Chapter 4 #4
A woman in fox fur brushed past him, trailing expensive perfume. The scent mixed with the diesel fumes, and his stomach clenched. Hard.
Chanel No. 5.
Timea’s favorite. The one he’d bought her for their first anniversary. Back when he thought love could save them both.
Move.
Marble steps descended into Moscow’s metro belly.
Warm, stale air wrapped around him as he joined the press of bodies.
The crowd carried him through the turnstile on autopilot.
Soviet grandeur stretched before him—bronze statues of soldiers and workers standing eternal guard between marble archways.
Their stern faces followed his progress.
They know.
No. That was paranoia talking. He was just out of the game.
His burner phone vibrated against his ribs. He pulled it out.
Third car. Red scarf.
His pulse kicked up. The package in his duffel was a brick, heavier with each step. He didn’t know what was inside—Damien had been crystal clear about that. Don’t ask, don’t look, just deliver. Simple courier work for simple money.
And because they gave him no other choice.
The platform hummed with morning commuters bundled in wool and fur. Their breaths created small clouds in the underground chill. A busker played the violin near the far wall—haunting notes echoing off century-old tiles. Beautiful. Melancholy.
The kind of music Timea would have stopped to appreciate. She’d have dropped rubles into his case with that smile that lit up everything around her.
Stop.
Alan checked his watch. 7:42 a.m.
Right on schedule.
The train roared into the station, brakes squealing against steel rails. The sound cut through him, sharp and metallic.
Doors opened with a hydraulic hiss.
A familiar figure stepped aboard.
No.
York Newgate stood ten feet away, head down, as if he was just a guy on his way to work. He wore an overcoat, a wool hat over his blond hair, and stood with his hands in his pockets, balancing in the car as it moved. Nothing to see here.
The last time they’d stood this close was at the funeral of York’s wife and child.
The last place Alan thought he’d see his old cohort was a subway in Moscow. Especially after what they’d both lost. But then again, grief could confuse a man, keep him spinning. No doubt York had tunneled into himself, emerged focused on the other thing he could do. The only thing he could be.
A spy.
York lifted his head, glancing around the car casually, not really looking for anyone.
Alan turned away, but not before he felt York’s gaze land on him.
He bit back a word. And then, why not? York didn’t know why he was here. He met York’s gaze across the crowded train car.
Surprise. Followed immediately by something that might have been relief. And only then did Alan realize—of course. York thought he was dead. And then the slight tightening around those blue eyes—that was concern.
Real concern.
Not now.
The doors opened at the next station with another mechanical hiss.
He stepped out, quick walked and got back on again. The crowd thinned slightly between stops, allowing him to move through the train more easily. There—a woman in a red wool scarf stood reading a paperback, dark hair obscuring her face. Damien’s contact.
Alan’s heart hammered against his ribs as he took position near her. Close enough to smell her subtle perfume.
“холодно сегодня.” The words came out steadier than he felt. It’s cold today.
She didn’t look up from her book. “весна никогда не приходит.” Spring will never arrive.
The coded exchange was complete. Simple as breathing. His fingers brushed rough canvas as he set the duffel down between them. Positioned it so she could easily claim it. The train lurched forward.
Two stops later, she disappeared with the bag into the crowd exiting at Teatralnaya. Gone. Absorbed into the morning rush as if she’d never existed.
Alan exhaled slowly.
Done.
Whatever moral compromises he’d just made, they were made. No going back now.
Maybe now they’d let him go.
Not that he had anywhere to be, really.
And that’s when he spotted him again. Aw, the man was a bulldog, shouldering his way past passengers.
York, stay out of this.
And, he should probably run.
But there was nowhere to go. The train was accelerating between stations. Alan’s pulse roared in his ears, drowning out the rhythmic clack of wheels on rails.
“Alan.” York’s voice carried over the ambient noise.
An announcement, and he automatically translated. Lubyanka. Next stop Lubyanka.
Alan moved behind one of the passengers. The platform approached through the windows, distinctive blue-and-white tiles.
The doors opened. Alan glanced at York, and it was just instinct to give York a slight nod—six years of shared history condensed into that single gesture. Partnership. Friendship.
A hope that York had somehow risen above the terrible grip of his tragedies. Maybe figured out how to survive. Start over.
Then Alan stepped off into the press of morning commuters.
Behind him, York called out as he got off the metro too.
Keep walking.
Alan hustled toward the exit. The mass of people pushed him up the escalator—bodies pressed close in the Moscow rush. Their conversations created a wall of sound around him.
The escalator carried him up into pale morning light filtering through the station’s glass ceiling.
Somewhere below his feet, trains ran their routes through underground tunnels. Carrying passengers to work, to school . . .
Children.
The realization hit him at the top.
A package. Delivered to a woman in a red scarf. During the morning commute, when hundreds of innocent people would be—
No.
What had he done? He turned, as if he could run back into the metro, track down the woman—
The ground shook, the rumble starting deep underground—then a blast of dust and stone and heat routed up, cavitating the entire metro. People screamed, running past him, casting around him.
He was a stone in the flow of fleeing humanity.
No, oh no. He whirled, and slipped into the flow of the running crowd while more people fled out of the tragedy below.
He emerged into Theater Square and slowed, hands in his pockets, head down. Snow drifted from the gray sky, landing on his jacket. The cold bit at exposed skin, but he barely noticed.
He felt a buzz. His hands shook as he pulled out the burner phone.
Welcome to the family.
Alan stared at the screen until the words blurred. Family. The Bratva called their members family. He’d just been initiated into the Russian mob by delivering . . .
Get out of Moscow.
Because whatever was about to happen, York had seen him. And if the man had survived, at the very least, he’d report Alan to the CIA. And then the hunt would begin. The CIA would want answers about why one of their former operatives had been spotted in Moscow, near FSB headquarters.
They’d assume he’d gone rogue. Turned traitor. Sold out for Russian money.
They wouldn’t be entirely wrong.
The phone turned to a live coal in his pocket, that welcome message burning through fabric like a brand.
Welcome to the family.
Alan pulled his coat tighter and disappeared into the crowd. He would become a ghost.
Maybe, in fact, he already was.