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“But…” I exhale noisily, rubbing my temples. “I left the key in a jacket on the back seat of my car when I went to pay for gas.”

And a vanilla Coke.

A vanilla Coke I bought just for Viktoriya because I knew she’d like it.

A vanilla Coke I poured directly into the gutter while I was waiting for Alexei, cursing her name with every single drop.

Another silence, longer this time. I can feel him filing away every piece of information I’ve handed him.

Out of nowhere, my mind serves up the memory of her flushed and panting beneath me on that bed, her thighs trembling against my shoulders, and the exact, shattered sound she made when she came apart on my tongue. I can still taste her when I think about it.

My eyes drift closed to savor the memory when I snap them open again. I can’t think about her like that right now. Not with Alexei watching me like he already knows I’m completely fucking done for.

Suddenly, red and blue lights flare into life behind us. I stare into the side mirror, my whole body locking up. A moment later, the patrol car pulls out in front of us and races down the highway, its taillights disappearing into the dark.

I think of Viktoriya, a hundred miles or more ahead of me, driving a car that’s probably been flagged by now. No ID. No one with her. The way she went for that trooper tells me she’s had a terrible run-in with the law in the past, and imagining her being questioned, while fear knots inside her, makes my chest feel tight.

Alexei notices my sharp reaction to the siren. “Cops don’t normally make you so jumpy.”

“Yeah, well. We beat up a cop a few miles back.”

“We beat up a cop?”

“It’s a long story. I just need to find her. Nothing else matters.”

“We’ll find her.” A statement, not comfort. “But what I don’t understand is how you let her get away in the first place.”

“You don’t know her!” I burst out before I can stop myself. “You didn’t meet her. That girl is the fucking devil.”

For the first time since I got in his car, Alexei turns his head. Those sharp, lethal eyes focus on me, and his shrewd attention is incredibly uncomfortable at close range.

“Sounds like you like her.”

“Don’t.” The word comes out harder and darker than I intend. I turn my face to the window and watch the fields blur, refusing to let myself think about the way she smelled when I held her, or the sound she made when she finally stopped crying. “Just fucking don’t.”

My rule to never get close to an asset exists for a reason. I broke it the second I let her sob on my chest. I kissed her in the moonlight, and I fucking whistled while I bought her a vanilla Coke, already anticipating her pretty smile. I was going to unscrew it for her, watch her take a swallow, and then kiss those sweet lips clean.

I slam my fist into the door armrest, earning a dangerous glower from Alexei, hoping the physical pain in my hand will distract me from the hollow ache in my chest.

It doesn’t work, so I pull my phone out of my pocket and make the call I’ve been dreading.

Despite the late hour, Dragan answers after two rings. “Komarov. Are you bringing her in?”

“I lost her. Viktoriya. She gave me the slip.”

There’s a silence on the line that contains multitudes. “She what?”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Listen. I need you to arrange something for me when I get back to the city. I want to meet the husband. Something doesn’t sit right with me about this job. She didn’t want to go home, and it wasn’t me she was afraid of. Can you set it up?”

My mind flashes back to the gas station parking lot, watching my own taillights disappear into the dark, watching her drive away from me in sheer desperation. I feel her body quaking with sobs against mine. I remember how fast she lost her mind with that cop.

Dragan is talking, but his words wash over me. Something irritating about my professionalism and how I don’t get to call the shots. But then something he says penetrates the noise, and I sit up straight, my eyes snapping open.

Several pieces of a bigger picture that have been free-floating in my head suddenly slam together, and I don’t like the shape they make.

It can’t be true.

There’s no way in hell I could be so completely wrong about Viktoriya.