“Excellent,” he said. “Then we have a deal.”
CHAPTER 9
St. Petersburg, two weeks ago…
Katya
The ride to the airport was cold, gray, and entirely too quiet. Not because the world outside lacked noise—St. Petersburg traffic was its own brand of chaos—but because each Dragunov carried himself with the quiet confidence of someone who knew exactly how many ways he could kill a man or seduce a woman with his hands alone.
Viktor kept glancing at me like he was remembering what my skin tasted like.
Andrei was curious of me in a way that made me blush a little bit.
And Mikhail was the kind of man whose silent intensity made heat pool low in my stomach.
They had escorted me out of Revenant headquarters and into the back of a sleek black SUV as if I belonged to them now. I didn’tprotest, at least not outwardly. A good operative knows when to speak and when to watch.
The airport terminal wasn’t a terminal, not really. It was more of an extension of elegant indulgence. A jet waited on the runway, matte black with what I assumed was the Dragunov family crest painted on the tail. If a plane could have an attitude, this one did, like it didn’t ask permission from air traffic control.
“After you,” Viktor murmured as we climbed the stairs.
I ignored the way his voice trailed down my spine.
Inside, the cabin was ridiculously luxurious with plush leather seats, dark wood accents, and elegantly soft lighting. There was a bar stocked with more expensive liquor than my entire childhood neighborhood had ever seen put together. The brothers moved through it with easy familiarity, like wolves pacing into a familiar den.
Viktor headed straight for the little bar, palmed a pack of cigarettes and a silver lighter off the counter, then sighed when Mikhail shot him a warning look.
“No smoking on the plane,” Mikhail said without turning.
Viktor tucked the pack back into his pocket with a put-upon groan. “This partnership is already abusive.”
I buckled in as the engines roared to life.
Viktor leaned across the aisle. “Nervous?”
“No,” I said flatly.
Andrei smirked. “She’s lying.”
Mikhail didn’t turn around from his seat at the front, but his voice carried back. “She doesn’t get nervous.”
I hated how that warmed me.
The jet took off smoothly, cutting above the clouds in no time. For the first forty minutes, no one spoke. Viktor stared out the window. Andrei was engrossed in something on his phone while occasionally stealing glances my way. Mikhail remained still, posture perfect, gaze on some point far beyond the glass. I busied myself by committing to memory what little Revenant had told me about this mission and playing on my own phone for several hours after that.
Eventually, Andrei unbuckled and wandered back, dropping into the seat across from me.
“We’ll be landing soon,” he said.
I nodded. “Dubai, right?”
“Not just Dubai,” Viktor added. “Dragunov Dubai. Very different.”
I glanced out the window as the city appeared, a glittering glass and steel crown rising from the desert, lights reflecting off the water.
“That,” I said, leaning closer to the glass and pointing to a building I saw down below, “is Revenant’s estate.”
Revenant had a sprawling compound that sat on the coastline like a modern fortress, with mirrored surfaces, private docks, and a pristine helipad where a sleek Revenant helicopter gleamed under bright security floodlights. The rotors glinted silver in the moonlight.
