Chapter 10 Chris
Chris
I kill the VPN and lean back, eyes fixed on the ceiling above the kitchen table.
There’s a crack that runs the length of it, clean and deliberate, as if someone cut the plaster on purpose.
The whole place feels temporary. Cheap tile.
Rust-stained sink. A twin mattress in the corner, low to the ground, no sheets, just a bare foam pad and a folded blanket tossed on top.
The call ended, but the silence stayed. The edges of the room feel sharper somehow. Every breath is too loud. My control cracked open, and there’s nothing cushioning the aftermath—just the cold, familiar stillness that follows when you lose your grip and can’t take it back.
I shouldn’t have looked at him that long. Shouldn’t have let it hit me that hard.
“You could’ve said goodbye.”
And then Mason came back on the line, cutting off the moment before I had to respond. Before I was forced to confess that staying meant admitting it meant something.
Maybe that was the blessing. Maybe that’s the part I regret.
My gut twisted when I slipped out of Nina’s place that night in Denver. Wyatt was still asleep. I had a red-eye to catch and a week of prep before Belgrade, and nothing productive comes from lingering.
But being with him again didn’t erase anything.
It just stacked, heat on heat, memory on memory, back to that first night in LA.
He touched me like he still meant it, steady and deliberate.
No rush. No demand. Just heat and weight and contact where he knew I needed it most. And I let him see me again, stayed long enough for him to fall asleep with his chest against my back—and then I left.
I didn’t say goodbye. Didn’t give him the chance to make it harder. I just disappeared. Maybe I did die in Mexico like everyone thought, and the man who came back is nothing but a ghost.
I snap myself out of the useless musings. Whatever I am, I still have a job to do.
Petrov’s waiting.
She thinks this is a routine handoff. Maybe a warning. Another whisper from the Americans she doesn’t trust. But the walls are closing in on her. I saw it in her last message—half-coded, buried in humor she doesn’t use unless she’s scared.
I pull on the coat and lock the door behind me. The cold outside cuts sharp as I step into it, curling at the base of my throat and crawling down beneath the collar. It clears the last of the static from my head. I breathe in, steady. Grounded. Then I start walking.
The rendezvous point isn’t a real station anymore.
Just a roofed slab of concrete near the tram yard that still has signage from a line that shut down five years ago.
No security cameras. No ticket window. Half the glass in the shelter is missing, and what’s left is streaked with hard water and graffiti tags.
Tatiana steps into view from behind the ruins of an old billboard, black hair whipping in the wind.
She’s dressed for mobility—heavy coat, flat boots, scarf tucked tight—and wearing dark glasses that conceal her eyes but not the sharpness in her stance.
Practical. Untraceable. Her expression doesn’t change when she sees me.
“You always this punctual?” she asks as she approaches.
I glance at the horizon, check the sightlines again. “Only when it matters.”
“Mm.” She folds her arms and doesn’t look at me when she says, “You look worse than the last time I saw you.”
“I’ve had better weeks.”
“You look tired.”
I don’t answer. She registers it, but her gaze lingers longer than usual. I can tell she’s trying to square the man standing in front of her with the one she saw beside Amador all those months ago. Back when my silence meant obedience.
After I got out, I needed a win. Something clean to hand the brass. She was the obvious choice. Valuable, connected, on the edge of slipping. I reached out, cautiously at first, threading the hook while she was still embedded. Turning her wasn’t guaranteed. But this? This is the close.
She tilts her head slightly, as if trying to make sense of it. I’m out. Free, technically. But I know it doesn’t show in my face. My shackles are self-inflicted now, and that unsettles her more than fatigue ever could.
She shifts her weight, scanning behind me. “So, is this just another breadcrumb, or are we pretending something bigger now?”
“It’s not a breadcrumb.”
Her jaw tightens at that. “That’s what I figured.”
She steps in closer, keeping her voice low. “There’s chatter. Not just about me. People are nervous. They think someone new is moving into the vacuum.”
I hold her gaze. “Bogdan Corluka’s assassination left fractures. Someone’s going to try and fill them.”
Something shifts in her expression. Just a flicker, gone as fast as it comes.
“You weren’t talking about Corluka,” I say quietly.
She doesn’t answer right away, just watches me. “You used to be under Amador, right? Or pretended to be,” she says finally.
“Deep cover. Four years as his lieutenant.” No point hedging—she saw me standing beside the man. “The assignment ended when the Agency pulled me out.”
“He leaves Mexico and doesn’t even look back. Just folds himself into Papá Flores’ empire like he never left. People noticed.”
Of course they did. The two of them back together after all this time? It rattled more than a few cages.
“And now there’s someone new,” she adds. “No history. Too clean. Too poised. They’re saying he’s Amador’s pick. The heir.”
“That’s useful noise. As long as they’re watching someone else, they’re not watching you.”
She tilts her head, a sliver of something sly in her tone. “He never mentioned it to you? Or were you two too busy fucking for conversation back then?”
I ignore the taunt and move on. Let the rumors breathe. If they want to believe Rafael’s been groomed to retake Mexico, let them. It keeps the heat focused somewhere useful.
She steps a little closer, eyes narrowing. “Everyone else who’s crossed Amador ended up flayed or buried. But here you are. Still in one piece. Walking free.”
I hold her gaze. “Maybe he didn’t think my tattoos were worth preserving.”
That gets the faintest twitch at the corner of her mouth. But she’s not smiling.
