but she didn’t bother to argue. She just turned and walked away.
I watched her retreat, keeping my eyes on her until she made it to the back patio and disappeared safely inside the house.
I managedto get four hours of sleep before I had to connect with Yuri for an emergency meeting. I figured he wanted a debrief on what had just happened, but usually he waited for the storm to clear before he tried to connect.
I walked down the hallway. No one in the kitchen looked up when I walked through to the back.
I stopped short at the door when I saw a stunning woman sitting next to Yuri at the table. She was tall and voluptuous with long, straight blonde hair and a face that could have hit any runway.
“You lost?” I said without thinking.
She laughed warmly, immediately breaking the ice.
Yuri threw me a look. “Giselle, forgive my agent’s bad manners. This is Axel.”
She gave me a smile that was surprisingly open, and her French Canadian accent was soothing. “Pleased to meet you.”
I sat down on the hard wooden chair across from them. “And you are?”
Axel spoke for her. “Giselle is your equivalent in Vancouver. She’s been working undercover for the RCMP, trying to get the Volkov family behind bars.”
She took her turn. “Their operation based in Vancouver has been responsible for an increasingly violent conflict with Grisha’s men. From our perspective, it’s been a struggle to contain. The violence is going public, and it’s getting messy.”
I rubbed my face. “Expect it to get worse. Tonight Grisha’s family came under four different coordinated attacks from the Volkovs, one of which involved his wife and niece. Now he’s on a warpath, and the typical retaliation for an attack at this level is to escalate it beyond the initial attack.”
Giselle frowned as she thumbed through the files. “Mila holds a Canadian passport. She’s the one they are trying to marry off to Sergei, who will be moving to Vancouver to run Grisha’s chapter there?” She looked up at me. “Yuri mentioned you were dating her?”
I looked at Yuri, but he avoided my eyes. “I think dating is an exaggerated term in this situation.”
“Is there any chance you could go to Vancouver instead of Sergei?”
I looked at Yuri to see how he handled her attempt to change our mission, something we’d been working on for three long years.
To my surprise, he nodded in agreement.
I kept the incredulity off my face and shrugged with casual indifference. “Grisha pulls all the strings. I’m just one string.”
“Our organization in Canada could offer you full immunity and support if you married Mila and moved to Vancouver. Wecould use someone like you on the inside. I’d feed you intel about the Volkov family and we could work together to secure convictions against both families.”
“Married.” I cleared my throat, stuck on the word. The image of Mila standing in the middle of the chaos and avoiding my gaze like I was the monster haunted me. “We’re not dating. Grisha only thinks we’re together. I’m just a decoy she’s using to avoid marriage.”
“It would really help us out,” Yuri suggested in a calm tone, like I was being unreasonable.
My gaze swung to him. “What are you saying?”
“Headquarters thinks that if we work in tandem with the Canadians, we can cast a wider net, but in order for that to happen, we need you to be the one to take over in Vancouver.”
