Chapter 4
Chapter 4
Fearghas sloshed alongside Catya, his soaked clothing making him cold to the bone. The only thing warming him inside was the hand he held in his. He held her hand like it might be the last time he would get to do it. And it might be.
When she’d left him in Athens, he’d responded to her text with dozens of his own, concluding that she’d probably removed her sim card to keep anyone from tracking her.
He’d become complacent, thinking she’d given up her life as an assassin to spend it with him. He’d thought she’d loved him, even if she hadn’t said those three elusive words.
Then again, he hadn’t told her how he felt, certain a declaration of love would scare her off. As it had turned out, revealing his true feelings hadn’t been necessary to scare her off. She’d made love with him one last time and disappeared, leaving behind traces of their time together that haunted him to the moment he’d received her call.
Catya hadn’t taken the clothes or toiletries she’d accumulated. However, she had taken the gold necklace with the infinity loop he’d purchased from a vendor near the Acropolis. The necklace hadn’t been expensive, but she’d admired it. He’d liked the message inherent in the symbol and had bought it for her, placing it around her neck and kissing her in the moonlight.
He kind of understood why she might have left. After all, she was an assassin. Her job was killing people. Maybe she was afraid to let her guard down and love someone. Love was a weakness—an Achilles heel to be used against her.
No matter the reason she’d left, she’d contacted him to warn of danger headed his way. That meant she cared.
When Fearghas had received the call, his heart had filled with happiness and hope, quickly followed by fear for her life. He couldn’t do as she’d asked and hide until the situation blew over. He had to be there with her.
The woman worked alone. No one had her back. She’d need help to find Atkins and the disk. Then she’d need help identifying the people who’d set her up with Atkins and then tried to kill her when he’d disappeared with the disk.
Catya was lucky to be alive. The explosion should have killed her. Had the pair of gunmen who’d been tasked with making sure she died been half as good as their target, she wouldn’t have made it out of the townhouse.
He’d come to protect her, only for her to protect him from the thugs who’d tried to capture him on the bridge.
Determined to be more of an asset than a liability, he became hyper-aware of everything around him—every shadow, movement or noise. When the man had appeared out of the side street, Fearghas had almost pulled the trigger on his gun. Fortunately, his training had stayed the urge to squeeze that finger until the man had disappeared down the other street. He hadn’t taken the man’s disappearance at face value. Instead, he’d looked over his shoulder every chance he could get.
Catya zigzagged through the narrow streets until she arrived at the back of a church. After a glance around, she pushed through an overgrown bush, pulling him in behind her. A short, angular door had been built into the side of a set of stone stairs leading up into the back of the church.
Catya retrieved an old-fashioned skeleton key from behind a loose stone in the wall and unlocked the door.
“That’s the only lock?” he whispered, thinking of all the locks, safe rooms and security cameras he’d had installed at his place in Athens.
“I’m careful not to lead people here,” she said, stepping through the door and down a set of worn stone steps into a hidden room in the church's basement. Although small, the room had everything she might need, from a small kitchenette to a minuscule bathroom with a shower barely large enough for one person to step inside and close the curtain.
A single bed took up one corner against the cool stone wall and a potbellied stove stood in another corner with a pipe extending upward into the ceiling and venting to some unknown location. Two spindly chairs graced each side of a narrow table pushed up against the wall by the kitchenette.
Catya crossed to a wooden wardrobe against another wall, opened a door and reached inside.
She pulled out an oversized sweatshirt and a pair of men’s trousers. “These should work while your clothes dry,” she said.
He took the items, frowning. “Do you always keep clothes for men?”
Catya cocked an eyebrow. “Are you jealous?”
His lips twisted. “Maybe.” He didn’t own this woman. She was free to be with anyone she wanted.
Her lips curled. “I keep clothes that are too big for me in case I disguise myself as a large man.” She shrugged. “And they’re comfortable and warm when I want to lay around and read a book.”
“Do you do that often?” he asked.
Her lips quirked upward. “No. I try to keep in shape when I’m not working.”
Fearghas glanced around at the small room. “Is this where you went when you left…Athens?” He’d almost said when you left me but caught himself.
“Among other places,” she said, her attention on the bed in the corner. Catya leaned down, gripped the wood platform the mattress rested on, and lifted it.
Like a Murphy bed, the mattress and platform folded up against the wall, and a small desk dropped down with a computer monitor affixed to the underside of the bed. On the desk was a laptop.
