I let him warm me up with a hot shower and two orgasms, and the next day, I resume complaining about the weather—that way, no one will think it strange if I keep asking for a daily forecast.
As I’m doing all this, the guys are engaged in planning of their own. After a long break to throw the authorities off their scent, the team agreed to take on another job—a highly paid, highly dangerous assassination of a politician in Turkey.
I’ve been trying not to think about it, because each time I do, I get so anxious I can’t eat or sleep. After what happened in Nigeria, just hearing the word “job” raises my blood pressure.
“Why do you have to do this?” I ask Peter in frustration as mid-October—the client’s deadline to complete the job—draws nearer. “You said yourself, it’s especially dangerous out there for you these days. You got paid millions—millions—for that Nigerian banker. You can’t have gone through all that money so quickly.”
“Of course not, but we have to think ahead,” Peter says. “Aside from some of our more expensive toys, our hackers cost a fortune, and we need them to continue evading the authorities—and searching for Henderson.”
Shaking my head, I take a breath and head into my recording studio, both to distract myself with music and to avoid another argument. Because if Peter is inflexible about the necessity for these jobs, he’s absolutely immovable on the topic of Henderson—the one man still remaining on his list. The one time I cautiously brought up the possibility of forgetting the general and moving on, Peter shot me down so harshly I haven’t been inclined to try again.
“He personally issued the order for the Daryevo operation,” my captor snarled, his handsome face so twisted with rage it was unrecognizable. “He did this”—he shoved the phone with pictures of the massacre at me—“and I’m not going to rest until he and anyone who’s helping him are rotting with the worms, just like the corpses of my wife and son.”
I nodded then, backing off, because as much as I’d like to pretend otherwise, I do understand Peter’s need for vengeance. I can’t imagine losing people I care about in such a horrible way, and I know it had to have been even worse for him. From everything he’s told me, those short years with Pasha and Tamila were the only time he’s experienced anything resembling family and love.
Last week, for the first time, Peter talked a little bit about his son. It was after he woke up from a nightmare about his family’s deaths, his big body shaking and covered with cold sweat. He reached for me then and f*cked me, and in the quiet aftermath, he admitted how much he misses his little boy—how acutely he still feels his absence.
“Pasha was… life,” he told me raggedly. “I don’t even know how to explain it. I’d never met a child who took such joy in the mere act of existing. Birds, insects, trees, the sky and the rocks—everything was new to him, everything was fun. And he had so much energy. Tamila could barely keep up with him. He drove her crazy. And cars…” His powerful chest rose with a deep breath. “He loved cars. He wanted to be a race car driver when he grew up.”
“Oh, Peter…” I lay my hand over his. “He sounds wonderful.”
“He was,” Peter whispered, turning his palm up to squeeze my fingers, and the intensity of pain in those words gutted me to the quick.
For all of his obsession with me, my captor is still grieving the loss of his family—the people he truly loved.
38
Sara
* * *
As mid-October approaches, the men’s preparations for the Turkey job ramp up, and I decide that this is going to be my opportunity.
If they do the same thing as the last time, leaving one man to watch over me, I may be able to sneak away unseen—especially if my jailer is going to be as occupied as Yan was during the Nigeria gig.
“So,” I casually ask Peter during one of our walks, “what’s the plan next week? Is Yan staying behind again?”
To my surprise, Peter shakes his head. “He can’t. None of us can this time. The security around the politician is too multi-layered; we’ll need all four of us to get to him.”
My heartbeat jumps into sudden hope territory. Trying not to sound too eager, I say, “That makes sense. I’ll be fine here. There’s plenty of food and—”
“No, ptichka.” Peter reaches for my hand, settling it in the crook of his elbow. “I’m not leaving you here alone, don’t worry.”
I swallow my disappointment and attempt to give him a guileless look as we resume walking. “Why? It’s not like I can get down, so—”
“Exactly.” Peter shoots me a sardonic glance. “You can’t get down, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be tempted to try. Besides, I don’t want to leave you stranded here if something happens to us.”
“But then what will you do with me?” I ask, genuinely confused. “Are you going to bring me with you on the job?”
“No, of course not, though Yan did propose that. The preppy bastard wants a doctor on hand in case of any injuries,” Peter says with a grimace. “No, I’m waiting to hear back from someone, and once I do, I’ll let you know what the plan is.”
“What?” I frown up at him. “Hear back from whom? About what?”
“Don’t worry about it right now,” Peter says and holds up a branch to let me pass underneath. “If it doesn’t work out, there’s a plan B, but Plan A is much better, trust me.”
* * *
I learn what Plan A is two days before the men are due to fly out.
“You’re going to leave me in Cyprus with an illegal arms dealer?” I gape at Peter, so shocked I forget I’m in the middle of taking off my jeans. “And that’s better than leaving me here because…?”
Peter sits down on the bed. “Because he and his wife owe me a favor,” he explains, pulling off his shirt. “So if anything happens to me, they’ve promised to return you home. You’ll be safe with them until I’m able to retrieve you, and if, for whatever reason, I’m not… Well, you’ll get what you say you want, my love. Your old life will be yours again.”
Stunned, I finish undressing and sit down on the bed next to him, clad only in my underwear. “But another criminal? How do you know you can trust him? What if he double-crosses you? You did say there’s a price on your head…”
Peter shrugs, his eyes roving over my nearly naked body. “Like I said, Lucas Kent owes me a favor, and he doesn’t need the reward money. He used to be second-in-command to Julian Esguerra, a powerful weapons dealer, and now he’s his boss’s partner in some ventures. The reward money doesn’t move the needle for him, and neither would whatever favor he could curry with the authorities by turning me in.”
“Oh.” Something nags at the back of my mind, some tidbit I can’t quite recall. Then it comes to me. “Wait, is this Kent the arms dealer you mentioned before? The one who got you your list?”
“No, actually, that was his boss, Esguerra,” Peter says, reaching behind my back. “Or technically, Esguerra’s wife, as Esguerra had sworn to kill me at that point.”