Waiting was killing me, though. I couldn’t relax. I hated feeling nervous and I really hated having to be patient.
Nine hours. That’s how long it took him to get from southern China to Dubai. Nine hours where my mind kept replaying Viktor’s face. Nine hours imagining Kara, Roman, Lev, and Dmitri—all trapped in Revenant’s tower, drugged or bound or worse.
Nine hours replaying the moment Revenant’s senior interrogator looked at me with too-knowing eyes and said,
“Double agents never last long, Miss Volkov.”
By the time I heard a car pull up outside, headlights sweeping across the front windows, my heart felt like it was trying to escape my ribs. I moved toward the door on instinct, one hand on the handle, the other hovering near the knife I’d stolen from the Revenant lab corridor before escaping.
The door cracked open.
Andrei stepped inside, his face beard-shadowed from travel, his coat half-zipped, dark hair wind tossed. He closed the door behind him and locked it, scanning the room like a man expecting an ambush.
Only when he spotted me did something in his posture ease.
“Katerina,” he breathed out. “Thank God.”
I didn’t realize until that moment how close I was to coming apart. The sound of my name—my full name, shaped by his accent—hit me deep.
He crossed the room in three long strides and pulled me into him before I could protest.
For a heartbeat, I let myself melt into the warmth of him. He smelled like their private jet: leather, cold air, and adrenaline. His hands pressed against my back like he needed to make sure I wasn’t a hallucination.
Then I pushed against him lightly. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not,” he said softly, searching my face. “But you’re alive. That’s enough for now.”
His eyes held worry that made my throat burn. Andrei Dragunov didn’t worry easily. He hid it under humor and charm, but he wasn’t trying for that right now.
“What happened?” he asked.
I swallowed hard. “Revenant happened.”
He shoved a hand through his hair, pacing once before returning to me. “Start from the beginning.”
So I did. I told him everything—meeting Revenant’s envoy, the guards, the split-second we lost control of our plan. How Revenant had taken the Markovs and Kara captive. How Viktor dragged me into the service hallway so we could hit their meeting and instead walked us straight into an ambush. The separation from Viktor, the Markovs, and Kara, and the cold, gleaming interrogation wing they dragged me through. Theescape route I carved through the drainage system and the message I sent him with trembling fingers.
He listened in silence, jaw tight, shoulders pulled back.
When I finished, he leaned on the table, bracing himself like the weight of the world had just landed across his back.
“All of them. They took all of them,” I said quietly.
He swore viciously under his breath, something in Russian that sounded like a threat and a prayer tangled together.
“That’s not all,” I said, pacing. “They know I was playing both sides.”
“Katerina.” Andrei’s expression hardened instantly. “Why would they—? Did they say it?”
I just nodded.
He cursed again, running a hand down his face.
Finally, he pushed off the table and stepped closer.
“We’ll get them out,” he said. “All of them.”
I stared at him. “It’s not that simple.”
