“So how do you know he’s followin’ you?” Hew pressed.
The assassin’s lips flattened. They were painted the same shocking red as her hair. And since the lamplight in the cottage was dim, it cast her face in sharp planes and deep shadows.
The whole effect was like one of those campfire tales where the storyteller shines a flashlight up under their chin. Eerie. Ghoulish, even.
Fittin’ for an executioner.
“I know,” she insisted. “I can feel it. And you both understand what I mean by that.” She wagged a finger between Hew and Boss. “People like us know when we’re lined up in the center of somebody’s crosshairs.”
Hew balked at the idea of being lumped in with the likes of her. But he didn't say as much.
What would be the point? People like Black Widow did not distinguish between pulling the trigger for pay or patriotism.
And, ayuh, some might argue there was a fine line there. But the devil was in the details, and, for Hew, that little detail meant the difference between being able to look at himself in the mirror every morning and…not.
There’d only been one time when he’d ended a life outside the line of duty. It had been for justice. And if he lived to be one hundred years old, he wouldn’t spend a second regretting it.
“Maybe you’d better start from the top.” Boss leaned back in his chair, head cocked.
Black Widow laid it all out. How she’d spent the last half-dozen years scattering safe deposit boxes across the country, each one stocked with cash in case she ever needed to vanish. How she’d spent the last two weeks working her way through the states, emptying the boxes one by one.
“It was at the fifteenth up in Wisconsin I realized I was being watched,” she said. “I pulled every trick in the book to lose the tail, and when I was sure I’d shaken them, I came here.”
“Why?” Boss asked, one dark brow arched high. “Why come back to the place, why come back to the men, Bishop asked you to expose and kill?”
“Because I can’t go to anyone in my circle. I can’t trust anyone in my circle.” A muscle in her jaw jerked. “Someone gave Bishop my contact info to begin with. Who’s to say they’re not still working for him? Helping him?”
She took a deep breath and admitted through clenched teeth, “I need a way out of the country. And if anyone can secret me across the pond, it’s you guys.”
Hew snorted. The absolute audacity of this woman.
But it was Sabrina who voiced aloud his thoughts. “And you thought abducting me, again, was the way to gain our favor?”
Black Widow hitched one shoulder. “I knew you all wouldn’t listen to me unless I had leverage.”
Sabrina’s tone remained incredulous. “We already did you the ultimate favor by letting you go.” Her eyes didn’t shine like melted chocolate now. Oh, no. They flashed like fire on glass. “Why the hell would we give you additional aid?”
Hew looked at her then. Really looked. And saw no hints of the fear that had been in her face when he first blazed around the corner to find her arm-in-arm with the assassin.
Fuckin’-A. It had felt like it had taken forever to strap on his sidearm and fire up Freedom after her text came in. And by the time he’d actually reached her, he’d been nearly out of his skull with worry and dread.
But all of that had been forgotten the instant she climbed onto the back of his bike to slide her arms around his waist. Her touch after two weeks of absence lit up every nerve ending in his body like downed power lines. For a few beats of his heart, he’d thought of no one else. Not Bishop. Not Black Widow. Just her.
Just Sabrina.
“Because if Bishop doesn’t want me dead”—Black Widow’s voice cut through his thoughts—“if he wants me alive to question, then you can bet your ass I’ll tell him everything I know. About you. About this place. About your plans to hunt him down. If it means saving my own skin, I will gladly throw you guys under the bus.”
She let her eyes ping around the table before delivering her final volley. “So keeping me out of his psychotic clutches? Well, that behooves all of us, now doesn’t it?”
The irony of an assassin calling someone else a psycho nearly made Hew’s eyes roll into next week.
“Where do you want to go exactly?” Boss’s tone was still calm. Still emotionless.
Hew shot him a look. He wasn’t surprised Boss was considering helping the woman—she had a point about it being better for all of them if she was kept away from Bishop. But he was surprised Boss would even consider giving the woman a say in where they shipped her off to.
“Glad you asked.” Black Widow smiled, and it reminded Hew of a viper baring its fangs. “I’ve got the perfect spot.”
Hew only half-listened as Black Widow laid out her plans. His mind kept drifting to questions that refused to settle.