Catya pulled one of the chairs over from the minuscule dining table and sat in front of the computer. “The shower is small, but the water is warm,” she said without looking back at him.
Feeling dismissed, he held the dry clothes away from his body and crossed to the bathroom. “I’ll just be a minute. Are you going to be all right?”
“I locked the door. It’s old but sturdy. If anyone tries to get in, they must work at it.” She cast a glance his way. “You’ll find a towel hanging on the hook behind the door. Help yourself to whatever soaps and shampoos you find.”
“Thanks.” Fearghas stood for a moment longer, staring at her back as she turned on the computer and keyed in a password. “It’s good to see you,” he whispered.
If she heard him, she didn’t respond.
Fearghas entered the bathroom and closed the door between them. He’d pictured their reunion differently than how it had turned out. But then, what did he expect? She’d left him in Athens with no explanation.
He couldn’t fixate on the past. His mission was to protect Catya from whoever was trying to kill her. After turning on the water to let it warm, he unlaced his boots and toed them off. He shrugged out of his leather jacket and unbuckled the shoulder holster beneath, hanging the holster and handgun on a hook. Peeling the damp clothes from his body took a minute. By the time he stood naked, the shower water had warmed.
Beneath the spray, he couldn’t keep his thoughts from revisiting the many times he had shared a shower with Catya at his place in Athens. They’d made love in that shower, their bodies slick with suds, her back pressed against the cool tiles as he slid into her.
Fearghas’s body tightened, and his cock swelled. Would she join him in the shower now if he called out her name? Not that two people could fit in that small space.
The hot water and his even hotter thoughts warmed the chill from his skin. He squirted shampoo into his hands, inhaling the scent that was so very Catya. As he rubbed it into his hair and over his body, his got harder. He couldn’t come out of the bathroom with a massive boner. Not when he wasn’t sure of his welcome with the beautiful Russian assassin.
Fearghas rinsed the soap from his body, then adjusted the water temperature to lukewarm, letting it chill him enough to take the edge off his desire. By the time he turned off the water, he was in control of his body.
After dressing in the sweatshirt and trousers, he gathered his damp clothing and boots and emerged from the bathroom.
Heat filled the room.
“I started a fire in the stove,” she said. “You can hang your clothes on the hooks on the wall.”
After laying his boots by the stove and hooking his clothes and holster against the wall, he turned to Catya.
She stared at the laptop, a frown creasing her brow.
“What are you working on?” he asked.
She sighed. “I need to find Atkins and get that disk from him.”
“Don’t you think he’s passed the disk to whoever sent him in to retrieve it by now?”
“Since people are still after me, they must think I have it. I can only guess they don’t know Atkins has the disk. Or they don’t know which of us got away with it.”
“Can you tell the world that you don’t have it, and Atkins does?” Fearghas suggested. “It might get the heat off you.”
“As long as they’re after me, Atkins might still have it. Before Gia Rosolino died, she was adamant that I get that disk back and hand it over to someone I trust.” Catya turned toward Fearghas. “She said people could die if the information on that disk got into the wrong hands.” She shook her head. “They killed a preschool teacher to get that disk.”
“You said someone else, not Atkins, killed her?”
Catya nodded. “Atkins waited outside the back door. The man I saw leaving the townhouse was bigger, with broader shoulders than Atkins.” Her brow wrinkled. “Strangely, Atkins texted me to see if I’d gotten out okay. When I told him to give me the disk, he said he couldn’t.” She looked up into his eyes. “Why would he check to see if I’d made it out if his goal was to get the disk? It was almost as if he didn’t want me killed.”
“Or he wanted to know if you were still a loose thread that needed to be pulled,” Fearghas offered.
“Maybe.” Catya’s eyes narrowed. “Or he could have grown a conscience.”
Fearghas doubted that. “The only one who can clarify his intentions is the man himself.”
“Right.” Catya turned back to the laptop.
“Any word on Atkins’s whereabouts?” Fearghas asked.
She shook her head. “Nothing yet.”
“Let me get my team involved,” Fearghas pulled the other chair over to where Catya sat and straddled it. “We have a guy with some connections who might be able to help. I can also tap into some old contacts from my SAS days. They might have some insight.”
She stared at the monitor, her lips pressed into a tight line. “Do it. We need Atkins and answers.”