“Or maybe Flores pulled him out before he had the chance.”
That’s the version most people are starting to believe.
That Arturo came storming in when the federales moved on Amador’s Cancún compound.
At the end of the day there was no hiding that an attempt was made to take Amador down.
But lucky for us, the brutal way with which the two men took care of business during our rescue of Sadie Watts gave us the cover we needed to put the pair back in play.
So to any outside observers it looked like the two of them had reconciled in time to burn their enemies down and walk away untouched.
In a way, it’s not wrong. Amador’s property still belongs to them.
Through an elaborate series of forged legal documents, he managed to put Celeste’s name on all his material wealth.
The only thing he really gave up was the territory he used to control.
But his little corner of Mexico is a drop in the bucket compared to the access he gained reclaiming the throne beside Flores.
She shifts her weight. “You want me to believe I’ll be safe from them?”
“If you’re with us, you’re off their list.”
She doesn’t answer, doesn’t entirely believe me yet.
After a beat I say, “You think I got out because I was lucky?” I glance toward the yard, then back at her. “I was close to being flayed alive. Closer than anyone who’s still breathing. And I’m still here. That should tell you something.”
Her eyes stay locked on mine, measuring.
“Corluka’s fractured,” I continue. “And no one’s watching the exits. If you’re going to vanish, now’s the time.”
And for her, it is. The Corluka family ran the Serbian mafia—Bogdan and Jovan at the top—and now both are gone.
Their deaths left a vacuum no one’s managed to fill.
There are lieutenants circling the top spot, but no clear successor yet.
The whole structure’s wobbling, and that instability gives her the cleanest cover she’ll ever have.
A path out that doesn’t look like betrayal.
Just another loose thread in the chaos. One we’re hoping to pull to unravel the whole organization before it has a chance to recover.
She moves back to lean against the glass. The metal creaks behind her. She’s not going to make this easy.
“I met him three times,” she says. “Amador. When I was still a courier for Corluka. Before I moved up. The third time, he brought you. But he called you by a different name.”
“Cal.”
“Right. That’s what they called you. You didn’t say much.” She squints at me now. “I remember thinking you looked like someone who’d forgotten what your own voice sounded like.”
“Four years deep with no extraction window will do that.” I hold her gaze. “But I’m the one here offering you a way out. So let’s focus on that.”
“He used you. That much was obvious. And you let him.”
“He thought he was using me. There’s a difference.” I pause. “Same way Corluka thought he was using you.”
She doesn’t react, but I catch a flicker of recognition.
I go on, quieter now. “You kept pretending you were doing favors. Running errands. But I watched the way you stood when his people gave you orders. I watched how fast you learned which ones you were allowed to ignore. You played dumb until you didn’t need to anymore.”
Tatiana straightens, stepping forward again. “And you think that makes us the same?”
“No. I think it means you know exactly what I’m asking you to do.”
She studies me for a moment, then glances away.
“I’ve been in deeper than this,” she mutters.
“You’ve also lasted longer than anyone else who stood that close to the head of the snake. That buys you one shot. This is it.”
There’s another beat of silence. Wind cuts through the broken shelter, catches the ends of her scarf, her dark hair striping across her face. She lets it pass before speaking again.
“I was told my new handler would meet me in LA.”
“They’ll be briefed.”
“I asked who it was. They wouldn’t say.”
I hesitate, then answer truthfully. “He’s a junior agent out of Langley. CIA wants him in place before the end of the week.”
She laughs. Dry. “So they want to assign me some desk-fed rookie who’s never seen a kill house?”
“Not my call.”
“I’ll eat him alive.”
“I know.”
She eyes me again, harder this time. “Then why are you here and not him?”
It’s a fair question, but she already knows the answer. Instead I answer the question she won’t ask.
“I’m going to tell them after the fact that I’m taking you.”
Her eyes narrow. “That isn’t what they want, is it?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“I’m not a fan of lies.”
“This isn’t a lie.”
“You just said—”
“I said I’m not your handler. Yet.”
Her mouth presses into a thin line. For a moment I think she’s going to walk away.
Then, slowly, she exhales and says, “You’ll catch heat for this.”
I nod.
“And you don’t care.”
“I care about getting you in place before the new head of the snake figures out where the eyes went.”
She doesn’t respond, but her posture shifts—shoulders easing by a fraction, like she’s stopped bracing for the next blow.
It’s subtle, but it’s something.
She studies me a moment longer, eyes dark with calculation, then finally says, “All right. Let’s get on with it.”
I walk her to the car in silence. There’s nothing left to say. The deal is done. The risk accepted.
She slides into the backseat without hesitation. I follow.
The driver’s already got clearance for the airstrip. Tatiana keeps her eyes forward for most of the ride, one leg crossed over the other, fingers still gloved. She doesn’t ask what cover she’ll be using or where she’ll be housed. I don’t ask about the names she hasn’t given me yet. All in due time.
Halfway to the plane, she finally speaks.
“You know, if I find out you’re playing a longer game, I’ll bury you myself.”
“I’d expect nothing less.”
“Good.”
She turns back to the window.
She thinks she’s warned me off. That she’s named the stakes. But she hasn’t asked the real question: why I’m doing this.
She won’t. It’s not her problem.
Getting to LA was the goal. A clean landing, quiet clearance, no questions. I’m about to pull it off. I outmaneuvered Wyatt without ever having to say a word. I’m not proud of that, but I’m not sorry either.