I’d hated her for it then, the way she’d won without ever raising her voice, but I hadn’t stopped thinking about her since.
Not for a single day.
Now she was gone again.
This time, though, it wasn’t a game.
This time, her life was on the line, and I would gladly pay whatever the cost to get her out alive.
We parked a few blocks from the ARCHEON tower. The driver killed the engine and Roman stared straight ahead for a long beat before opening his door. I followed, my every nerve vibrating with tension. The others were already waiting beneath the skeleton of an unfinished parking structure, all concrete and shadows.
Dmitri stood waiting for us, his hands folded behind his back. A few paces away, Viktor Dragunov lounged against a pillar, cigarette glowing like a small, indifferent warning. A woman stood beside him. She had dark hair, green eyes, and the look of someone who had learned to accept that nothing would surprise her anymore. Two other familiar faces greeted me, Demyan Vostrikov and Grigor Petrov.
At the sight of Viktor specifically, my jaw tightened. “Why the hell is he here?” I asked Roman without thinking.
Viktor lifted his chin and that familiar, smug grin cut across his face. “Look who finally crawled out of ARCHEON’s ass,” he said, voice theatrical and bored all at once.
Roman’s reply to me was flat. “He’s here because we need him.”
I shot Roman a look. “You trusthim?”
“Not really,” he said. “But he’s useful.”
Viktor’s grin widened, the cigarette glowing between his fingers. “Oh, come on, Markov. Don’t look at me like that. I’m the fun kind of criminal.”
“You can just keep your distance,” I snapped. “My brother might be on board with whatever this is, but somebody better get busy convincing me this is a good idea.”
The woman stepped forward. She didn’t bother with smiles. “He’s joking,” she said. “Mostly.” She had an accent that folded Eastern Europe into every syllable.
Roman cleared his throat. “Lev, this is Katya. She works for a group called Revenant.”
I was familiar with the organization. I had dealings with them several times in the past, but they had always left a bad taste in my mouth.
I didn’t like them, not one bit.
I looked over at the girl one more time, and I’m sure that my distrust was written all over my face, but there was no time to delve into it any further because things changed in an instant.
“She’s moving,” Demyan spoke up, his face illuminated by the soft blue glow of his tablet screen.
Everyone went still.
I stepped forward, boots crunching against gravel and broken glass. “What? Who? Where?”
Demyan angled the screen toward me. “Your woman. They’ve taken her south of Jebel Ali. Looks like they’re heading straight for the port.”
“Can you tell where they’re taking her?”
Demyan adjusted the screen again, then locked in a zoomed feed. “There’s a ship already on standby. It’s a bulk freighter. Name’sOrion Dawn. Flying a Panamanian flag, but she’s been pinging dead zones for the past six months. This is a ghost ship.”
“They’re smuggling her out like cargo,” Katya muttered, her arms crossed, eyes narrowed. “The moment she’s below deck on that ship, the signal will be lost. She’ll be gone.”
“If we don’t move now,” Dmitri added, “we’ll never find her again.”
CHAPTER 26
Kara
I had always known they were going to take me. That was always part of the plan, but as my eyes flickered open and my head pounded like a drum, it all felt like it was falling apart.
