Page 93 of Bought By Sin

A man shouted downstairs, and the pfft of a gun with a silencer followed.

I raised my gun and took up a position at the door. “Hurry.”

She did. She didn’t need to wait for my order for that. Rummaging through the papers and rifling all over the desk, she made a mess of searching for whatever looked important.

More commotion down below.

I stopped watching Mila, instead focusing on keeping coverage around the doorframe but staying sharp and alert for anyone coming. “Hurry,” I repeated sternly, even though I knew she heard me the first time.

“I just need to find a drive or something or…” She let out a frustrated noise, and the clatter of something falling off the desk reached my ears. “It looks too important to pass up on. Like correspondence with someone who has a governmental email address or…”

“Hurry!”

Worried that she was taking too long, I tried to stay in control of all that I could. Ushering her out of here and making sure she was covered from a hit was what I could control. But letting her linger, all to get something off this desk?

Her life mattered more.

So did mine.

Obtaining intel was a critical part of this operation. We had to know as much as we could about Yusef Antonov’s former plans. Anything that Gregori delegated him to do could be an opening for us to attack or foil their plans.

Balancing the needs of getting information and keeping us alive ate away at my frayed nerves. On the comms unit, the soldiers checked in. Reporting that they were under fire and where the guards were rushing in from, we maintained a cohesive unit in the enemy territory.

But at any second, if more than one target rushed up the stairs and cornered me and Mila in here, I would need to make the executive decision to tell her to leave. To run with me.

“I know there’s got to be something vital here…” Her voice was stressed, anxious with the urgency of the disaster unfolding down below.

Impatient to whisk her away, like I had twice before and managed to save her, I volleyed my gaze back and forth between her and the door.

“Hurry…” I warned, tightening my grip on the gun, bracing myself with a bend in my knee.

At any second, I’d need to sprint out of this situation.

And I wasn’t leaving without her.

I couldn’t leave her to chance, either.

“Hurry!” I barked as my pulse quickened even more.

The idea of losing her was too horrid to comprehend.

34

MILA

Lev didn’t need to remind me that I had no time to search and hunt for files. I heard the same commotion that he did downstairs. I felt the vibrations of gunfire.

“Please, Mila.” He raised his arms higher, trying to swivel his gaze between me, the other connector door to the office, and then the main entrance off the hallway.

“I’m hurrying…” I winced, feeling like a ticking bomb was counting down and about to blow.

There!

I grabbed the drives that slid out and smacked against the inner slot of a drawer as I yanked on the knob to open it. They crashed into each other, but it didn’t matter. They’d hold up. The plastic sticks were outdated, but I wasn’t going to complain.

Much like how I memorized the landscape and routes that were pertinent to smuggling runs, I had memorized the abbreviations on that list that I found in the other meeting space on the first floor. They matched. I didn’t know exactly what they meant, but if the odds were high that they led to a labeling system of confidential papers and files, then it was exactly what we needed.

What we needed.